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JAPAN
Dec 22, 2000

DPJ to seek 30% cut in public works spending

Executives of the Democratic Party of Japan adopted a pledge Thursday to seek a 30 percent cut in public works expenditures over five years in the runup to next summer's House of Councilors election.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 21, 2000

Mounting problems to test Cambodia's new 'stability'

PHNOM PENH -- They fought with guns and bombast during a civil war, a U.N. peacekeeping mission, an election, a coup, another election -- and every free moment in between. For most of the past two years, the followers of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh have cooperated in...
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

120 nations sign treaty targeting top toxic threats

In a recent set of marathon talks that went down to -- and past -- the wire, delegates from more than 120 countries hashed out the first international treaty designed to eliminate some of the world's most toxic chemicals.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 19, 2000

Ordinary life made transcendent

EVENING CLOUDS: A Novel, by Junzo Shono, translated by Wayne P. Lammers. Stone Bridge Press, 2000, 222 pp., $12.95. I remember being startled when I read Wayne Lammers' translation for the first time. That was when, back in 1985, I was reading for review the two-volume "Showa Anthology," a collection...
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Dec 17, 2000

Speaking to both the eye and the ear

Poet Keiichi Nakamura first wrote tanka, and then composed monotype lithographs after graduating from the University of Sapporo. Later he created collages in which he explored the fusion of poetry with images.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 14, 2000

Network crusades for dogs in distress

If the pope were to visit Yokohama, he would have to consider Kiyoto Kitaura for sainthood, for the modern-day St. Francis is nothing short of a godsend to animals in need.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 13, 2000

Book bites

MANGEKYO/KALEIDOSCOPE: Modern Senryu with English Versions, translated by Okada Hideo and Adrian Pinnington, boxed cards, XYLO Co. Ltd., 2000, 3,150 yen (+200 yen postage). This is a most unusual and attractive publication, consisting of four dozen short poems printed in Japanese on separate cards, with...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 10, 2000

Filling in the contours of a changing world

Sometimes people are disappointed with the quality of exhibitions visiting Japan, but there are no reservations about the superb drawings now at the Tobu Museum of Art.
COMMUNITY
Dec 10, 2000

Iron chef champ's book hailed best in the world

One of Katsuyo Kobayashi's strengths is that she is 100 percent reliable. With 140 books published to date, even the most inept cook can take home her latest compilation of recipes and come up trumps every time. Not only are they easy to make, good to eat and affordable, but joy of joys, some are now...
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 2000

Mr. Fox gets down to business

Mexico's new president, Mr. Vicente Fox, has wasted no time in getting down to business. During the campaign, he promised sweeping change. The Mexican people believed him, voting him into office in a historic election. In his inaugural address last week, Mr. Fox stuck to his theme of renewal. But the...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 3, 2000

The cutting edge of sound and vision

For some, myself included, the U.K. Sound Design exhibition, held Nov. 23-27 at the Ground in Harajuku, was a stroll down memory lane. Organized by the British Council in Japan, the show assembled record sleeves from seminal British designers of the last 30 years. Seeing many old records that had made...
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 2, 2000

Movement at its purest

The only international production in the dance section of the continuing Tokyo Festival of Performing Arts turned out to be a heavyweight contender, a collaboration betweentwo of the German dancers and choreographers who, with Pina Bausch, have formed the representative triangle of German dance for the...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 2, 2000

Concert to raise funds for seeing-eye dogs

The St. David's Welsh Society is presenting its 14th annual Christmas Charity Concert 5 p.m. Dec. 3 at the Imperial Hotel.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 29, 2000

Pilgrimage to Chiba's stone daibutsu

KYONAN, Chiba Pref. -- Finding the perfect, companionable Buddha can become an obsession. Foreigners living in Asia are often struck by this calm, enlightened face; its features contrast sharply with the figures of Western religious art and their often contrived depictions of the ecstasy of Christian...
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2000

Agency drafts new rules for 'green' reports from firms

The Environment Agency on Tuesday released a draft for overhauling its environmental reporting guidelines to help a growing number of corporations publish their environmental reports under a standardized format.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 19, 2000

Chris Ishikawa

A new cookbook has recently been published by the Yokohama International Women's Club. Titled "Food for Furoshiki," it has been compiled from an unusual and interesting angle.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 18, 2000

Hara celebrates new facelift with show of Zhou Teihai

Two developments this autumn serve to illustrate both what is good and what is bad about the current condition of the Japanese contemporary art scene.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 15, 2000

The yellow (or white or blue) treasure of Kaliningrad

Monopoly is not a word you would naturally associate with Kaliningrad. Yet the tiny Russian enclave possesses a remarkable -- and entirely natural -- one: amber. Ninety percent of the world's commercial amber comes from just one site, the open-pit amber quarry at Yantarny on Kaliningrad's Baltic coast....
CULTURE / Books
Nov 15, 2000

Textbooks in the service of the state

CENSORING HISTORY: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United States, edited by Laura Hein and Mark Selden. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 301 pp., $24.95. History loomed over the recent visit of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji like a threatening storm cloud. But other than some scattered...
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Nov 15, 2000

A democratic farce

www.infoplease.com/spot/closerace1.html Infoplease goes all the way back to the 1876 election to explain what happened the last time the U.S. Constitution overruled U.S. voters. As in last week's presidential race, the voters elected the Democratic candidate only to see their government overturn their...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 15, 2000

The secretive rabbits of Amami

Hunting rabbits is something I have only ever done on one island. When I say hunting, I don't mean with a gun; I mean armed with a spotlight, binoculars and notebook. The rabbits I hunt stay alive. That's rather crucial, because I am talking about the rabbits to be found marooned on an isolated island...
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2000

Through a glass creatively

"Truly, though our element is time," said the English poet Philip Larkin, "we are not suited to the long perspectives/ Open at each instant of our lives./ They link us to our losses."
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Catching Dolly Varden trout in Hokkaido's Churui River

After quickly catching my daily limit of pink salmon during a recent fishing trip to eastern Hokkaido's Churui River, I spent the next couple of hours pursuing smaller game, the oshorokoma, Japan's little native Dolly Varden char. This is a fish that makes up in looks and spunk what it lacks in size....
CULTURE / Books
Nov 7, 2000

From great fiction, more fiction still

THE TALE OF MURASAKI: A Novel, by Liza Dalby. Doubleday, 2000, 424 pp., $25.95. What if the author of "The Tale of Genji" had written an autobiography and it had remained undiscovered until now? What would it be like?
CULTURE / Music
Nov 5, 2000

Long live the rock 'n' roll animals

A rock musician flaunts his intellect at his own peril, which is why Lou Reed is more of a survivor than his tired rep as the droning voice of the New York demimonde would have you believe. It's been almost 20 years since he started heads a-scratchin' with "My House," his ode to Delmore Schwartz who...

Longform

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