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EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2000

Don't concede the peace

After 15 days of intense discussions, the Middle East peace talks at Camp David have ended in failure. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat could not agree on the final status of the city of Jerusalem, and broke off negotiations. Both men return home weakened. The failure...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Jul 27, 2000

Memory of a rebel ages well in Californian wine

Sailboats frolicked in the bay like impish elves, rocking lightly in the wake of yachts that cut through the water like dolphins, as the sun slipped out of sight in Sausalito. I was back in this same little haven-by-the-sea in north California, in the Ondine restaurant with good friends, sipping good...
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2000

2000 first-half vehicle output up 4.8% to 5.2 million units

Japanese automakers built 5,172,216 cars, trucks and buses in the first half of 2000, up 4.8 percent from the corresponding period in 1999, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2000

A tale of two protests in Bangkok and Beijing

BANGKOK -- Last week, rural adherents of the Falun Gong movement in China surreptitiously made their way from provincial towns to stage short-lived protests in the heart of Beijing's Tiananmen Square. At the same time in rural Thailand, thousands of Thai peasants boarded trains for Bangkok to take an...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 27, 2000

In search of the real eel deal

The dog days of summer are upon us and, by the Japanese calendar, they will be at their most canine on July 30, ushi no hi. Then, the relentless summer heat and energy-draining humidity call for us to be fortified by sturdy, nutritious fare. And this we find in unagi,the eel.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jul 27, 2000

Wily Putin seduces the world

Josef Stalin hated international travel: He suspected somebody might attempt to kill him. Nikita Khrushchev loved it: He enjoyed shocking foreign hosts with his erratic behavior. Leonid Brezhnev was happy to travel to any country that would give him a new Mercedes as a state gift. Mikhail Gorbachev had...
COMMUNITY
Jul 27, 2000

A social clash of old values and new rules

The number of divorces in Japan, especially among couples who have been married for 20 years or more, has been increasing. According to a survey carried out by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, in 1999 there were a total of 250,538 divorced couples.
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2000

Advisory panel demands schooling for 5-year-olds

The government should let children start their nine-year mandatory education when they turn 5, one year earlier than the current system, according to a draft report drawn up by an advisory panel on education to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 27, 2000

For new sake sensations, seek out the 'brat pack'

After tasting sake for some time, we begin to search for sake we have not yet tried. Of course, we have our favorites, sake we can fall back on and drink any day of the week. And we already know about good, well-publicized sake, be they blue chips such as Kubota or powerful upstarts like Juyondai.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 27, 2000

Obana: Heat got you down? Eel thyself

Obana is certainly not the most illustrious of Tokyo's unagi restaurants. How could it be when most of the flash money lies west of the Ginza, not up in blue-collar Arakawa-ku? But there are plenty of people, especially those of humbler birth, who will go to the grave swearing by the name of their ancestors...
EDITORIALS
Jul 26, 2000

The latest summer hazard

The end of the rainy season has brought the high temperatures and soaring humidity that typify Japanese summers everywhere except at mountain resorts or in Hokkaido. It also brings a risk most people seldom seem to consider: the very real danger of food poisoning.
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2000

Consumer confidence rose slightly in June, EPA reports

The Economic Planning Agency said Tuesday its quarterly survey of consumer confidence showed an improvement in June for the fourth consecutive quarter.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2000

Mourners attend Empress Dowager's funeral

About 1,000 people, including Imperial family members, government officials and foreign dignitaries, attended a Shinto-style funeral Tuesday for the late Empress Dowager at two locations in Tokyo, with the Emperor, her eldest son, as chief mourner.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2000

Female civilians get intro to SDF boot camp

NARASHINO, Chiba Pref. -- The First Airborne Brigade is widely known as Japan's toughest Ground Self-Defense Force unit. But a recent two-day training session for "new recruits" did not appear to be as rigorous as its reputation.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2000

Translation of young soldiers' letters shows other side of war

Two U.S.-based scholars have recently published the first full-scale English version of a longtime Japanese seller, featuring letters written by Japanese student soldiers during World War II.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2000

Replace pre-'90 diesel vehicles, panel urges

A government study group on measures to reduce exhaust emissions from diesel-powered vehicles has compiled a midterm draft proposal calling for the replacement of older vehicles with new models, group sources said Tuesday.
COMMUNITY
Jul 26, 2000

The homesick cycad tree of Myokokuji Temple

On a hot August day last year I took the train and tram to Sakai City in the south of Osaka. I wanted to see the ancient Japanese sago palm (sotetsu, Cycas revoluta), a member of the Cycad family, which grows in the grounds of Myokokuji Temple. The temple was first built in 1562 by a wealthy merchant...
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2000

MMC to update Nagoya factory to produce Z car

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will renovate its Oe factory in Nagoya to launch a new production line in 2002 for a small next-generation vehicle jointly developed with DaimlerChrysler AG, company officials said Tuesday.
LIFE / Digital
Jul 26, 2000

Itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny . . . camera

oceankey.com/cam.htm The surfcam pointing out from the Ocean Key Resort in Key West, Fla., gives glimpses of leisure boats as they make wakes, and then, as it refreshes every couple minutes, makes them disappear. It's a beautiful seascape even on a CRT, but Sleepyspud just can't wake up in time to catch...
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2000

Hiranuma told to oversee revised plan for World Expo

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori instructed Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma on Tuesday to do his utmost so Japan can have its revised plan for the 2005 World Expo in Aichi Prefecture submitted to the Paris-based Bureau of International Expositions in September.
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Jul 26, 2000

Seattles's Best has just joined the rest

It must be something in the water. What else could account for the fact that three of the most popular gourmet coffee chains in Japan originate in Seattle, Wash.? First there was Starbucks, then Tully's and now Seattle's Best Coffee has brought its "pleasing to the palate" brew to Shinjuku, minutes from...
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2000

Tokyo to compensate those poisoned by Suginami waste facility

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will compensate victims of hydrogen sulfide poisoning caused by the operation of a waste-processing facility in Suginami Ward, officials announced Tuesday.
LIFE / Travel
Jul 26, 2000

Summertime and the offshore angling is easy

Summer is here and with it the most exciting angling adventure Japan has to offer -- catching dolphinfish. Not to be confused with the sea mammal of the same name, this is the middle-weight champion of offshore angling. These fish have power, speed and will aggressively strike lures, flies or bait. ...
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2000

Ethics for a turbulent age

There is much justifiable concern in Japan and Britain about rising levels of crime and bad behavior, especially among young people. The responses have been varied, including the usual calls for heavier punishments combined with "zero tolerance" policing. Yet few have much idea how this is to be enforced...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2000

Testing times for Sino-Pakistani friendship

ISLAMABAD -- There was a familiar ring to recent allegations in U.S. newspapers, reportedly based on intelligence sources, that China is continuing to aid Pakistan's plans to build long-range nuclear-capable missiles. It is not the first time such allegations have surfaced in the United States, especially...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2000

Swastikas under the onion domes

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia It is a muggy Wednesday afternoon in the nation's largest Pacific seaport, and as people meander home, a handful of men and boys position themselves around the central square, an asphalt plaza decorated with a monument to the communist revolutionaries who conquered the Far East.
EDITORIALS
Jul 25, 2000

G8 shapes up for a new century

Despite presummit speculation about possible exchanges of views on issues not on the summit agenda, the leaders of the Group of Eight countries generally focused their debates over the past three days on issues contained in the scenario developed by working-level officials. Such speculation had preceded...

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.