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EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 2000

Criminals in the least likely places

Like the media abroad, Japan's press and television are criticized for sensationalized crime reporting - with one important difference. Critics say they are too slow and too timid in reporting criminal behavior by the nation's police forces. At a time when random crimes of violence are occurring with...
COMMUNITY
Feb 20, 2000

Off to Iraq with leads for pencils

Having spent time with student nurse Erika Ito, I would very much like to meet her mother. Firstly I would shake her hand and say: "Congratulations, job well done! You have one terrific daughter." Then I'd patent the secret of her success, and make us all as fortunate.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2000

Great compositions ennoble performers, audience alike

Virtually all of Japan's symphony orchestras perform Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth and last symphony at the end of the year, as the general populace makes its annual affirmation of the noble qualities declaimed in the lyrics of the choral finale, Friedlich von Schiller's "An die Freude (Ode to Joy)."...
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2000

Infrastructure key to growth

As the Asian economies rebound from their 1997-1998 lows, we hear much less about the alleged collapse of something called "Asian values" and its crony capitalism. Which is good, since there never was such a thing as "Asian values" in the first place.
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2000

Shame's societal role remains intact

In September 1998, Jeremy Strohmeyer admitted murdering 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Nevada casino and was sentenced to life in prison. He was back in court in mid-February, explaining that he couldn't remember committing the crime and wanting to recant his plea.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2000

All of life in Daumier's cartoons

A picture is worth a thousand words, and no one knows that better than Honore Daumier. His life story reads like a strand in a novel by Victor Hugo. The poor son of a failed poet and glazier, young Daumier chanced his luck as an artist in Paris in the 1830s. He studied the new technique of lithography,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 20, 2000

Roberto E. Wirth

Above the Spanish Steps, commanding an incomparable panorama of eternal Rome, stands the opulent Hotel Hassler. The Wirth family, coproprietors of the Hassler since 1916, became sole proprietors in 1964, when the hotel approached 80 years of age and fame. Roberto E. Wirth, today's president and general...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 20, 2000

Through 'Different Gates' of expression

For nearly a decade, Tom Dow has coordinated and helped organize the Tokyo Writers Workshop in Takadanobaba every third Sunday 1-5 p.m. TWW was founded as the Tokyo English Literary Society by Thomas Ainaly in 1977 and the publication that contained many of the members' work became Printed Matter.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 20, 2000

It depends

A gentleman tells us that he is puzzled by the term suspended sentence, often seen in newspapers. He encloses a copy of a headline: "Accountant gets 28 months suspended sentence for poisoning." The accused had put poison in the water for making tea. Nine of his coworkers became ill, and while no one...
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2000

Lubricating the global economy

This week, the price of oil topped $30 a barrel for the first time in nearly a decade. Crude prices have been climbing for a year, and there is concern that they may rise still further. That has triggered worries about inflation, which could hurt the global economy. While concern is justified, fear is...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2000

Modern Japanese painting's other capital

The figure of Kakuzo Okakura, better known in Japan by his pen name Tenshin, looms large over modern nihonga (Japanese-style painting). Not a painter of distinction himself, his importance was as a critic, curator and organizer. As the founder of what is now Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and...
COMMUNITY
Feb 19, 2000

Fukuoka heats up with Iberoamerican festival

OSAKA -- Fukuoka is the place to be this weekend for those who love all things Latin, as Ianimate 2000, a celebration of Latin American dance, music and art, takes place on Saturday.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 19, 2000

Retracing Takemitsu's 'Steps'

In 1967 a performance occurred in New York City which changed hogaku forever. Under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra commemorated its 125th anniversary by commissioning pieces from composers around the world.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2000

China probes U.S.' other Asian alliances

China's deepening alignment with Russia, and the sales of advanced weapons that accompany it, risk fueling China's ambition of strategic dominance in East Asia. After the "recovery" of Taiwan, or so the scenario goes, China will concentrate on making the South China Sea a Chinese lake. In its path, however,...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2000

A tradition that's all pinned down

To decorate one's hair with morning glories, complete with a tiny snail on one leaf, may not be everyone's idea of chic. However, if they are fashioned by Tsuyoshi Ishida out of sheer silk, it is another matter.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2000

