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JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Nobel chemist to get Order of Culture

Nobel laureate Hideki Shirakawa will be among the six people to receive this year's Order of Culture from the Emperor at the Imperial Palace on Culture Day on Nov. 3, government officials said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Grade crossings taking time, taking lives

The mercury was already testing its upper limit when 83-year-old Kane Moritani left her Yokohama home one morning last summer to visit the neighborhood dentist.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

State hospitals in spotlight over lawsuits

Patients and next of kin filed 199 suits against state-owned hospitals between January 1995 and last August, according to a recent government reply to a parliamentary questionnaire filed by House of Representatives member Nobuto Hosaka.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Net-based group helps NPOs rake in donations

LOS ANGELES -- A San Francisco-based foundation is raking in donations over the Internet for nonprofit organizations -- and paving the future path for Japanese NPOs in the process.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Kondo set to resign over solar blunder

OSAKA -- Sanyo Electric Co. President Sadao Kondo expressed his intention to resign Tuesday in an effort to take responsibility for the sale of defective solar cell systems by a subsidiary.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

$1 million in electoral aid ready for Kosovo

Japan decided Tuesday to provide over $1 million in emergency aid to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to help it carry out free and fair elections in Kosovo this weekend, the Foreign Ministry said.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

FTC investigates NTT East access tactics

The Fair Trade Commission is investigating a regional telephone unit of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. for allegedly blocking other companies from starting digital Internet services, a violation of the Antimonopoly Law, commission sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

G8 to tackle disposal of Russian plutonium

The Group of Eight countries will begin full-scale talks on an international financing scheme for Russia's disposal of weapons-grade plutonium as part of an effort to curb the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, government sources said Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 25, 2000

Entangled by the truth

Central bankers are Delphic figures. They are supposed to be all-knowing, serious and solid, exuding confidence and authority. At the same time, however, they must maintain an air of unpredictability to keep markets from anticipating their moves. That is why last week's comments by Mr. Wim Duisenberg,...
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Kyodo begins work on new offices

Kyodo News, Japan's leading news agency, held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday to commemorate the start of construction of its new 34-story headquarters in the Shiodome district of Tokyo's Minato Ward.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Oct 25, 2000

Chrysanthemum by any other name

The chrysanthemum (kiku) is the seal of the Imperial family, and along with the cherry blossom (sakura) is symbolically used as the national flower by the Japanese people. Chrysanthemums have been cultivated in Japan since the Heian Period (794-1185). In the olden days autumn used to be called the "chrysanthemum...
LIFE / Travel
Oct 25, 2000

Bubbling with energy

If you can accept its gimmickry and brazen commercialism, the glitzy, neon-lit hot spring resort of Beppu, a melange of pachinko parlors, love hotels, sleazy bars, night clubs and hot baths visited by over 12 million tourists a year, constitutes an amazing thermal and entertainment roller-coaster.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Waseda still looking for answers

Officials at Waseda University's Political Science and Economics Department said Tuesday that 189 completed answer sheets for a semester examination are missing.
COMMENTARY
Oct 25, 2000

When leaders fail to lead

LONDON -- Countries and peoples that make peace after years or even generations of enmity require very strong leaders. Just as it needed a Charles de Gaulle to tell the French to stop fighting the Algerians, a Konrad Adenauer to tell the Germans to love the French, a Harry Truman or a Douglas MacArthur...
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

It's a matter of life and death

Staff writer Brain death: It's a phrase we hear every day. In Japan, the public has been exposed to it to the point of numbness through nationwide campaigns for more organ donors. "Brain death is human death, and organ donation saves lives," we are exhorted. In the United States, the world's leading...
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Obituary: Ramiro Piriz Ballon

Uruguayan Ambassador to Japan Ramiro Piriz Ballon died of cirrhosis Friday at a Tokyo hospital, embassy officials said Tuesday. He was 65.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 25, 2000

Deep in the ancient forests of the U.S. northwest

A soft light glows from the emerald-green moss covering every tree trunk, rock and piece of ground. The glow feels brighter than the light filtering down through the massive Douglas fir and Sitka spruce trees towering overhead, whose crowns prick the silver clouds that obscure the sun.
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Oct 25, 2000

A Thrush perches between two worlds

One foot in the past, one foot in the present.
COMMENTARY
Oct 25, 2000

Western policies ignore Serbia's history

Japan can be criticized for its simplistic, one-track mind at times. But over problems like Yugoslavia, the one-tracked Western mind, hardened by ideology and moralistic bias, can do far more harm.
LIFE / Digital
Oct 25, 2000

Xpect the unxpected

SEATTLE -- What does Microsoft know about fun? The engineers who designed Xbox, the new 128-bit video game console that Microsoft plans to release sometime next year, know too much for their own good.
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2000

The reality gap still looms

The latest economic stimulus package, unveiled last Thursday, reinforces the impression that deficit spending in the name of economic recovery has become an annual routine. In fact, almost every year since the economic bubble burst a decade ago, the government has pumped trillions of yen into the system,...
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2000

Honohana cultists admit to fraud

Four former members of the Honohana Sanpogyo foot-reading cult on Monday pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring with cult founder Hogen Fukunaga to swindle 15 people out of 750 million yen.
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2000

Tokyo lauds Albright trip to Pyongyang

Japan hopes that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to North Korea that began Monday will have a good effect on Tokyo's talks on normalizing ties with Pyongyang, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa said.

Longform

Capsule hotels were created as a way to deal with the amount of overwork employees tend to do in Japan. Can't commute home? Then spend the night in an tiny, affordable sleeping space.
Japan wakes up to the market for a proper sleep