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JAPAN
Mar 8, 2000

Pyongyang food deal aims to help relations

The government announced Tuesday that it will resume food aid to North Korea, setting the stage for full-fledged talks on normalizing diplomatic relations.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Mar 8, 2000

The check's in the e-mail

My wallet bulges, but it isn't because of money. No, it is a hefty critter because it's stuffed with train passes, metro passes, telephone cards, bank cards, credit cards, ID cards, point cards for individual stores, video store cards, meishi from people and restaurants, and random scraps of paper littered...
COMMUNITY
Mar 7, 2000

Town makes returns on back of boomerang boom

TOKAMACHI, Niigata Pref. -- Uninformed visitors to Tokamachi might be forgiven for thinking the small, central Niigata Prefecture city has a problem with UFOs.
BUSINESS
Mar 7, 2000

Five life insurers outsource asset management to cut costs

Five Japanese life insurance companies will have a common asset management administration system in place by the end of fiscal 2001, company sources said Monday.
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2000

Shoplifting stains welcome mat

FUSHIKI MINATO, Toyama Pref. -- While the Fushiki Chamber of Commerce has stepped up efforts in recent years to improve relations with Russian visitors, a number of thefts in the town have left some residents wondering if cars, and the ruble, would be better left as rubble.
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2000

Tradescape.com enters Japan

In a move that could take the nation's online trading boom to another level, U.S. electronic trading broker Tradescape.com will join with Softbank Finance Corp. to launch Japan's first electronic communications network for securities trading as early as this summer.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 6, 2000

Never mind lions, look at the birds

When thinking of traveling in South Africa, many people imagine safari-style ventures into the bush to spy elephant, rhino and cheetah.
EDITORIALS
Mar 5, 2000

The public interest must be served

Japan's journalists, editors and broadcasters -- indeed, representatives of all of the popular media -- received a stunning surprise from the Osaka High Court last week. In a historic decision with potentially far-reaching consequences, the presiding judge overturned a lower-court ruling that had ordered...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 5, 2000

Masanao Murai

"Horses are very gentle and kind to the weak," Dr. Masanao Murai said. "A child suffering from cerebral palsy can sit on a horse and feel the animal's warmth. He can see farther. The horse's movement reaches the child's brain through the spine, so that a child who cannot walk feels he has one body with...
EDITORIALS
Mar 3, 2000

'But it couldn't happen here'

There is no refuge from the senseless gun violence that plagues the United States. Homes, offices, places of worship, city streets and even schools -- no place is safe. This week, there was an especially horrifying episode: the shooting of one first-grader by another. The details tell a tragic story,...
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2000

German ambassador focuses on promoting G8's success

Building seems to be very much on Uwe Kurt Kaestner's mind.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 3, 2000

Don't believe the hype, just cue up the record

You can tell because it's become a staple of boy bands and television commercials, selling everything from hair dryers to soft drinks. Even the least offensive manifestations of hip hop's mainstream acceptance, Dragon Ash, has all the substance of white bread.
COMMUNITY
Mar 2, 2000

All in the name of the perfect cut

We live in an age where technology pushes us to be faster, more efficient and more connected than ever. We make phone calls while walking down the street. We send e-mail messages from handheld electronic organizers. We have oceans of informations just on the other side of a mouse click.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2000

Tough new laws stir outrage in Australia

SYDNEY -- Johnno, a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy, steals a few pencils and some paint. The magistrate has no option but to send him to prison for four weeks. After three weeks behind bars, Johnno hangs himself.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2000

WTO rules against U.S. antidumping law

The World Trade Organization's dispute settlement panel on Monday supported Japan's claims that a U.S. antidumping law allowing individual firms to seek civil damages violates WTO rules, trade sources said.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 29, 2000

Japanese politics are gray, not green

GREEN POLITICS IN JAPAN, by Lam Peng Er. Routledge, March 1999, 232 pp., $90. The next 100 years have been dubbed the century of the environment. While this pronouncement may be a bit premature, even inflated, it reflects the swelling interest in environmental issues. From global warming and dioxins,...
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 29, 2000

Anti-glamor Idevian Crew hit the stage

Shigehiro Ide is back on stage with his dance company Idevian Crew after all too long an absence from performing. His comeback in "Which," the piece he choreographed to open the Next Dance Festival at Shinjuku Park Tower Hall Feb. 18, establishes him as the most promising dancer/choreographer on the...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2000

If Taro is really going to speak English

Would you hire a typewriter repairman as a systems analyst? That's sort of what the Japanese Ministry of Education is doing. It set up a committee to study English-education reform that is about as up to date in what's needed to improve English teaching in this country as the poor repairman who thinks...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 26, 2000

A needle pulling golden thread through time

Western embroidery enjoys worldwide popularity, especially in European countries such as England. But Japan can also boast its very own style of embroidery, Edo shishu (Edo embroidery), which in the past has adorned everything from shubutsu (Buddhist images embroidered on cloth), dashi (festival floats)...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2000

Defections among coalition partners in Malaysia's ruling National Front strain ties

BY DAVID CHEW Special to The Japan Times SINGAPORE -- The defection of key politicians from one to the other of the two main Chinese components in Malaysia's ruling multiparty coalition has caused bad blood and made the role of mediator difficult for the coalition's Malay leader.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 24, 2000

The go-mi system of sake tasting

Describing and conveying the flavor of sake has always been problematic. How does one explain a gustatory experience in words alone? It certainly isn't easy. And, as sake flavor profiles become more complex and subtle, it is bound to become even more difficult.
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2000

Berlin panel looks at Japan economy, management

This was the general consensus of panelists at a symposium held Feb. 17 at the Japanese-German Center Berlin. The symposium was called The Japanese Economy and the Renewal of Japanese Management, and it was sponsored by the center and the Keizai Koho Center (Japan Institute for Social and Economic Affairs)....
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2000

Taxing times for Tokyo banks

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's plan to levy a new tax on large banks in the metropolis has created a stir. The banks are dead set against it, but Tokyo citizens -- and the public at large -- are applauding the idea. No Japanese politician, national or local, has made such a widely acclaimed decision...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2000

It's simple: Economic freedom is the key to prosperity

In a world of plenty, want abounds. To blame are big corporations, international trade and open markets, according to demonstrators who have been attacking the World Trade Organization.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 23, 2000

Private eyes

On the Net and off, personal data is a currency, an entity that can be bought, sold, bartered and, yes, stolen. Ideally, this information connects companies with potential clients and consumers with products and services. Ads with the precision of surgical airstrikes are swell for advertisers, but on...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2000

Irrational intransigence

Was I the only one who noticed? Ever since the end of the Cold War (that breeding ground of massive numbers of nuclear warheads), U.S. policy toward Russia has been to get rid of as many Russian nuclear weapons as possible. Yet when the Russians recently proposed eliminating up to 1,000 strategic nuclear...
LIFE / Travel
Feb 23, 2000

Heaven in Beppu's hot spring hells

The Lonely Planet's Japan edition pans it, but the onsen (hot spring) town of Beppu in Oita Prefecture provides a fun glimpse of somewhat dated Japanese sightseeing rituals -- and of course, with perhaps the most diverse array of hot springs in Kyushu, it has some great places to take a dip.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2000

Hearing the global groove

Just back from an exhilarating recording trip to Santa Cruz, Calif., for the second installment of the project by Okinawa's Takashi Hirayasu and American guitarist Bob Brozman. This time the duo was joined by other musicians on percussion, drums and bass, and also David Hidalgo from Los Lobos and the...

Longform

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