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JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

Domestic violence victims demand new law

Ninety-six percent of female victims of life-threatening domestic violence and their supporters say a law to prevent such acts should be drawn up, a survey by a women's group showed Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2000

So, uh, what century did you say this is?

Whisper it softly but these are bad times we live in, literally.
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2000

Learn a new language (and how!) in two weeks

Setsuko Iki may have retired in 1998 as a professor at Sanno Junior College in Tokyo, but she has not stopped working. As the leading Japanese authority on Suggestopaedia-Desuggestopaedia, systems of intensive language teaching initiated by Dr. Georgi Lozonov in Bulgaria in the 1960s and then developed...
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

Nissin targeted in 5 million yen extortion bid

OSAKA — Nissin Food Products Co., a leading food maker based in Osaka, received an extortion letter Wednesday containing a threat to put needles in its products unless the company pays 5 million yen, police sources said Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2000

Commemoration of a musical pilgrimage

"A Shakuhachi Odyssey -- Enchanted by Timbres of Heaven" is a collection of autobiographical essays, cultural musings, musical stories and more. It beat out over 200 competitors to receive last year's Rennyo Sho, a nonfiction literature prize sponsored by the Honganji Temple Foundation and supported...
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

State banquet for G8 leaders canceled

The government announced Saturday that it has decided to cancel a state banquet that was to be hosted by the Emperor in Tokyo on July 20 for leaders of the Group of Eight nations, following the death Friday of the Empress Dowager, widow of the Emperor Showa.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

Yokohama sin tax prompts cries of no fair

YOKOHAMA — After Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced his controversial plan to impose a local tax on the city's banks earlier this year, other local governments have been searching for new revenue sources to replenish coffers drained by recession.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 18, 2000

All in the Phish phamily

At first, I felt sorry for the Americans who followed Phish across the Pacific for the band's Japan tour. I live here, and even I find the prices intolerable and the infrastructure unforgiving.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

SDF to take larger role in combating emergencies

The Defense Agency and the National Police Agency have reached a basic agreement that Self-Defense Force troops should be mobilized to deal with subversive activities by armed guerrillas, government sources said Saturday.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2000

Japan's premier graphic designer revisited

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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 18, 2000

Three weeks is a lifetime for pet crickets

Welcome to Japan's rainy season, also known as the Insect Season. Although I live in an old Japanese house with generations of insects going back as far as the Heian Period, I also live with the comfort of knowing I'll never starve to death. "Getemono," the Japanese word for "gross things to eat," includes...
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

Pyongyang is 'willing' to improve Japan ties

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il indicated at this week's first-ever inter-Korean summit that he is willing to work toward normalizing ties with Japan, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official quoted South Korean President Kim Dae Jung as saying Saturday.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

Australian Rules militia invades Japan

Speak to an Englishman and football can only mean soccer. An American immediately dreams of the pigskin and the glory of the Super Bowl. For a Kiwi, of course, it's the scream of the Haka and the mighty All Blacks of Rugby Union fame. But to an Australian sports fan, the word can mean only one thing...
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2000

Rain, rain, go away

It's that time of year again. Perpetually iron-gray skies, puddles, mud, clashing umbrellas, fogged-up train windows, damp shoes and damper spirits. It's "tsuyu": the rainy season, when nature goes into its annual wet-blanket act.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 18, 2000

Bolivia hopes for surprise

Taking advantage of a similar playing style, Bolivia manager Carlos Aragones said he is looking for "a surprise" in Sunday's Kirin Cup final against Japan at Yokohama International Stadium.
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Jun 18, 2000

Cafe's tempting literary brew

Cafe Independent, a "rattle-bag collection of poetry, art, pearls of prose . . . ," is produced by Oliver Kinghorn and Shannon Smith in Kyoto.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 18, 2000

Fuse burning on the Mideast powder keg

LONDON -- Ignore all the empty chatter about the future of a "Middle East peace process" that died months ago, and waste no time in futile speculation about the character of Syria's new president, mild-mannered ophthalmologist Dr. Bashar Assad. The regime that was run for the past 30 years by Bashar's...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jun 18, 2000

The end for Kim Jong Il?

My trip to North Korea 11 years ago was one of the most depressing times in my whole life. I have never seen a sadder country. It was not simply an issue of appalling poverty: In 1989, the shelves of stores in Moscow were also barren, and Beijing still sported a maze of miniature slums -- the notorious...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 18, 2000

Toshio Sugihara

Recently the College Women's Association of Japan held an anniversary celebration. "Music and Tea" was an afternoon program commemorating 25 years of the activities of Volunteers for Blind Students, a group that is part of CWAJ's education program. "In April, The Japan Vocational Development Center for...
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2000

'Karoshi' hotline flooded on first day

A legal-aid group on Saturday received 206 consultation calls over suicide and death from overwork after launching a hotline to deal with the problem the same day, the group said.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jun 18, 2000

Never too long

I have perhaps the world's longest list of You have been here too long if. . . It is often easy to see oneself in such lists, recognizing a trait you have absorbed since living here. It has become an automatic reflex, unnoticed until you return home and realize that no one else does it. My moment of...
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2000

Racial storms in the South Pacific

A second coup attempt in the South Pacific has many wondering what has fouled the tropical air. The answer is simple: corruption and inefficiency. In both Fiji and the Solomon Islands, ethnic groups have used the cause of indigenous rights to shield practices that often verge on the criminal. Inept governments...
BUSINESS
Jun 17, 2000

Six more Osaka-Tokyo flights OK'd

The Transport Ministry will allow three major airlines to operate shuttle flights between Tokyo and Osaka starting July 1, increasing the number of daily flights from 27 to 33, Transport Minister Toshihiro Nikai said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Empress Dowager dies at 97; family at her side

The Empress Dowager, the widow of Emperor Showa, died Friday afternoon, two days after she began experiencing breathing difficulties, the Imperial Household Agency said. She was 97.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Prosecutors seek death for cultist

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office filed an appeal Friday with the Tokyo High Court to change the life prison term handed to senior Aum Shinrikyo figure Yoshihiro Inoue to capital punishment.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Milan bombing suspect files libel suit in Japan

A 52-year-old man wanted by Italian authorities for his alleged involvement in the deadly 1969 bombing of a Milan bank filed a defamation suit Friday with the Tokyo District Court against two newspapers and two magazine publishers.
BUSINESS
Jun 17, 2000

401(k)-type plans to appear online

man. Yamaguchi played a key role last September in the introduction of a new type of pension -- similar to the 401(k) plans used in the United States -- at Pasona Inc., the major temporary-staff agency in Tokyo where he works.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Ogi's New Conservatives aim to lay Japan's 'moral ground'

The recently launched New Conservative Party, the smallest force in the tripartite ruling coalition, hopes to maintain its current strength in the June 25 election in order to lay the "moral ground" for the country in the next century.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Great changed witnessed in her life

The Empress Dowager, who died Friday afternoon aged 97, saw firsthand the sweeping changes that engulfed the Imperial system after World War II as the wife of Emperor Showa.

Longform

The students at Mitaka Municipal No. 7 Junior High School have access to various cooling devices for when they play sports.
Japan's extreme heat is causing a rethink of school sports