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LIFE / Travel
Dec 8, 1999

A life less ordinary: Anne Frank's legacy

Amsterdam must be the only European city whose most popular tourist attractions occupy different ends of the sliding scale that begins with virtue and ends with vice. It is likely that many of those who wait patiently in the queues that snake daily around the canal-side block where the Anne Frank Huis...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Advocates hit courts' insensitivity to mentally disabled

Staff writer When the court officer announced "all rise" before the close of the trial, the 58-year-old mentally disability defendant remained seated. When the judge sentenced him in July to a 20-month prison term, he was the only one who apparently did not understand what had happened. The man was arrested...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 1999

Losing the battle in Seattle

Last Tuesday, a crowd in downtown Seattle assembled in front of a McDonald's restaurant. First, a French dairy farmer, defending European agricultural export subsidies, denounced the World Trade Organization. Next, a Brazilian farmer, harmed by those same European export subsidies, excoriated the WTO....
EDITORIALS
Dec 7, 1999

On track to normalization

Moves toward a thaw in relations between Japan and North Korea have been gaining momentum since a Japanese parliamentary group headed by former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and the ruling Workers Party of Korea last week agreed on the need to resume the long-stalled normalization talks at an early...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Ghosn pushes shared goals to revive Nissan

Staff writer Carlos Ghosn knows exactly what he wants and precisely how he is going to achieve it. Handed the massive task of turning Nissan Motor Co.'s fortunes around, the Brazilian-born executive of French car manufacturer Renault also realizes that simply cutting costs, jobs, suppliers and reducing...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

DPJ seeks to close donation loophole

The Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition force, submitted a bill Tuesday to the Lower House to close loopholes in the Political Funds Control Law by prohibiting the transfer of money from local party chapters to individual politicians. Facing mounting public criticism of the Liberal Democratic...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Chinese family exposes Japanese detention treatment

Staff writer The Immigration Bureau's Tokyo facility for holding foreigners who have overstayed their visas violates basic human rights, especially those of children, claims a Chinese family released last week after 40 days of detention there. Ling Xi Rang, 43, her second daughter, Xu Xiou Ri, 17, and...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Net, video help preserve sailor's POW ordeal

Regional correspondent Stanley Willner's wartime odyssey began on Nov. 29, 1942, when the merchant vessel he was serving on was torpedoed by a German raider in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar. He was plucked from the water by the German crew and spent a few months on board his captors' vessel...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

IBM, Tivoli join NTT Com. for e-business alliance

NTT Communications Corp. (NTT Com.), IBM Japan Ltd. and Tivoli Systems Inc. announced Tuesday that they have agreed to form a business alliance to promote NTT Com.'s e-business outsourcing services. Clients ranging from large companies to home-based businesses will be offered consultation and design...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

'Knock' to take suit ruling seriously

OSAKA -- Osaka Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama told a news conference Tuesday that he would "take seriously" Monday's anticipated ruling in the sexual harassment lawsuit against him, which he did not contest. He also told the day's regular news conference that he would pay compensation if the court orders him...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Education White Paper emphasizes individuality

Educational reforms should put priority on respecting a child's individuality and giving local authorities more autonomy to correct "excessive equalization," according to the 1999 White Paper on Education released Tuesday. In the report, submitted to the day's Cabinet meeting, the Education Ministry...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Prosecutors demand death for cultists in subway attack

Prosecutors demanded the death penalty for two former Aum Shinrikyo followers Tuesday for carrying out the March 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. The two are also charged with illegally manufacturing firearms. Kenichi Hirose, 35, and Toru Toyoda, 31, stand accused of releasing sarin...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Complaint targets Obuchi fundraising machine

An Osaka-based citizens' group filed a complaint with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office, maintaining that Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's fund management body unlawfully received contributions ranging from 2 million yen to 5 million yen from seven individuals through three nearly dormant private...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Property appraisals to trigger drop in land taxes

Appraisal prices of commercial and residential land -- a basis for calculating the next fiscal year's property taxes -- are an average of 5.9 percent lower than those for this year, according to the Home Affairs Ministry. Based on the new evaluation, it is now expected that the nation's residential property...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Lower House panel approves 6.8 trillion yen budget

The House of Representatives approved a 6.79 trillion yen supplementary budget Tuesday aimed at putting the nation's fragile economy on a full recovery track. The second supplementary budget for fiscal 1999, which will help finance the 18 trillion yen economic stimulus package unveiled last month, was...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Ex-followers finger Fukunaga for false foot findings

