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CULTURE / Stage
May 15, 1999

Theatre Olympics: Let the performances begin!

High on a mountain top covered with tea bushes in Shizuoka Prefecture, Kim Itoh is dancing his solo piece "Nerve Maze Garden 2" in one of the most aesthetically pleasing venues in Japan. Designed by architect Arata Isozaki as part of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Park, Daendo Hall is a small oval theater...
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 1999

Perfect fit of craft and design

Sashimono is a traditional Japanese joining technique for wooden cabinetmaking. It also refers to the furniture made with the technique, such as desks, wardrobes, dressers and chests.
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 1999

The problem of India's 'untouchables'

It is a great paradox that India, one of the world's oldest democracies, is still unable to eliminate a deep-rooted social problem: the widespread violence and discrimination against the Dalits, a name that means literally "broken" peo ple. The Dalits, or "untouchables," are a segment of Indian society,...
CULTURE / Music
May 15, 1999

Korean rocker carries on the family business

Go to Korea and you feel like everyone's got a chip on their shoulder. It's like everyone wants to pick a fight with you. On this occasion, someone did.
ENVIRONMENT
May 15, 1999

Desert dome fosters research into arid climes, desertification

TOTTORI -- A huge glass dome structure near Japan's largest sand dune houses a research institution to combat desertification -- a serious threat to the global environment. Tottori University's Arid Land Research Center is also developing ways to promote sustainable agriculture in arid areas.
EDITORIALS
May 14, 1999

Mr. Rubin moves on

Mr. Robert Rubin, the U.S. secretary of the Treasury, will step down from his post this summer. The move was expected. Mr. Rubin had talked to confidants about his desire to return to Wall Street. Still, the announcement surprised markets. The dollar, bond prices and the Dow Jones Industrial Average...
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

South Korean divers arrested over visa violations

NAGOYA -- Immigration authorities arrested 11 South Korean women Friday for allegedly violating the Immigration Control and Refugee-Recognition Law by overstaying their visas and working as divers for abalone and other fish in Kii-Nagashima, Mie Prefecture.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Miyazawa wants economic bills in June

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa on Friday called for drawing up a comprehensive package of measures by mid-June to strengthen industrial competitiveness and tackle growing unemployment.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Symposium eyes stricter laws to curb animal abuse

More than 300 people gathered Thursday at a Tokyo symposium calling for a legal revision to better protect animal rights.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

First heart recipient under '97 law goes home

OSAKA -- The patient who received a heart from a brain-dead donor in February left Osaka University Hospital Friday, 75 days after the operation -- the first such transplant under the Organ Transplant Law of 1997.
EDITORIALS
May 14, 1999

Playing the Jerusalem card

As Israel heads toward national elections next week, Prime Minis ter Benjamin Netanyahu trails Labor party leader Ehud Barak in the opinion polls. Mr. Netanyahu's campaign has grown increasingly disorganized. He has pleaded with former Likud Party loyalists to come back, shifted themes in mid-course...
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Airport to build Narita runway around opponents

The Transport Ministry and the New Tokyo International Airport Authority will soon announce a draft plan to build a 2,000-meter runway at Narita Airport by skirting land owned by runway opponents, sources close to the Transport Ministry said Friday.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Dunes' dome fosters research into arid climes

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

The Asahara Trial: Endo 'shocked' that sarin killed people

Former senior Aum Shinrikyo member Seiichi Endo claimed Friday that he did not know sarin could kill people when he and several other cultists released the nerve gas in 1994 in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, killing seven locals.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

APEC to address crisis prevention

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Lower House panel approves child-sex bill

The Lower House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved during its Friday session a bill banning the act of paying a minor 18 years of age or younger for sex, bringing the legislation one step closer to enactment.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Honda posts record sales, profits for fiscal '98

Thanks to growing sales in the North American market, Honda Motor Co. set new record highs both in consolidated sales and profits in fiscal 1998, despite dwindling sales at home, Honda officials said Friday.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Tokyo Sowa capital falls short of minimum

Tokyo Sowa Bank announced Friday that its capital-to-asset ratio had fallen to 2.4 percent -- well below the regulatory threshold of 4 percent -- at the end of March.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
May 14, 1999

U.F.O. travels the globe in style

With their natty suits and sleek musical grooves that fuse jazzy samples with dance beats, U.F.O. has epitomized a certain perception of Tokyo as fashionable and cosmopolitan, ever since "I Love My Baby (My Baby Loves Jazz)" catapulted across the world's dance floors in 1991.
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 1999

Australian pop-rock trio Even battles 'tyranny of distance'

...
EDITORIALS
May 13, 1999

President Kim takes up the challenge

Among Asia's crisis-hit economies struggling for recovery and reform, South Korea may well claim it leads on both counts. Interest rates, the currency and equity prices have markedly improved from the depths of a year and half ago. A return of market confidence is also in evidence as foreign capital...
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

Kobe volunteers launch activity fund

KOBE -- A fund to support volunteer activities in and around this port city was set up Thursday by a group of volunteers helping to reconstruct the lives of survivors of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

The Asahara Trial: Hearings enter fourth year

A key figure in the Aum Shinrikyo saga on Thursday insisted on the witness stand that she was never a cult follower but only joined Aum's religious activities because she believed doing so would enable her to contact her late husband.
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

Doctors remove donor's skin

The family of a brain-dead man who donated his heart and kidneys earlier this week also allowed doctors to remove his skin for future surgical needs, officials at the Tokyo Skin Bank Network said Thursday.
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

Adecco counting on pickup in temp labor trend

Leading employment agency Adecco SA is pinning high hopes on the fast growth of Japan's hitherto undercultivated temporary workforce, Adecco Chief Executive Officer John P. Bowmer said Thursday.
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

Bill could enlarge temp workforce, magnify woes

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

Okuda takes Nikkeiren post, pledges better employment

Toyota Motor Corp. President Hiroshi Okuda assumed the post of chairman of the Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren) on Thursday amid expectations he will reinvigorate the nationwide employers' group.
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

Rubin's departure won't affect policy, relations: Miyazawa

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Thursday he does not think the resignation of U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin will change U.S. economic policy or U.S.-Japan relations.
JAPAN
May 13, 1999

U.S. to urge elimination of farm tariffs at WTO

In the new round of global trade negotiations starting in 2000 under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, the United States will call for total elimination of agricultural tariffs and subsidies on farm products and exports, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said Thursday.
LIFE / Travel
May 13, 1999

Nishi-Ogikubo -- waist-high in green

Tokyoites complain about Tokyo: its chaotic haphazardness, its sprawling largeness, its adamant refusal to be beautiful. Like the room of a teenage boy, it keeps accumulating things, things, things. Then everything is kicked under the bed and the boy goes out for a cheeseburger. Tokyoites can only shrug...

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