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EDITORIALS
May 22, 1999

Red alert for the Loonies

There was gloomy news last week in the sphere of international politics -- so gloomy, in fact, that had it not been for Israel's spirited rejection of its most unhelpful prime minister ever, Benjamin ("Turn-the-clock-back Bibi") Netanyahu, monitors of social progress everywhere would now be inconsolable....
JAPAN
May 21, 1999

New runway to come up short; soccer deadline eyed

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 20, 1999

Chiba considers shorter runway

Chiba Prefecture showed understanding Thursday toward the Transport Ministry's tentative plan to build a shorter runway at Narita airport, an alternative to the second runway stalled by opposition from landowners.
EDITORIALS
May 20, 1999

Workers in the new Japan

The change of leadership last week at Nikkeiren, the Japan Federation of Employers' Associations, comes as Japan's worst post-World War II recession is pushing unemployment to an all-time high. It is only natural, therefore, that in his inaugural address, Chairman Hiroshi Okuda, president of Toyota Motor...
JAPAN
May 20, 1999

Big shots endorse plan to rejuvenate manufacturing

To help Japan's ailing manufacturing firms in their restructuring efforts, an advisory panel of government and business leaders endorsed a set of proposals Thursday that include tax cuts to dispose of excess facilities and extended benefits for the unemployed.
COMMUNITY
May 20, 1999

Free university opens doors on a place to open your mind

There's a new and unusual place in Tokyo to learn, grow and have fun -- and it's free. Tokyo Jiyu Daigaku, or Tokyo Free University, has opened its doors for its inaugural year onto subjects ranging from Eastern and Western religion, philosophy and literature, third-world development, creative and spiritual...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 20, 1999

Pinching pennies for a better future — if any

One of the bedrock beliefs that Japanese society has about itself is that everyone belongs to the middle class. This isn't to say pronounced social classes don't exist. A middle-aged woman once expressed to me her fear that her adult daughter would never get married and move out. Since the daughter worked...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
May 19, 1999

Voices in the machine

In the hyperaccelerated world of "news," my topic -- the Littleton, Colo., massacre -- may seem dated. But in living rooms, classrooms, legislatures and, of course, on the Net, the aftershocks are still reverberating
JAPAN
May 19, 1999

Ramsar signatories aim to extend treaty's scope

Staff writer
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 19, 1999

Once more, Chiang Mai

I had a mission in Chiang Mai. Many years ago I bought a reclining black lacquer Burmese Buddha there. It had been gilded but much of the gold had been worn off, probably by the hands of the faithful seeking some special blessing. It has a remarkable face. It changes expression as the viewer moves even...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 19, 1999

Journeying into the valley of death

"Death Valley," noted our guidebook, "is an inhuman environment: barren and monotonous, burning hot and almost entirely without shade or water." In short, the ideal antidote to Japan's rainy season, which is why we went.
JAPAN
May 18, 1999

Volunteers struck by refugees' fortitude

Staff writer
CULTURE / Books
May 18, 1999

Tracing a profile of the new Japan

REGIME SHIFT: Comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy, by T.J. Pempel. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998, 263 pp. I'm confused. On the one hand, we're told Japan has undergone tumultuous change since the beginning of the '90s. The Liberal Democratic Party lost its 38-year-long...
JAPAN
May 18, 1999

Toyota parts affiliates connect in U.K.

In a move to its auto parts operations to Europe, Toyoda Gosei Co. has set up a joint venture with fellow Toyota affiliate Toyota Tsusho Corp. in Rotherham, England, to produce weatherstripping, it announced at a Monday news conference at the British Embassy in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Art
May 16, 1999

Doors of modest home open to lessons of the past

Slide open the door to a two-story wooden house in Tokyo's Ota Ward and enter into the life of an ordinary family in the mid-Showa Era, when people lived in homes with mostly tatami rooms, wooden furniture, traditional cooking tools and fetched their water from a well.
COMMENTARY
May 16, 1999

Does NATO really have justice on its side?

