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EDITORIALS
Nov 26, 1999

The computer giant stumbles

In the era of globalization, the management mantra seems to be "bigger is better." From automakers to securities traders, every business aspires to the size and weight that would allow it to influence -- if not dictate -- developments in its particular industry. In the fast-moving world of high-technology,...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Airline heads vow to boost, develop Asia-Pacific region

Top officials of international airlines in the Asia-Pacific region adopted a package of resolutions Friday to develop the area's civil aviation industry and provide better services to passengers.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Meiji Life, Toyo Trust near four-way alliance

Toyo Trust & Banking Co. and Meiji Life Insurance Co. are nearing a decision to join a planned alliance between Nippon Life Insurance Co. and Mitsubishi Trust & Banking Corp. in the so-called "master trust" business, informed sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

It's WTO vs. budget for Cabinet trio

Staff writer
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Regional banks launch systems integration study

Yamagata Bank announced Friday it has reached an agreement with five other regional banks to launch a study on the possible integration of their computer systems.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 1999

Reflecting prosperity, deflecting evil

Every year in the middle of December, thousands of people flock to Tokyo's Asakusa Sensoji Temple for the annual hagoita market to buy oshie hagoita, a decorative battledore that serves as both a New Year's decoration and a good-luck charm.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Pension bills rammed through opposition's boycott

The ruling coalition rammed controversial pension reform bills through a Lower House welfare committee on Friday amid a boycott by opposition parties.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Tokyo to urge scolding as solution to societal ills

Staff writer
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Electronics firms see mixed earnings

The varying progress of restructuring efforts contributed to mixed performances of the country's major chip and computer manufacturers in the first half of fiscal 1999, according to earnings reports released by Thursday.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 26, 1999

Proyecto Uno -- viva Zapata!

Everybody knows that foreign artists can only have a hit in the States as long as they sing in English. Conversely, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are credited with spearheading a "Latin boom" not only in America, but all over the world, by singing poppish variations of Afro-Cuban styles...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Retailers rev up for holiday shoppers

Staff writers
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Meiji Life policy sales take 20% dive

Meiji Life Insurance Co. logged a 20.2 percent year-on-year decline in sales of new personal insurance and annuity policies during the April-September period, the firm announced Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Police arrest ex-Nichiei employee

Tokyo police Friday arrested a former employee of Nichiei Co., the leading nonbank lender of commercial loans, on suspicion of extortion and violating the Moneylending Business Law.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 26, 1999

Salon Music goes back to basics, but still way ahead of the curve

One of the great curiosities of the Japanese music scene is the tendency to eat up the latest indie rock innovations from the U.K. or U.S., leaving home-grown talent unknown and uncelebrated.
EDITORIALS
Nov 25, 1999

Racing toward the unwired world

I n 1990, there were 11 million mobile phones in the entire world. Today, there are 50 million in Japan alone. Nearly 400 million people around the globe carry the various makes and models of wireless phones; those ranks swell by about 1 million more every week. Experts predict that within five years,...
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 1999

'The primary tools of violence'

During the Cold War, arms-control efforts focused on weapons of mass destruction. Diplomats struggled to find ways to limit biological, chemical and nuclear arsenals. They met with varying degrees of success, and they are laboring still to protect humanity from their destructive power. In recent years,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 1999

Japan's Middle East role

In January 1996, I was dispatched by the Japanese government to observe the election of the Palestine Council and the president of the Palestinian Authority. Because Palestine was still under Israeli occupation, it was not a sovereign state: Sending international observers to such a region was unprecedented....
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Nov 24, 1999

Web's blog, stardate 1999

The Internet could be blamed for empowering armies of blowhards, chatterboxes and gas bags. While you probably have no shortage of these around you in the real world, you are just as likely to bump into them online, boasting, preaching, whining, ranting, blathering on about whatever has crossed their...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 24, 1999

Ghostly tanka with a steely brightness

HEAVENLY MAIDEN: Tanka, by Akiko Baba, translated by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold. AHA Books, 1999; 115 pp., $10. More expressive than the briefer haiku, tanka can more easily incorporate the flow of events and thoughts that make up ordinary life:
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Nov 24, 1999

A mountainous garden undertaking for all

Rikugien in Tokyo is the last in this series on gardens built in old Edo (modern Tokyo) by daimyo under the Tokugawa military government (bakufu) between 1603 and 1868.
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Nov 24, 1999

When the going gets tough, the tough drink coffee

When I was a child, my mother didn't hesitate to drag me along on her shopping sprees, and if she managed to find some bargains, she would celebrate (and reward my good behavior) by treating me to something sweet at the department store coffee shop.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 24, 1999

Lured to Katsuragawa's fishing hot spot

The morning sky looked threatening and my previous day's fishing charter had been rained out, but I still had an overwhelming urge to go out and wet a line.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Nov 24, 1999

The ultimate solution

This notice was posted recently on my neighborhood bulletin board -- To people who feed stray cats: Please also take care of spaying or neutering them. While strays have become a problem recognized by the government, little has been done to eliminate it by the most obvious way: providing an inexpensive...
LIFE / Travel
Nov 24, 1999

Sights above and below watermark

Diving enthusiasts have no doubt heard of Belize, a sliver of land bordered by Mexico in the north and Guatemala to the west, for its spectacular barrier reef. The Caribbean reefs, located on the eastern side of the island, offers endless walls and undulating coral ridges. It stretches a few hundred...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 24, 1999

British bulldogs in a China shop

BRITAIN IN CHINA: Community, Culture and Colonialism 1900-1949, by Robert Bickers. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999; 276 pp., 45 pounds (hardcover), 15.99 pounds (paper). When Lord Macartney opened his British Embassy in China in 1792, he was told to ask for bit of land or,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 24, 1999

Gilded lilies of the Tokugawas

EDO: ART IN JAPAN 1615-1868. Edited by Robert Singer, foreword by Earl A. Powell III. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, with assistance from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Japan Foundation. 480 pp., 281 color plates. Unpriced. THE EYES...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 1999

New Luddites at the gates

LONDON -- Ned Ludd was the leader of a mob, circa 1815, who went around smashing up new textile machinery in factories. Ludd calculated, correctly, that traditional jobs would be lost and familiar ways of life destroyed for thousands, even millions of British workers if the machines prevailed.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 1999

Terror for the 21st century

A few weeks ago, New York was hit by an outbreak of the West Nile virus. Five people died and another 50 were sickened before authorities were able to respond. West Nile fever is a rare, encephalitic virus that is common in Africa and Asia, but had never before been diagnosed in the Western Hemisphere....
JAPAN
Nov 23, 1999

ASDF aid flights climb to legalistic threshold

Staff writer
JAPAN
Nov 23, 1999

Foreign carmakers wedge feet in door at Toyohashi

Staff writer

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