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EDITORIALS
Nov 13, 1999

Ending the politics of money

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has done the right thing in overriding objections from his own party to the ban on donations to individual politicians from firms and other interest groups. His decision, first unveiled in a meeting with opposition party heads Wednesday, paves the way for the enactment of...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Nov 13, 1999

A cynic's guide to survival

For a writer, Russia is a treasure trove. It generates the most improbable story lines, the characters it harbors make Hollywood action heroes seem anemic, and its history is a thrilling mixture of triumph and tragedy. The country has seen the apostle Andrew and Adolf Hitler, Emperor Napoleon and Mongol...
JAPAN
Nov 11, 1999

Government unveils 18 trillion yen stimulus

The government unveiled an 18 trillion yen economic stimulus package Thursday that it hopes will put the economy on a full recovery track in the second half of fiscal 2000.
JAPAN
Nov 11, 1999

Nichiei chief admits some collectors 'heavy-handed'

Nichiei Co. President Kazuo Matsuda on Thursday admitted that some employees might have been extremely heavy-handed in trying to collect on loans and apologized for causing trouble to the public.
EDITORIALS
Nov 10, 1999

Cracking down on loan sharks

Japan's continuing credit squeeze is turning the spotlight onto small-business loans from commercial moneylenders -- so-called "shoko" (commerce and industry) loans that carry extremely high interest rates because they require no collateral, only a third-party guarantee. To collect loans, the lenders...
JAPAN
Nov 10, 1999

Health Minister defends nursing-care plan

Neither the principles nor the framework of the government-proposed nursing-care insurance system have been altered, Health and Welfare Minister Yuya Niwa asserted Wednesday.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 10, 1999

Putting Japan on the psychologist's couch

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY IN JAPAN: Behind the Nails That Sometimes Stick Out (and Get Hammered Down), edited by Ofer Feldman. Commack, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers, 1999, 340 pp., (cloth). Political psychology is a tricky business. Plain old psychology is difficult enough, digging down as it does in the...
JAPAN
Nov 9, 1999

'Shoko' loan rates attract LDP scrutiny

The Liberal Democratic Party said Tuesday it will review the legal limits of interest rates for commercial lending in order to rein in operators of high-interest "shoko" loan businesses.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 1999

Coalition's nursing care rift on the mend

Staff writer
JAPAN
Nov 5, 1999

State unveils measures to slash nursing-care burden

The government formally announced a set of measures Friday aimed at reducing the financial burden on people under a planned public nursing care system to be launched in April.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 1999

NTT pair held over suspected data leak to leftists

Two NTT employees were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of helping members of a leftist extremist group illegally obtain information on members of a rival faction, police officials said.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 2, 1999

This poetic chameleon wore khaki

SHREDDING THE TAPESTRY OF MEANING: The Poetry and Poetics of Kitasono Katsue (1902-1978), by John Solt. Harvard University Asia Center, 1999, 395 pp., $49.50. On Jan. 4, 1942, less than a month after Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor, Katsue Kitazono -- the spelling that John Solt gives the name in "Shredding...
COMMUNITY
Oct 22, 1999

Creator of offbeat manga happy to break the rules

Manga artist Sekaiichi Asakura has three types of fans: Those who enjoy his work purely for the humor; those who read philosophy and world religion into his comic strips; and those who claim that they are as weird as him.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Oct 20, 1999

The comfort of strangers

"Susunu Denpa Shonen," which airs every Sunday night on NTV, has become a bona fide phenomenon partly by tweaking noses and partly by joining hands -- call it cynicism cut with altruism
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Oct 19, 1999

The 'Moscow Blues Monster' seen rocking Tokyo's streets

For Yuji and Tatsuya it was just another night at Club Metro in Kyoto -- sinking tequila shots, fretting over the future of their jazz band and occasionally taking to the floor to shake their booty to the bouncy bossanova beats blasting from the sound system -- when in walked that girl again.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Oct 15, 1999

Tell JB to get a new bag -- this girl's got her own funk

Takako Minekawa is a sound nerd.
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 1999

A resounding win for Mr. Vajpayee

Political stability has been a rare commodity in India of late. In the last three years, the country has had five governments and three general elections. The cycle seems to have been broken in the national elections held five weeks ago, however. As the final results come in, it looks as if Mr. Atal...
JAPAN
Sep 28, 1999

ITS systems expo opens in Ikebukuro today

The U.S. Embassy will hold ITS Japan '99, a trade seminar for promoting intelligent transportation systems, at the U.S. Trade Center in Ikebukuro in Tokyo's Toshima Ward today and Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 1999

Pakistan's Sharif fights for his political life

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif faces a rising political storm in his nuclear-capable country, just halfway through his five-year term in office. The significance of Pakistan's worsening political environment has been noted by the United States, which has campaigned for over a year...
COMMUNITY
Sep 23, 1999

A woman on the narrow road

One might not imagine that Lesley Downer -- author of books on Basho's travels, Japan's richest family and now geisha -- started out in the culinary arena.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Sep 22, 1999

Where the women are

No presses need to be stopped to inform you of the growing number of women on the Internet in Japan. And the sizes of our headlines won't increase to tell you that number will continue to rise steadily, if not dramatically, over the next few years
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Sep 22, 1999

Borrowing scenery for a lord's lagoon

A short distance from the center of Wakayama City, on an inlet very close to the sea, is a flat piece of land called Suiken, where a well-preserved daimyo garden known as Yosui-en stands.
JAPAN
Sep 17, 1999

Obuchi calls for loosening limits on SDF deployments

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said on Friday that he would seek to lift legal restrictions so that Japan can fully participate in U.N. peacekeeping operations, in an extraordinary Diet session expected to begin in October.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 16, 1999

Indigo, a color to dye for

It's hard not to associate tie-dye with an image of long-haired grass-smoking, free-lovin', barefoot hippies dancing around in colorful dyed shirts and long skirts to the clang of a "far out" tambourine beat.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Sep 15, 1999

The family that surfs together ...

There is something mildly unsettling about the cyberpolice's fixation with child pornography. At the Internet Content Summit, held last week in Munich and hosted by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, kiddie porn was repeatedly denounced by participants. To judge from the general tone of the comments, it embodied...
JAPAN
Sep 14, 1999

RCC to buy collateralized land on the cheap

The state-run Resolution and Collection Corp. has decided to buy real estate put up as collateral for loans that soured from 35 financial institutions at one-twentieth combined book value.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 1999

Analysis: Kan's fading star may reflect DPJ's fate

Staff writers
JAPAN
Sep 8, 1999

Volunteers describe carnage in East Timor

Volunteers who arrived in Tokyo from East Timor earlier this week told their stories Wednesday of pro-Indonesia militias going on rampages, disturbing the voting in an independence referendum, torching homes and shooting civilians in the violence-torn province.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Sep 1, 1999

Defying changes

Volunteer organizations come and go, often depending on who runs them. Many times a group will cease to exist when the person who held it together leaves Japan. Fortunately, there are still many people who give their time to volunteer organizations. Their number, however, has decreased as more professional...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 1999

Buddhist riffs that are and aren't poetry

For some time now, the trappings (if not the tenets) of Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy have been making their way into the popular Western consciousness.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan