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JAPAN
Apr 23, 1999

Mom, 92, daughter, 65, found slain

A 92-year-old woman and her 65-year-old daughter were found stabbed to death in their apartment in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, police said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 1999

Doyukai chief calls group consolidation nonsense

As the ongoing economic slump continues to plague many firms, some company leaders argue that Japan's four major business organizations, which have separately published a number of reports on similar issues, should somehow be consolidated.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 1999

Sharp-tongued Aoshima exits Tokyo tight-lipped

Staff writer
JAPAN
Apr 21, 1999

Survey shows children abused by 9% of moms

About 9 percent of mothers rearing preschool children repeatedly abuse them by beating or denying them necessary care, according to a survey released Wednesday by a Tokyo-based social welfare organization.
JAPAN
Apr 20, 1999

Readers Prize deadline near

The deadline is now approaching for readers of The Japan Times to apply for a total of 4.5 million yen worth of shopping coupons. The Readers Prize will offer 50,000 yen in vouchers to 30 subscribers and a 10,000 yen coupon to 300 other readers.
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 20, 1999

Nakamuras highlight double-suicide plays

During the month of April, the Kabukiza in Ginza is offering its annual Nakamura-kai program, featuring such major actors as Kichiemon, Jakuemon, Ganjiro, Tomijuro and Baigyoku, who belong to the Nakamura line of kabuki actors.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 1999

East Timor reveals West's hypocrisy

Two places on opposite sides of the world share similar circumstances: innocent people killed and displaced by government forces and paramilitaries. The violence on one side of the world begets harsh condemnation and a series of threats from Western powers, followed by a massive bombing campaign. The...
JAPAN
Apr 19, 1999

Hokuriku Special: Love battling time for rare ibises

NIIGATA -- Aggressiveness is all you need to triumph in unrequited love.
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 1999

Goodbye to all that

Sometimes -- make that usually -- the range of rational reactions to life on this planet seems dismally narrow, beginning with bafflement, passing through exasperation and rage, and ending in sorrow. We may distract or console ourselves with the doings of babies and small animals, the pleasures of music...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 18, 1999

In Japan, if it can be done, it can be certified

Be honest, how many certificates do you have? Count them all -- in your desk drawer, on the wall, in the ashes in the incinerator.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 1999

Learning to break the cycle of poverty

Lack of education, particularly among children, continues to be one of the main challenges to the well-being and quality of life of children worldwide, concludes a recent Oxfam International report titled, "Education Now: Break the Cycle of Poverty." According to this report, there are currently 125...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 1999

Mortality caught in the blink of a shutter

Death. We don't like it, but sooner or later we all have to face it. British photographer Cesca Sims, however, has been looking it straight in the eye (through the lens of her camera) ever since she began shooting. Her first major exhibition was set in Canterbury Prison, Kent, and narrated by snippets...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 1999

Kobayashi stirs up the still-life genre with brushes, oil and inspiration

In these times of multiplying media choices, it is not uncommon to find those artists whose interests run to realism tripping the shutters of cameras, while their more introspective contemporariesput brush to canvas, with often grand or abstract results. The painter, after all, works from an inner source...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 1999

Life lessons in pottery and prints

KOBE -- Traditional Japanese art aficionados in Kansai will have a rare chance to learn the finer points of both Bizen pottery and ukiyo-e woodblock prints through a double exhibit of John Wells' Bizen works and Peter Ujlaki's ukiyo-e collection at the Community House and Information Center (CHIC) on...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 14, 1999

A British art gallery finds an answer to a perennial problem

SOUTHAMPTON, England -- The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is generally acknowledged to be the world's first modern museum worthy of the title. Unlike its predecessors, it was not just a cabinet of curiosities -- archaeological relics and anthropological wonders amassed by some explorer and shown in his...
LIFE / Travel
Apr 14, 1999