Five former followers of the Honohana Sampogyo religious sect Tuesday filed a criminal complaint against its guru, Hogen Fukunaga, and 12 other cult executives, their lawyers said. The former followers filed the suit because fraud allegedly committed by the sect has become a serious social issue and...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Isuzu nears agreement on China bus venture

Staff writer GUANGZHOU, China -- Isuzu Motor Co., a Japanese truck and bus maker, will reach a basic agreement with local authorities, possibly by the end of the month, over a joint venture to produce large buses here, a local government official said Tuesday. Zhang Guang-nin, deputy mayor of Guangzhou,...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Two anti-Aum laws promulgated

Two laws aimed at cracking down on the activities of Aum Shinrikyo were promulgated Tuesday by the Justice Ministry. The laws -- one to allow authorities to step up monitoring of the cult's activities and the other to facilitate disposal of Aum's assets -- were enacted by the Diet on Friday. The laws...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Waterway quality still stagnant, EPA report shows

A survey of water quality in the nation's rivers, coastal areas and lakes showed little change in fiscal 1998 compared with the year before, according to a report released by the Environment Agency on Tuesday. In one portion of the annual study, 7,290 locations were checked to see whether water met government...
EDITORIALS
Dec 6, 1999

A Cabinet like no other

The people of Northern Ireland have made clear their longing for peace. They resolutely endorsed the Good Friday accords signed last year and have stood behind them. The embattled province's politicians have kept pace -- sometimes grudgingly. Last week, Northern Ireland took another historic step forward...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Construction firm files complaint against Nichiei

OSAKA -- The president of a construction supply firm based in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, and his loan guarantor filed a criminal complaint Monday against nonbank moneylender Nichiei Co. and two of its employees for allegedly using unlawful tactics to get him to repay his debt. According to the complaint...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Yeltsin visit penciled in for spring

Japan and Russia agreed Monday to work on realizing a visit by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to Japan some time next spring, a Foreign Ministry official said. The agreement came during the first of two days of bilateral vice-ministerial talks in Tokyo under a joint peace treaty committee aiming to...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Mori floats moratorium on banning corporate donations

Yoshiro Mori, the Liberal Democratic Party's No. 2 man, proposed on Monday a three-month moratorium on the planned ban on corporate donations to individual politicians, but denied speculation the move is designed to cause a rush to collect funds before a Lower House election. The revised Political Funds...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Shinagawa parents take chance on new schools

About 13 percent of parents in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward have decided to send their children to schools outside of their conventional districts next year under a unique system that starts in April, officials said Monday. Under the system, the first of its kind in the country, children scheduled to attend...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Kono claims deal close on ending Pyongyang sanctions

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono expressed his resolve Monday to quickly work to lift remaining sanctions against North Korea and resume bilateral talks on normalizing diplomatic relations. Kono's comments came one day after Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi instructed him to study lifting sanctions against the...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Pearl Harbor: Memo sheds light on Japan's failure to make a 'declaration' of war

It is popularly believed in Japan that the country would have been spared the disgrace of carrying out a "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor if Tokyo's final memorandum to U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Washington had been delivered prior to its launch as planned. But a former diplomat says he has...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Nation's GDP slips 1% in July-September term

The economy shrank a real 1 percent during the July-September quarter compared with the previous term, according to gross domestic product figures released Monday by the Economic Planning Agency. The quarterly slide in GDP, the broadest gauge of economic activities, translates into an annualized shrinkage...
EDITORIALS
Dec 5, 1999

Aum's surprise expression of 'regret'

Never able to stay out of the news for long, the Aum Shinrikyo cult made headlines last week, but this time with deliberate intent. The unprecedented formal admission by its current acting leader, Ms. Tatsuko Muraoka, that some of the cult's members were indeed involved in the series of crimes of which...
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 1999

Right to life, liberty and free ATM use

WASHINGTON -- A few years ago, an ATM machine malfunctioned in the elite Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Georgetown. Americans lined up to collect $20 bills being handed out in place of $5 notes.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Dec 5, 1999

New entry

I have long relationships with some of my readers. One contacted me first with a challenging project -- teaching her cat to use a scratch post -- and moved on through a wedding at a shrine and later a divorce, and finally the establishment of her own business. We have never met but we are friends so...

Longform

Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals