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BUSINESS
Aug 15, 2001

ATM boom reflects banks' struggle for survival

Automated teller machines are reaching deeper into your neighborhood, offering a range of services, including some that are unprecedented in Japan.
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jul 29, 2001

Patrons of the arts and the vine

Wine and the arts belong together. In cafes from Vienna to New York, there's a tradition of poets, painters, composers and their cronies huddling around tables, where carafes of wine inspire debate, revolutions and love affairs. The food is simple, and the wines are rarely expensive. Yet the conversation,...
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2001

Coming out at the workplace the next big challenge for gays

During a party celebrating his election to a Tokyo ward assembly in April 1999, the candidate was being congratulated by supporters, as were his parents, who were hailed as the biggest contributors to the successful campaign.
BUSINESS
Jun 27, 2001

State aims to spur telecom joust

The government will set up a study panel next month to ponder steps to enhance competition in the telecom market, Toranosuke Katayama, minister for public management, home affairs, posts and telecommunications, said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Jun 14, 2001

Amazon Japan adds video tapes, CDs, DVDs

The Japanese unit of Amazon.com announced Wednesday its expansion to sell compact discs, digital versatile discs and video tapes, but said there was no sign of the company making a profit yet.
JAPAN
May 25, 2001

Cabinet to reach out via e-mail magazine

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, basking in record approval ratings, hopes to score another hit with a weekly Cabinet e-mail magazine.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 13, 2001

Don't take China so seriously

These days China is always in the news. If it's not the U.S. spy-plane incident, then it's Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics or the Chinese Communist Party's human-rights record or Beijing's bullying of Taiwan. After decades of condescending reporting on China, the international media is finally starting...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 7, 2001

A bibliophile's whodunit: Who is killing the book?

Who is killing the book in Japan? That is the provocative question posed by veteran nonfiction writer Shin'ichi Sano in his recent book of the same title ("Dare ga 'hon' o korosu no ka," President Sha, 1,800 yen).
BUSINESS
Mar 30, 2001

Microsoft, NTT unit link up on Xbox

Microsoft Corp. and NTT Communications Corp. said Thursday they have formed a strategic alliance to develop and provide broadband online game services for Microsoft's Xbox home video game machine.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2001

Bush's crash course in global diplomacy

U.S. President George W. Bush has just concluded a crash course in Northeast Asian politics. In the past three weeks, he has hosted South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen. Now Bush has to make sense of those visits, digest the various messages...
LIFE / Digital
Mar 7, 2001

Bluetooth hopes to deliver 'new dimension in wireless technology'

Can't get enough of the Internet at your home and office?
COMMENTARY
Feb 4, 2001

Globalization's saddest victim

LONDON -- I wish to draw to your attention a group of workers who are in a sorry plight. The use of their skills is in decline; where once they commanded our attention, they are now held in low esteem; the buildings in which they once worked are half deserted; their future does not look good. It is,...
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2001

Mr. Kim's tutorial

Mr. Kim Jong Il's "secret" trip to China was one of the worst-kept secrets in recent history. Although the Chinese government refused to officially confirm the visit by the reclusive North Korean leader, the news was out as soon as Mr. Kim's special train crossed the border into China last week. If much...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 25, 2000

World fisheries collapsing as technology and demand soar

As this is the season of giving, here is a gift, a riddle:
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Dec 20, 2000

Real democracy, anyone?

Have we learned our lesson in democracy? God forbid anyone should ever weasel out of voting again with the claim that their ballot doesn't count, that it doesn't make a difference. There is almost no way the margin in the U.S. vote could have been narrower, and with the divisions elsewhere in the country,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Dec 17, 2000

No place for tainted symbols

The Soviet Union is dead; long live the Soviet Union. This seems to be the current mood in the corridors of power in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has persuaded the Parliament to restore the Soviet anthem as Russia's national hymn and the czarist red banner, which was used in Soviet times...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 24, 2000

Exhibit showcases U.K. sound design

"Sound Design: U.K. Music and Graphic Design," an event organized by the British Council, will present an overview of music industry design in Britain from the '60s to the present day.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Nov 2, 2000

The closest U.S. presidential election in 40 years

WASHINGTON --The latest polls show that the U.S. presidential candidates are very close, with a slight edge for Texas Gov. George W. Bush. The Electoral College is also evenly divided, although Vice President Al Gore had maintained a small advantage for weeks. Now it is also within the statistical margins...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 23, 2000

Clock tolls for environmental action

Mika Suzuki may not be a professional designer, but her keen eye and concern about the environment recently won her the top prize in a Tokyo eco-design contest.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Aug 30, 2000

Architects reach for the sky

www.geocities.com/PicketFence/5192/ The address above is actually a really nice metaphor. The "picket fence" it refers to is the chain formed by the world's tallest buildings. Add "center_of_india.html" to the end of the address and take a look at an artist's rendering of what some day might be the...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Aug 22, 2000

Shang Shang Typhoon blowing back in to devastate main islands

At the start of the 1990s, when "world music" became a generally accepted term, some Japanese started to look at themselves and wonder what their own country had to offer -- not only in Japan but to the rest of the world.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2000

The targeting of a journalistic pariah

Despite an abundance of wives and concubines, ancient Israel's King David bedded another man's wife. The prophet Nathan condemned David with the parable of a rich man who ignored his own flocks to seize a poor man's lamb (2 Samuel 12:1-4). So it is with leftwing activists who lobby for the firing of...
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2000

Bangalore emerges as Asia's high-tech hub

BANGALORE, India -- At a recent roadshow for India's Karnataka state, one proud exhibit was a slide of the cover of Newsweek's issue of Nov. 9, 1998, showing a list of the world's "hottest tech cites." The magazine had chosen 10, of which only two were in Asia -- Singapore and Bangalore, Karnataka's...
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Jul 16, 2000

When dream makers walk among us

Socrates' bestial laugh washes into the cosmic map where Blake digs with his spade and Sam stands bathed in the sparks of his youth Among colored shapes, Sam embraces the warmest softest things a woman's spirit in the shape of clouds in the shape of foam in the shape of a womb The white space of the...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jul 9, 2000

Take a chance

Here is a quick summary of some of the activities that are available as you look for ways to fill what should be, but rarely are, the less demanding summer months.
COMMUNITY
Jun 11, 2000

Cybird flies big plans for mobile Net future

Kazutomo Robert Hori It came as a very pleasant surprise when an old friend rang from Osaka to tell me that her son's business had taken off like a rocket. The last time I saw Robert was at his wedding seven years ago -- a spectacular if crazy event held on top of a mountain in Hiroshima Prefecture....
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2000

Ambivalence, hope greet Korean summit

YANJI, China -- When Eun-byol crossed the Tumen River from North Korea into China three years ago, she was nearly bald from malnutrition after subsisting on a diet of grass and bark mixed with an occasional spoonful of rice.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.