Tokyo is urging Beijing to accept U.S. explanations that the bombing of its Belgrade embassy was a genuine mistake. Maybe it was. But why automatically rule out the possibility it was a devious scheme by rogue hawks in the powerful U.S. military/intelligence machine to encourage China to veto any U.N.-backed...
COMMENTARY
May 16, 1999

Enhancing regional security

In recent months, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi have separately called for the creation of a formal, governmental Northeast Asia Security Forum, to bring key regional states together to discuss common security interests and concerns. Russian President Boris Yeltsin...
CULTURE / Stage
May 15, 1999

Theatre Olympics: Let the performances begin!

High on a mountain top covered with tea bushes in Shizuoka Prefecture, Kim Itoh is dancing his solo piece "Nerve Maze Garden 2" in one of the most aesthetically pleasing venues in Japan. Designed by architect Arata Isozaki as part of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Park, Daendo Hall is a small oval theater...
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 1999

The problem of India's 'untouchables'

It is a great paradox that India, one of the world's oldest democracies, is still unable to eliminate a deep-rooted social problem: the widespread violence and discrimination against the Dalits, a name that means literally "broken" peo ple. The Dalits, or "untouchables," are a segment of Indian society,...
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

Airport to build Narita runway around opponents

The Transport Ministry and the New Tokyo International Airport Authority will soon announce a draft plan to build a 2,000-meter runway at Narita Airport by skirting land owned by runway opponents, sources close to the Transport Ministry said Friday.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

APEC to address crisis prevention

Staff writer
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 1999

Australian pop-rock trio Even battles 'tyranny of distance'

Few Australian bands have managed to gain large audiences and commercial success outside their homeland in the 1990s. Critics down under claim it's the "tyranny of distance," that Australia is simply too far away from the rest of the record-buying world, which keeps many Aussie acts from making it overseas....
LIFE / Travel
May 13, 1999

Nishi-Ogikubo -- waist-high in green

Tokyoites complain about Tokyo: its chaotic haphazardness, its sprawling largeness, its adamant refusal to be beautiful. Like the room of a teenage boy, it keeps accumulating things, things, things. Then everything is kicked under the bed and the boy goes out for a cheeseburger. Tokyoites can only shrug...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 13, 1999

Here and there

Some time ago I wrote about visiting Boeing's Everett factory near Seattle. Now a reader, planning to make his first trip to Seattle, wants to see where the plane he will be flying on was made and asks how he can see the factory.
CULTURE / Books
May 13, 1999

Miyazawa comes to life for young English readers

GAUCHE THE CELLIST; SNOW CROSSING; THE STORY OF THE ZASHIKI BOKKO and Three Poems; THE RESTAURANT OF MANY ORDERS (4 vols. with four CDs and read-along booklet in English and Japanese), by Kenji Miyazawa, translated by Roger Pulvers, illustrated by Osamu Tsukasa. Tokyo: Labo Teaching Information Center,...
JAPAN
May 12, 1999

World electric firms' meeting hosted in Kyoto

KYOTO -- While differing in policy priorities, eight major electric utility firms from six nations acknowledged the need Wednesday to adjust to fast-changing market conditions.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
May 11, 1999

Got those Irish, Delta, Okinawan blues

CELTIC CHARM -- The Chieftains and fiddler Eileen Ivers will perform together and separately in Tokyo this month.
CULTURE / Books
May 11, 1999

Coming of age, piece by piece

NAMAKO: Sea Cucumber, by Linda Watanabe McFerrin. Coffee House Press, 1998, 256 pp., $14.95 (paper). Like the sea cucumber, Ellen, the multicultural 9-year-old narrator of Linda Watanabe McFerrin's delightful first novel, cannot be easily classified. Animal or vegetable? Living and feeling, or merely...
JAPAN
May 10, 1999

Japan warns NATO on China embassy bombing

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka cautioned NATO Monday, saying its accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade has deeply hurt China's prestige.
JAPAN
May 10, 1999

Survivor of child sex abuse, quake recovering in new life

Staff writer

Longform

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick