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LIFE / Travel
Aug 9, 2000

Kyoto welcomes back the dear departed

Bon, the Buddhist Festival of the Dead, is celebrated throughout Japan, but exact dates vary from region to region. Kyoto traditionally observes Bon Aug. 7-16, and, not surprisingly, given its more than 1,200 years of history and strong Buddhist traditions, the town has some unique ways of paying tribute...
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Japan proposes Australia, New Zealand join bluefin-tuna hunt

Japan will propose to Australia and New Zealand that the three countries jointly fish for southern bluefin tuna for research purposes following an international tribunal's rejection last week of a plea by Canberra and Wellington for Japan to halt experimental fishing, Fisheries Agency officials said...
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Narita security guards accused of beating detained foreigners

Foreigners who are refused entry to Japan at Narita airport have been the subject of violent attacks from security guards with a private company who are forcing them to hand over expenses to cover the cost of guarding them, as well as for their meals and accommodation, until they are deported, a former...
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2000

Deflationary concerns nearly gone, Bank of Japan says

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami crept another inch closer to lifting the central bank's "zero-interest-rate" policy Monday by telling the Diet "an end to deflationary concerns is foreseeable."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2000

Recognizing Japan's key role in Asia

U.S. policymakers seem to have given up on Japan, laments Michael Green, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The exasperation is premature, Green says, for by most yardsticks, Japan is more important to U.S. interests than is China. This is important as U.S. Republicans choose...
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Rightists kill two gangsters in central Tokyo shooting

Two gangsters were shot and killed and five others were injured, one seriously, during a flareup in a rightist group's office Monday afternoon in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Mori, Kuze still disagree over money given to Daikyo

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori continued to differ Monday with former Financial Reconstruction Commission chief Kimitaka Kuze over the use of 100 million yen provided by condominium developer Daikyo Inc.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Aug 8, 2000

The Bush machine rolls along

WASHINGTON -- There are three defining events for a candidate in the U.S. presidential campaign, events that reveal the candidate in a unique and important way. They are the selection of the vice-presidential candidate, the candidate's appearance at the convention, and the debates.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2000

White guys to the rescue

OUTPOSTS OF CIVILIZATION: Race, Religion and the Formative Years of American-Japanese Relations, by Joseph M. Henning. New York and London: New York University Press, 2000, 243 pp., $35 (cloth). U.S. foreign policy has a mission. Many American politicians or diplomats would be proud rather than hesitant...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2000

Japan's media watchdog is a lap dog

CLOSING THE SHOP: Information Cartels and Japan's Mass Media, by Laurie Anne Freeman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, 256 pp. $39.50 (cloth). This excellent book lays bare the mechanisms of the information cartels in Japan that prop up the state, insulate the elite from sustained critical...
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2000

Keidanren, Nikkeiren verging on merger

The Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) and the Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren) will soon start drawing up detailed plans to merge the two groups, Keidanren Chairman Takashi Imai said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2000

Information law loaded with perils

A government panel is now fleshing out a blueprint for basic legislation designed to protect personal information held by public and private organizations -- information that makes it possible to identify the individuals involved, such as depositors lists held by banks. It is, in principle, necessary...
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2000

'New breed' of woman emerges in Japan

Two weeks after Sakae Sasaki decided to open a cake shop in Tokyo's Meguro Ward in 1996, she realized she was pregnant.
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2000

Magnitude 7.3 quake thumps Ogasawara Islands

An earthquake measuring a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 hit the Ogasawara Islands south of Tokyo on Sunday afternoon, jolting large areas in eastern and northeastern Japan, the Meteorological Agency said.
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2000

Lawson recalls 7,700 'bento'

OSAKA -- Convenience store chain operator Lawson Inc. said it was recalling 7,700 box lunches from its stores in Osaka and Hyogo prefectures in western Japan following complaints from customers.
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2000

If Europe can unify currency, why can't Southeast Asia?

The Southeast Asian economy has reportedly found the path to recovery after being crippled by the regional financial crisis of 1997.
COMMUNITY
Aug 7, 2000

Dieters take lesson from diabetics

In the health-food section of many major department stores, large quantities of boil-bag diabetic meals have become a familiar sight. Recently the meals have been selling well, but sales are being boosted not by diabetes sufferers, but by healthy women in their 20s and 30s who want to lose weight.
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2000

Laissez faire destroys itself

The market economy is akin to nature. Government intervention in the market is comparable to the destruction of the natural environment and should be avoided. Nature untouched by the human hand is great. The fury of the elements dwarfs human power. Essentially, that is the opinion of free-market advocates,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 7, 2000

Muslims under fire in Russian Far East

PETROPAVLOSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia -- When Usman Usmanov laid the cornerstone of the first mosque in the Russian Far East last summer, he was thrilled to see the start of a spiritual center for 30,000 Muslims in the Kamchatka region.
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2000

Updating the nuclear debate

LONDON -- Appearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary William Cohen has confirmed that he and his colleagues see the threat to the United States of long-range missile attack as growing. The intention to develop a national missile defense system against is therefore still...
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2000

Marist headmaster inspired by nation's morals, quake ordeal

KOBE -- What is behind Japanese people's moral behavior remains a mystery to Brother George Fontana, although he has spent 11 years here as headmaster of Marist Brothers International School in Suma Ward.
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2000

Seibu mulls business tieup with Sogo

Seibu Department Stores Ltd. is considering a wide-ranging business tieup with collapsed Sogo Co. in a move that could lead to a merger and herald an era of retail industry realignment, industry sources said Saturday.

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.