Search - about-us

 
 
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

Volcano leaves Lake Toya in limbo

ABUTA, Hokkaido — Lake Toya is silent. The smell of sulfur is heavy in the air.
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2000

Nikkei poised to see more ups than downs

The Tokyo stock market appears to be gathering steam for bursts of high-priced activity in the months ahead.
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2000

Looking for balance

U.S. President Bill Clinton has just concluded his fifth and probably last visit to Moscow. There he held a summit with his Russian counterpart, Mr. Vladimir Putin. As in all such recent meetings, the disparities between the two countries hung over the summit. Leadership dynamics have been added to the...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

Windswept town realizes gusts can be a clean money-spinner

TOMAMAE, Hokkaido — They tower above the ocean on bluffs and farmland, spinning like otherworldly contraptions misplaced on Hokkaido's bucolic coast. But the livestock don't seem to mind.
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2000

Japan's household spending up by 1.3% in April

Japan's household spending increased by a real 1.3 percent in April from a year earlier to average 335,364 yen, the Management and Coordination Agency said Tuesday in a preliminary report.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jun 7, 2000

A beginning

A recent column question dealt with a problem that faces many parents today: Their children have completely lost interest in school. These are often bright, motivated students who are dissatisfied with the system. Foreigners tend to feel that Japanese kids are too occupied, that something is planned...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

Key cult figure gets life term for role in subway gas attack

Aum Shinrikyo's intelligence chief, found guilty of involvement in the March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system and other crimes, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 7, 2000

Fathers just wanna be loved

The pressure builds. Feel it? I sure do. An annual tension that visits late each June and -- for a day at least -- smothers me with stress. The day? Why, the most anxious moment of the year -- Father's Day. What else?
LIFE / Travel
Jun 7, 2000

A magical world of wonder on the urban fringes

Hotaru (fireflies) are one of nature's smaller, yet sublime occurrences. The tiny, 15-mm-long bugs live only two weeks after hatching, but are blessed with phosphorescent rear ends which make clusters of them a captivating sight on summer nights. Their almost-fluorescent glow also ensures the continuation...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

G8 chiefs' wives to pray for peace at memorial

The wives of the leaders of the Group of Eight nations will visit a peace memorial in Okinawa while in the prefecture for the G8 summit slated for July 21-23, government sources said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 7, 2000

Aiding Palestinian refugees aids peace

Fifty years ago this month, the United Nations began a unique humanitarian undertaking that continues today, unknown to most of the world, but still critically important to nearly 4 million Palestine refugees -- and to the cause of peace. There is no larger group of refugees anywhere else in the world;...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

Drag racing finds new meaning with plow horses

ASAHIKAWA, Hokkaido — Skirting a fresh pile of manure, I settle in behind the well-muscled, veiny flanks of a Banei racehorse.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 7, 2000

Irrational tomatoes and criminal turnips

What do Abraham Lincoln, Dark Purple Beefsteak, a Giant Belgian and the Earl of Edgecombe have in common?
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 7, 2000

Chip off the new block

Bill Gates has argued throughout the U.S. government's antitrust suit against his company that Microsoft had to be aggressive because the slightest hesitation or complacency would jeopardize its status. Technology is moving so fast, he claims, that his empire could collapse tomorrow.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2000

Mori denies that 'kokutai' carries Imperial connotations

Gaffe-prone Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday defended his use of the term "kokutai," which referred to a national polity centering on the Emperor before and during World War II, and said he has no plans to retract it.
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2000

Failed LTCB reopens itself as Shinsei Bank

The Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan relaunched itself as Shinsei Bank on Monday, about 19 months after it collapsed and was placed under state control.
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2000

Seven parties election pledges released

Election pledges presented by seven major political parties show that the ruling and opposition blocs differ markedly on fiscal policies, the taxation system and ways to finance social security schemes.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2000

Sansei documentarian brings internees' stories to Japan

Kasumi Yamashita is a nisei studying at Hitotsubashi University in suburban Tokyo on a yearlong research grant.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2000

NPOs key to revitalizing nation, union chief says

Political leaders can mitigate the country's record-high jobless rate and help solve other important national problems by generating citizens' power in the field of grassroots businesses, according to the president of the Japanese Workers' Cooperative Union.
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2000

Market clear of latest correctional phase

The Tokyo stock market has crawled out of a corrective phase, with the key market indexes recouping much of their recent losses.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 6, 2000

Diplomat to a bygone era

A DIPLOMAT IN JAPAN, by Ernest Satow. New York/Tokyo: ICG Muse, Inc., 2000, 424 pp., 1,300 yen. This is a welcome reissue of the long-out-of-print 1921 edition of Ernest Satow's memoirs. Its contents are indicated in his original subtitle: "The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 6, 2000

Inspecting society's 'little people'

Ever since the first performance of Nikolai Gogol's "The Inspector" took place on April 19, 1836, Russia and the world have been fascinated by Khlestakov, a character in the play who poses as a government inspector and gets away with murder.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2000

U.S. utilities target mammoth Japanese market

KANSAS CITY, Kansas -- U.S. utilities are paying close attention to Japan's $150 billion electricity market, where rates are high, monolithic utilities unready for competition and rival competitors virtually nonexistent.
OLYMPICS
Jun 5, 2000

JASF backtracks over Chiba

The Japan Amateur Swimming Federation indicated Saturday that it may not, after all, agree to the Court of Arbitration for Sport handling the appeal of Suzu Chiba over her omission for the Japanese Olympic swimming team.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2000

Ultrasound machines are breaking all barriers

A new class of miniaturized, all-digital ultrasound devices is about to be introduced in Japan by SonoSite Inc., promising to improve patient care and dramatically cut costs for medical facilities nationwide.

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.