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EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 1999

Haunting the high street

As the Internet insinuates itself deeper into daily life, one key facet of its future role -- electronic commerce -- continues its explosive growth. Estimates of the amount of business conducted in cyberspace vary from $30 billion annually to nearly twice that. But one thing is certain: It is increasing...
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 1999

As Tokyo goes, so goes Japan

Utter chaos reigns in the runup to the Tokyo gubernatorial election, the most important of all local elections to be held in April. The outcome of the preliminary battle is likely to have a great influence on national politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 1999

Globalization, the world's whipping boy

For one brief moment less than a decade ago, the idea of "globalization" was viewed with more promise than peril. At the time, it represented an emerging economic reality: the merging of national markets into a single entity that traders and merchants anywhere could access at anytime. This "24-hour,...
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 20, 1999

Tamasaburo romances rough guys

The Kabukiza Theater in Ginza this month is featuring Tamasaburo Bando, one of Japan's foremost onnagata (women's role) actors, in three numbers: first with hislongtime partner Nizaemon Kataoka, then with Kankuro Nakamura. Other great names on the playbill are Danjuro Ichikawa, Kichiemon Nakamura, Tomijuro...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 1999

Exposing the illusion of appearance

Photographer Duane Michals was born into an odd sort of duality in 1932. He was raised in McKeesport, Penn., by devoutly Catholic parents of Czech origin (much like Andy Warhol, whom he would later depict in a series of blurred portraits). Michals' mother, worked as a housekeeper for a rich family, and...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 1999

Kodo beats remixed for a dance groove

In ancient Japan, boundaries between rural villages were not drawn by geography, but by the deep, resonating rhythms of the taiko drum. Kodo, Sado Island's acclaimed taiko troupe, through the preservation, dissemination and study of one of Japan's most internationally celebrated performing arts, has...
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 1999

The Japan-U.S. performance gap

The U.S. economy has extended its sparkling performance into a ninth year, albeit attended by sentiments of rising caution on Wall Street. The contrast with Japan's decline in the 1990s is so strong that events in the United States look as though they are happening on another planet. In a global era,...
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 1999

Europe discovers its Kurdish problem

Europe has worked hard to put considerable distance between itself and the Kurds. There have been condemnations of Turkey's violent, repressive policies toward its Kurdish minority, but sensitivities about Ankara's strategic role in European defense and concerns about the reaction of the 1 million Kurds...
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 1999

The true meaning of the dioxin scare

Nose, a small town on the northern outskirts of Osaka, first put the fear of dioxin into nation's consciousness last year. Now, just 10 months later, another dioxin scare has hit the headlines. This time, the site is Tokorozawa, the Saitama bedroom community on the northwestern outskirts of Tokyo. The...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 17, 1999

Designing for dollars

Say what you will about Jeff Bezos, president of Amazon.com, but he is a savvy guy. He and his company may not be worth the gazillions of dollars that the market is throwing at them, but he deserves credit for making the market believe in him.
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 1999

Post-impeachment Clinton

Officially, the impeachment ordeal of U.S. President Bill Clinton is over. Last Friday, the Senate -- in two bipartisan votes -- rejected both charges against the president. By a vote of 55 to 45, they threw out the first article of impeachment that alleged Mr. Clinton committed perjury when testifying...
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 1999

The victims have rights, too

With all the attention now being focused by the government, police and judicial authorities, educators and the media on Japan's rapidly increasing juvenile crime rate and the escalating level of violence frequently involved, the rights of the victims of crimes in this country have often seemed of secondary...
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Impact of new bond issues must be studied: Miyazawa

The government must consider the impact of newly issued government bonds on the financial market and is currently studying ways to tackle the problem, Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa reiterated Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Narita officer arrested for drugs

An Immigration Office official was arrested earlier this month for possessing illegal drugs, apparently obtained through the Internet, it was learned Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Kobe budget priority shifts from quake to economy

The city of Kobe announced a 1999 fiscal year budget proposal Friday of just over 2.07 trillion yen, a 2.9 percent increase over the previous year's budget of 2.01 trillion yen.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

War victims unite efforts to win redress from Japan

Representatives of civic groups from Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands signed an agreement Friday to cooperate in seeking compensation from the Japanese government for their sufferings during and after World War II.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Israeli-Palestinian leadership group to visit

A delegation of 20 young Israeli and Palestinian men who are thought to have the potential to become leaders in politics, business and media in the region will visit Japan next week, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Rapist in murder trial faces gallows

Prosecutors demanded the death penalty Friday for a man accused of killing a woman he was convicted of raping in 1990.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Major steelmakers expect lower earnings

Plagued by dwindling demand and prices of steel products at home and abroad, major steelmakers on Friday separately announced they are significantly lowering their earnings projections for fiscal 1998.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

BOJ lowers overnight call rate to unprecedented 0.15%

Amid mounting calls to curtail the rise in long-term interest rates by expanding the money supply, the Bank of Japan on Friday instead decided to confront the problem by guiding down a key short-term interest rate to an astonishing historic low.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Osaka budget plan calls for pay freeze, payroll reduction

The Osaka Prefectural Government, facing a financial crisis, announced a 3.5 trillion yen budget plan Friday for fiscal 1999 that reduces prefectural personnel costs for the first time since the Local Government Law took effect in 1947.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Celebrate the millennium bug

Japan has drawn up draft proposals for an "APEC Y2K Week" to help the 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, especially developing members, cope with the Year 2000 computer bug problem.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Aum regrouping for Armageddon in September: PSIA

Aum Shinrikyo followers are striving to hold together to reconstruct their cult, believing Armageddon will come this year in accordance with founder Shoko Asahara's prediction, according to a report released Friday by the Public Security Investigation Agency.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 1999

Hope for East Timor

East Timor has never fit comfortably within the sprawling archipelago that is Indonesia. The province was a Portuguese territory from the 17th century until 1975, when a socialist government in Lisbon abandoned the country's colonial pretensions. That triggered a struggle for control of the region. The...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Japan seeks WTO ruling on U.S. antidumping law

Japan has requested the World Trade Organization to rule on a U.S. antidumping law, charging that the law is not in compliance with WTO rules, government officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Tokai Bank plans to close over half of overseas units

Chubu area leader Tokai Bank intends to close down more than half of its overseas branches, offices and subsidiaries by March 2001 to focus on domestic operations, bank sources said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Akashi all but enters governor's race

Yasushi Akashi, a former U.N. undersecretary general, strongly indicated Thursday that he will run as the Liberal Democratic Party's candidate for the Tokyo gubernatorial election in April.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Constitution-backers protest defense guideline bills

Braving falling snow, supporters of Japan's pacifist Constitution gathered in Tokyo on Thursday to object to the revised Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines set to be debated in the current Diet session and the possibility of Japan drafting emergency defense legislation.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Viagra-hawking teen hookers lead to arrests

A 37-year-old Tokyo man has been arrested on suspicion of operating a teen prostitution ring and forcing high school girls to sell the anti-impotence drug Viagra to their customers, according to police.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Nuclear sanctions debate on India, Pakistan in disarray

Officials from the Group of Eight nations and seven other countries disagreed in Tokyo on Thursday over whether to ease international economic sanctions on India and Pakistan, with some saying that the two countries have yet to demonstrate a further commitment to joining the global regime of nuclear...

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