Where the roof of Europe scrapes the sky

The pictures in the tourist pamphlet showed an ideal mountain scene in the French Alps, almost too good to be true: a lake of purest blue in the foreground surrounded by bright green hills leading up to spectacular snow-capped mountains under cloudless skies. If this were real, I doubted I could afford...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Apr 13, 1999

A Japanese musician's songs in 'The Homes of Donegal'

Hiroshi Yamaguchi of the group Heat Wave looks like any other worker at his manager's office. He sits at a desk, busily working away on a computer. After a few words, however, it's clear he could never be just any other worker. "I hate it here," he half confesses, half jokes. "I've never had to come...
JAPAN
Apr 12, 1999

Ishihara takes aim at Yokota

As the Liberal Democratic Party scrambled to squelch any finger-pointing over the poor showing of its candidate, Shintaro Ishihara took his first stab Monday at the U.S. following his election to the Tokyo governorship, saying bilateral ties will improve if the U.S. Yokota Air Base is returned or used...
EDITORIALS
Apr 10, 1999

Key defense questions need answers

The House of Representatives Special Committee on Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation is winding down its deliberations on the guidelines legislation. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi is eager to secure passage of the bills in the Lower House before he leaves for the United States later this month...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 10, 1999

Making the grade from the couch

When I think of the wealth of America, I think of its national concern for psychological well-being. People will actually set aside a number of hours each week to talk to therapists or attend group. They will go to court to demand justice for such crimes as "emotional damage" and "acute psychological...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Apr 10, 1999

A keen ear for the voice of the clay

Japanese ceramists often talk of the materials they use as having spirits and souls. A kiln, for instance, has its own kami, and the clay has a voice that if listened to carefully will reveal a shape that has lain dormant for centuries.
CULTURE / Music
Apr 9, 1999

Lo-fi sounds to take you higher

The so-called lo-fi aesthetic that developed in the 1980s among American indie groups like the Replacements wasn't really an aesthetic at all. Independent record labels' hands-off policy had less to do with respect for artistic expression than it did with lack of liquidity.
JAPAN
Apr 8, 1999

Okinawa town ready to accept U.S. Navy site

Staff writer
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Apr 8, 1999

Soaking up the atmosphere enhances the sake experience

Sake pubs tend to have certain similarities of theme running through them. Whether it be a modern expression of these threaded themes or a more classical version, the look, feel and menu are often not all that different. While it all works for a reason, over the last few years there has been a trend...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Apr 7, 1999

I am what I spam

Tom Clancy couldn't have weaved a better web of suspense and intrigue. It had everything: a villain working under a string of shadowy aliases; news hype mixed with general chaos; an FBI manhunt led by expert freelance bloodhounds
JAPAN
Apr 7, 1999

Readers' aid delivered

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Tokyo on Tuesday received a 1.8 million yen contribution to help Kosovo refugees from The Japan Times Readers' Refugees Aid fund.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 7, 1999

Romantics roam the garden

SHARAWADGI: The Romantic Return to Nature, by Ciaran Murray. Introductions by Seamus Deane and Mine Okachi. Bethesda: International Scholars Publications, 1998, 352 pp., unpriced. As Seamus Deane says in his introduction, Ciaran Murray here proposes "a new axis for the intellectual history of the 18th...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 1999

Foreign policy to the fore in Washington

WASHINGTON -- After a year that was unusual, peculiar and unbelievable enough to qualify as one long April Fool's Day, the U.S. government is finally back doing governmental work. It isn't boring, but it is less colorful than the year of Monica et al. We have lost some of our more entertaining characters...
JAPAN
Apr 5, 1999

Narita landowners rattle March 2000 runway target

Landowners battling plans for a second runway at New Tokyo International Airport in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, apparently forced Vice Transport Minister Masahiko Kurono on Monday to suggest scrapping the March 2001 construction deadline if the current impasse cannot be broken.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 1999

The United States is drowning in hubris

Superpowers, like individuals in love, never have to say they are sorry. At least, that seems to be the lesson of U.S. President Bill Clinton's promiscuous use of force overseas.

Longform

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