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BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2001

LDP panel approves bill on pensions

A panel of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party gave the go-ahead Tuesday to a government bill designed to drastically reform Japan's corporate pension system with an eye to protecting employees' rights to receive pension benefits.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2001

Politicians rethinking reliance on vote-gathering machinery

Staff writer It is election year in Japan again. About half of the seats in the Upper House will be up for grabs in the triennial election in July, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election -- often seen as an indicator of voting trends in national polls -- is expected in June.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2001

Politicians rethinking reliance on vote-gathering machinery

Staff writer It is election year in Japan again. About half of the seats in the Upper House will be up for grabs in the triennial election in July, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election -- often seen as an indicator of voting trends in national polls -- is expected in June.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 12, 2001

Into the heart of darkness

What is it about deeply rural places and deeply strange religion and sex? In the United States, one has the stereotype of the hills of Appalachia as refuges for snake-handling preachers and cousin-marrying hillbillies. In Japan, one has the mountains of Shikoku in Masato Harada's "Inugami," where ancient...
COMMENTARY
Feb 12, 2001

Destroying a fragile trust

In the semirural area near Tokyo where I and some others spend weekends, we have just suffered our first break-ins. Nothing serious. Someone, probably delinquent kids, going through unlocked parked cars looking for loose items. Far more interesting is why we have been able to leave our houses and cars...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Feb 12, 2001

Getting back on the right track

In all walks of life, those who make successful comebacks have always been admired. They become figures of resilience with a commendable never-say-die attitude; think Muhammad Ali or even Bill Clinton.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 12, 2001

How to profit from a nation's tragedy

THE TIANANMEN PAPERS: The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force against their Own People -- in their Own Words, compiled by Zhang Liang, edited by Andrew Nathan and Perry Link, with an afterword by Orville Schell. Public Affairs, 2001, 560 pp., $30 (cloth). "The Tiananmen Papers" surfaced with...
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2001

How do you spell that again?

Another storm has been raging lately in the teacup of English. Like many linguistic squalls, this one is centered on spelling. It blew up in Britain late last year after the government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority decreed the use of internationally agreed spellings for some scientific terms...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Safety, services attract fishery schools to Hawaii

Uwajima Fisheries High School, whose training ship the Ehime Maru sank after colliding with a U.S. Navy submarine off Hawaii on Friday, is one of many Japanese fisheries schools that train students in Hawaiian waters.
COMMENTARY
Feb 11, 2001

In the land of the militantly mellow

NEW YORK -- San Franciscans, if we're to believe reporters who've spent the last week running up their New York employers' expense accounts, are searching the bottom of their recyclable souls in the aftermath of the death of Diane Whipple. Whipple, 33, was killed by one (or two, according to some sources)...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 11, 2001

More than 15 minutes of fame

In many ways, prints take the pulse of modern art. The flowering of techniques early in the 20th century gave artists a wild new freedom of expression, just as their personal opinions and emotions began to move center stage. Prints also reflected the growing democracy of art, the seismic shift that occurred...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Nine Japanese missing off Oahu

Nine people, including four high school students, were reported missing Friday after a Japanese training ship sank following a collision with a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine in waters off Hawaii, the Japan Coast Guard said Saturday.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Nine Japanese missing off Oahu

Nine people, including four high school students, were reported missing Friday after a Japanese training ship sank following a collision with a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine in waters off Hawaii, the Japan Coast Guard said Saturday.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Feb 11, 2001

Yeltsin and Reagan revisited

This year there were two sad anniversaries in the first week of February: two former political superstars, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Boris Yeltsin celebrated their birthdays in the shadow of severe health problems. Confined to hospital, they were unable to appreciate the cheering...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 10, 2001

The beauty of the dark side

Black is usually associated with the "dark side" -- evil, frightening, and negative. But in the Way of Tea, a black chawan (tea bowl) is prized above all others.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 8, 2001

With Cabinet approved, Bush gets down to business

WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush is off to a good and fast start. In his first days as U.S. president, he has begun to soften his relationships with his adversaries, organize his control over the vast bureaucracy of the federal government, initiate innovative programs and promote his promised legislative...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Feb 8, 2001

Religion and health in the etymology of sake

Sake has not been around forever, and at one point in time, they had to come up with a name for this new stuff. Hooch, da good stuff, giggly juice . . . It is likely that the Japanese equivalents of these have all been used, but there must have been some point when the word "sake" itself came into being....
COMMUNITY
Feb 8, 2001

Kids who learn by doing what comes naturally

The melting snow has transformed the playground of Hiratsuka Yochien into a muddy winter wonderland, but the kids follow their own pace. Some plunge ecstatically into the puddles, some carefully make their way to the chicken coop, while still others keep warm in the library.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 7, 2001

Saved from the 'bitter sea'

XIAN, China -- When "Black Bean" was 4 years old, his mother and her lover stabbed his father to death. The lover was executed for murder and the mother was sentenced to 15 years in prison as an accessory to the crime. Yet the little boy's nightmare had only just begun. Reviled by the whole village,...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Feb 7, 2001

Why not join the marine corps?

Welcome to the second week of the second month of the United Nations-designated "International Year of Volunteers." To mark this joyous occasion, we are pleased to announce the release of a book named "Kokusai Volunteer Guido," aka "Inside International Volunteer Work," published by The Japan Times and...
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2001

Civil servants are not serfs

The "shunju" (spring and autumn) column on the first page of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun often contains comments that are right on target. The Jan. 27 column commented on the sometimes arrogant and unwarranted demands made by Japanese politicians on Japanese diplomats in missions abroad.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2001

Trauma in a sepia-tinged Kyushu

It's not easy filming the inner lives of human beings. Novelists can go on at length about their protagonist's stream of consciousness (see "Ulysses") while filmmakers cannot show scene after voiced-over scene of that same stream without inducing audience catatonia. See Joseph Strick's misbegotten 1967...
EDITORIALS
Feb 5, 2001

Save Ariake Sea before it dies

Yet another possible man-made disruption of nature has been reported from Kyushu's Ariake Sea. This major nori (seaweed) cultivation area appears all but dead. Not only has output dropped sharply, the plant has also discolored. The abnormal growth of phytoplankton has created a serious shortage of nutrients...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2001

Parasitologist says excess hygiene threatens Japan

Far from being next to godliness, the Japanese obsession with cleanliness puts individuals at higher risk of disease and may even threaten the entire country, according to parasitologist Koichiro Fujita.
COMMUNITY
Feb 4, 2001

Heaven to Earth without explanation or apology

Anyone who thinks the art of painting is dead should head for the Towa Building on Tokyo's Meiji-dori and take the lift to Galerie Le Deco on the fifth floor. It is here that German artist David Garde is showing work created since last September: objects, installations and paintings that disturb and...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 4, 2001

Life is too short, even when you have nine!

I used to think I knew how to bury a dead cat. Then I learned the Japanese way.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 4, 2001

Shizuo Mochizuki

Shizuoka, the warm, sunny prefecture known for its peaceful hillsides where tea bushes grow, has always been home to Shizuo Mochizuki. His father kept a shop in Shizuoka where he sold Japanese cakes. Mochizuki says that neither tea bushes nor sweet cakes especially influenced him in choosing to make...

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?