Search - u_times

 
 
JAPAN
Dec 16, 1999

Education panel OKs performance-based pay

The education committee of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Thursday approved a plan that will lead to the city's public school teachers being paid according to performance, rather than experience. The scheme, to go into effect with the start of the school year in April, aims to boost teaching quality...
JAPAN
Dec 15, 1999

106,000 police scheduled for New Year's Eve

A total of 106,000 police officers nationwide will be on duty overnight from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1 to deal with any possible problems at the turn of the millennium, the National Police Agency said Wednesday. The total is 2 1/2 times more than the usual 40,000 officers on overnight duty. A total of 105,000...
JAPAN
Dec 14, 1999

Immigration detainees often beaten: officer

A former immigration officer testified in court Tuesday that he has seen officers beating detainees on several occasions at the immigration house in Tokyo's Kita Ward. "Several times I saw two or three officers ... kick (a sitting detainee) in his chest, telling him to apologize," said Takeshi Akiyama,...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Dec 14, 1999

The Worldwide Music Expo embraces roots and Internet

For anyone involved in any aspect of world music, WOMEX (Worldwide Music Expo) has become an essential date on the calendar. After a few years of internal wrangling, at the end of October, WOMEX returned to its original home at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, Germany, where from now on it will...
JAPAN
Dec 10, 1999

Prosecutors seek death sentence for Hayashi

Prosecutors on Friday demanded capital punishment for a former fugitive and Aum Shinrikyo member for the March 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and injured thousands more. Yasuo Hayashi, 41, also stands accused of involvement in the June 1994 sarin attack in Matsumoto,...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Pop singer Makihara given suspended sentence

Popular singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara was sentenced Wednesday to a suspended 18-month prison term for possessing amphetamines at his Tokyo home. The Tokyo District Court found Makihara, 30, guilty for violating the Stimulant Drugs Control Law, but suspended his sentence for three years. He was...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Dec 8, 1999

Beyond coping

Certain products come in many shapes and sizes, and a reader must thank the Italian Trade Commission in Tokyo for the successful ending of her search. She was looking for a special kind of Italian support hose made by IBICI and she wondered where she could buy them in Japan. It could be an endless search,...
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

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 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...
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.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 1999

Down Under music with Asian flair

The renowned Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe vividly recalls gifts he received as a young boy growing up in 1930s rural Tasmania, given to him by family friends on return from Japan. One gift was a much-thumbed children's version of the "Tale of Genji," the other a cardboard-cutout castle.
JAPAN
Dec 3, 1999

Neon no aurora for flyboy cabby

Staff writer Tokyo's nighttime neon casts a flickering rainbow through Masaharu Satoh's taxi -- a poor substitute for his former life, but it will do for now. Putting on his sunglasses and cap, with a tug of the steering wheel, Satoh takes off into the clouds, the hustle and bustle and high-rises reduced...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Dec 1, 1999

Catching up

Recently I quoted letters from a university English writing class commenting on a column about General MacArthur. That prompted a letter from longtime resident G.A. Chandru who has done much over the years to promote his adopted city of Yokohama as well as Indian culture and products. A few years ago...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 1999

'Trade is better than aid'

In one month's time, we shall leave the 20th century behind. The first half of it saw the world almost destroyed by war -- partly as a result of its division into rival trade blocs. The second half has seen an unprecedented expansion of world trade, which has also brought unprecedented economic growth....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 1999

Global cop or rogue power?

WASHINGTON -- Completely unnoticed by most Americans, the Washington elite has become ensnared in a yet another false, narcissistic foreign policy debate. Yet when French President Jacques Chirac stood side-by-side with Chinese President Jiang Zemin recently and denounced U.S. nuclear and antiballistic...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 28, 1999

Work full-time and raise a bonsai? No thanks

The other day I mentioned to my husband that I might like to take a class in growing bonsai trees. I don't even know why I mentioned it. I had been growing some pretty good mold in the bathroom and refrigerator so perhaps it seemed like a good time to move on to something more challenging.
COMMENTARY
Nov 27, 1999

Tough times again for Ozawa

While I was away from Japan on a recent overseas trip, the nation was plunged into political confusion following Liberal Party leader Ichiro Ozawa's threat to leave the ruling three-party coalition. Ozawa suggested that his party could quit the alliance -- which also includes the Liberal Democratic Party...
CULTURE / Music
Nov 27, 1999

Finding freedom through 'Affirmation'

The liberty and experimentation of the 1970s still hold a nostalgic place in the memory of jazz pianist and composer Tomoko Ohno. It is a period, she says, that "most people remember fondly."
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Nov 27, 1999

Unwelcome companions

Thanks to e-mail, a vast assortment of unsolicited information comes my way. Some of it is even interesting and occasionally I share it with you. My amazement is not so much with the information I am sending your way today as it is with the person who noticed it and then did the necessary projection....
CULTURE / Music
Nov 26, 1999

Proyecto Uno -- viva Zapata!

Everybody knows that foreign artists can only have a hit in the States as long as they sing in English. Conversely, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are credited with spearheading a "Latin boom" not only in America, but all over the world, by singing poppish variations of Afro-Cuban styles...
EDITORIALS
Nov 25, 1999

Racing toward the unwired world

I n 1990, there were 11 million mobile phones in the entire world. Today, there are 50 million in Japan alone. Nearly 400 million people around the globe carry the various makes and models of wireless phones; those ranks swell by about 1 million more every week. Experts predict that within five years,...
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 1999

Terror for the 21st century

A few weeks ago, New York was hit by an outbreak of the West Nile virus. Five people died and another 50 were sickened before authorities were able to respond. West Nile fever is a rare, encephalitic virus that is common in Africa and Asia, but had never before been diagnosed in the Western Hemisphere....
JAPAN
Nov 20, 1999

Accidental oceanographer takes Kyoto Prize for lifework

Staff writer
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Nov 20, 1999

Still hope for the musically challenged

Several years ago a number of high-level Japanese politicians and government leaders, including the prime minister, visited the United States for a series of discussions with their American counterparts. After the serious meetings concluded, the participants all joined an informal party with their hosts....
CULTURE / Music
Nov 19, 1999

Got juice? Cleve does

If my man Cleveland Williams' 35th birthday party at Boogies in Roppongi this past week was not the coolest off-the-hook, mind-blowing, no-holds-barred, woman-chasing, brain-cell-damaging event of the year so far, then I fear the party that might top it. It's a good thing parties like this only happen...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 17, 1999

An 'overseas Vietnamese' goes home

CATFISH AND MANDALA: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam, by Andrew X. Pham. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999; 344 pp., $25. After Vietnam's "American War" ended, the victorious Viet Cong captured and imprisoned Andrew X. Pham and his family as, along with scores...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 17, 1999

On the mystery of the mooses, or meese

One of the basic rules of biodiversity is that species diversity increases toward the tropics and decreases toward the poles.
JAPAN
Nov 17, 1999

Bangladesh envoy promotes corporate interaction

The new Bangladeshi ambassador to Japan, who arrived to take up his post recently, said Wednesday that he hopes to play a role in helping to bring representatives of the two countries' private sectors closer together to enable them to cooperate in a variety of fields.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 17, 1999

Hemingway's dead; long live the future

Hemingway once said that good writing begins with the simple production of but one true sentence. OK. Here's something that's true. Hemingway is dead.

Longform

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