The outsiders: uniformly nonconformist

There is a giant mass of a figure towering in the center of the room, all wrapped up in a surreal green and white outfit from the top of the head to the bottom of the stiletto heels, leaving only a heavily larded face to shine out in a playfully menacing manner. There is a half-naked, gender-bending...
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2000

Good grief for a good man

In the end, Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz's departure was an eerie case of life seeming to imitate art. Schulz died last Saturday on the eve of the final appearance of his Sunday strip. (Like the last original daily strip, which ran in newspapers in January, it featured a farewell message from Schulz,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2000

Free trade with U.S. comes at a cost to India

NEW DELHI -- A few weeks ago, India and the United States agreed to remove quantitative restrictions on imports between the two countries. New Delhi will do away with curbs on 714 items this April and on another 715 a year later.
COMMUNITY
Feb 18, 2000

Polishing the bitter tears into sweet

Hardly a day passes without some sadness or bitterness touching our lives. Sometimes the waves of grief and pain are relentless.
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2000

Yen's weaker trend could last till March

Foreign investors' stepped-up purchases of Japanese equities -- the main catalyst for the yen's rise last year -- are no longer playing a major role in daily market activity.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Hearings on 2000 budget bumped up

The Lower House Budget Committee voted Friday to hold hearings on the record 84.98 trillion yen state budget for fiscal 2000 on Thursday, paving the way for its passage through the lower chamber by the end of the month. Despite the opposition's call for more deliberation, the Budget Committee approved...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Japan boosts Chernobyl safety aid

Japan will contribute an additional $22.5 million in aid to an international project aimed at ensuring the safety of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, government sources said Friday.
COMMUNITY
Feb 18, 2000

Angels and jazz brighten up Tokyo's 'combat zone'

"Once upon a time, there was a star called the 'Angel Star.' Far away from earth, it was a place where angels lived in peace and could often be found playing with fish by the seaside. One day, the Prince of the Angel Star returned from a long journey. He had traveled to a lovely star named 'Chikyu' [Earth]...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Saudi prince puts pressure on Tokyo to build railway

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Abdul Aziz has sent a letter to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi to press the Japanese government to build the contentious mining railway in the desert kingdom in exchange for renewal of the oil-drilling rights of Tokyo-based Arabian Oil Co., trade chief Takashi Fukaya said Friday. In...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Ministry to finance cram school envoys

Pupils don't have to study English at elementary school yet. But over the next year, the Education Ministry plans to spend 180 million yen to help children study the language outside of school on the weekend. Using the requested budget for the next school year starting in April, the ministry plans to...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 18, 2000

The journey begins in Calexico

Concept albums are notoriously fiendish undertakings. Most often they are an embarrassment, the sort of thing that artists blush about and PR reps write off as youthful indulgence.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Early start on spoken English seen as 'advantage'

Last of two partsStaff writer Many public elementary schools are expected to start teaching English in April when the trial period begins for "comprehensive studies," a new curriculum under the Education Ministry's revised teaching guidelines, that take effect in 2002. From the third grade, schools will...
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2000

Aftermath of Diet debacle

The Diet returned to normal last week, after the opposition forces ended their boycott of the ordinary session over the tripartite ruling bloc's handling of a controversial bill for reducing the number of Diet seats.
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2000

Russian treaty talks need a boost

The groundwork for continuing peace treaty negotiations between Japan and Russia was laid during last week's visit here by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Mr. Ivanov renewed Moscow's commitment to signing a long-pending peace pact in talks with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Foreign Minister Yohei...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2000

Japan experts' departure leaves U.S. in lurch

WASHINGTON -- Two Japan experts in the U.S. administration will leave their office, raising concern about the impact on efforts to resolve a host of bilateral issues. Kurt Campbell will quit as deputy assistant secretary of defense and join the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think...

Longform

Dul Saroth (left) and Soeum Samrach, deminers with the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, practice using the Advanced Landmine Imaging System in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province in August.
The Japanese tech that could one day make Southeast Asia landmine-free