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LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Oct 20, 1999

The comfort of strangers

"Susunu Denpa Shonen," which airs every Sunday night on NTV, has become a bona fide phenomenon partly by tweaking noses and partly by joining hands -- call it cynicism cut with altruism
JAPAN
Oct 20, 1999

Ford hints Nedcar may drop MMC platforms

MAKUHARI, Chiba Pref. -- The fate of Nedcar, the Netherlands-based joint venture between Volvo Car Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., became clearer Wednesday as Ford Motor Co.'s chief executive officer indicated Mitsubishi's platforms may be dropped.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 20, 1999

Trying times for bees

VANCOUVER, Canada -- For millions of years, honeybees have been doing what they do best -- transforming the nectar from blossoms into thick, sweet honey. Since the development of agriculture, they have also been ensuring that the pollination necessary for the production of the world's fruits and vegetables...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 20, 1999

Nature scenes pure eye Kandy

If you visit the Sri Lanka hill capital of Kandy and fall in love, be content. You are in illustrious company.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Oct 20, 1999

A bit perturbed

This morning I had a phone call. I'm busy, he said, I just have a few minutes between meetings but I desperately need your help. Well, I was busy too, but I listened. His wife taught at a university, he said. School officials had been wanting her to resign. She is 58 years old. She had, he said, been...
LIFE / Travel
Oct 20, 1999

Apimondia: all abuzz about bees

The white sails of the Vancouver Trade and Convention Center were a beehive of activity Sept. 12 to 18, as nearly 3,000 scientists and beekeepers from around the world converged in Vancouver for a huge international beekeeping congress.
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 1999

Now it is up to Pyongyang

There were hopes, a few years ago, that North Korea might just quietly implode, as the Soviet Union did, then be absorbed by its neighbor to the south. The hermetic state was on the brink of mass starvation, created by economic mismanagement and compounded by nature's caprice. The government in Pyongyang...
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1999

JCO president apologizes to lawmakers

Looking pale and worn and sitting with his head bowed, the president of JCO Co. on Tuesday appeared before Diet members and repeatedly apologized for the nuclear accident 19 days earlier that was Japan's worst.
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1999

New bank-rescue plan would relieve depositors

An advisory panel to the finance minister on Tuesday said that healthy banks should be brought in to buy failed banks after a revised deposit protection system takes effect in April 2001.
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1999

Japan's biggest nonlife insurer scheduled for 2002

Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Nippon Fire & Marine Insurance Co. and Koa Fire & Marine Insurance Co. formally announced Tuesday they will form a holding company by April 2002 to create the nation's largest nonlife insurer.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 19, 1999

Japan searches for status, finds only frustration

JAPAN'S QUEST FOR A PERMANENT SECURITY COUNCIL SEAT: A Matter of Pride or Justice?, by Reinhard Drifte. MacMillan Press, St. Antony's Series, 1999, 269 pp., 47.50 British pounds. From the day Japan surrendered to end World War II, its leaders have sought to rehabilitate the country and restore its prewar...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 19, 1999

Simple testimony to tragedy

COMFORT WOMAN, A Filipina's Story of Prostitution and Slavery under the Japanese Military, by Maria Rosa Henson, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., Lanham, MD, USA, 1999, 120 pages, $19.95 (paper). Here is yet another witness to World War II atrocities committed by Japanese forces. Maria Rosa Henson...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Oct 19, 1999

The 'Moscow Blues Monster' seen rocking Tokyo's streets

For Yuji and Tatsuya it was just another night at Club Metro in Kyoto -- sinking tequila shots, fretting over the future of their jazz band and occasionally taking to the floor to shake their booty to the bouncy bossanova beats blasting from the sound system -- when in walked that girl again.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 19, 1999

An unnerving glance into the abyss

DESTROYING THE WORLD TO SAVE IT: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism, by Robert Jay Lifton. Holt/Metropolitan, 374 pp., $26. A prominent scholar in the psychology of genocide has good and bad news for those who feel paranoid about random, mass killings by fanatics:
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1999

Officials of seven oil firms held in bid-rigging scandal

Nine officials of seven leading oil wholesalers were arrested Tuesday for allegedly rigging bids on fuel contracts with the Defense Agency, according to prosecution sources.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

Kajima trash plant turns leftovers into electricity

Major construction firm Kajima Corp. announced Monday that it has succeeded in building a facility that can generate electricity directly from leftover food and other organic waste.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

Illegal workers, families petition Justice Ministry

A group of foreign nationals who have remained in Japan past the expiration of their visas submitted a petition to the Justice Ministry on Monday, urging the ministry to issue special permission for them to stay in Japan.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

Nissan Motor to cut five factories, 21,000 jobs

Nissan Motor Co. revealed Monday a drastic restructuring plan that includes closing five factories and slashing 21,000 jobs worldwide.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

A dream to revive the woolly mammoth

Staff writer
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

ANA ordered to take back dismissed stewardess

OSAKA -- All Nippon Airways was ordered Monday by the Osaka District Court to rescind its decision to dismiss a female flight attendant who had taken four years off due to work-related injuries.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

Usui to monitor Dow's effect

The Finance Ministry intends to keep a careful watch on how Friday's plunge in the New York stock market could affect the Japanese economy, Vice Finance Minister Nobuaki Usui said Monday.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

Global sports body promotes 'sacred unity'

Staff writer
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 1999

First bigger, then better

Another Japanese megabank is in the making. Sumitomo Bank and Sakura Bank have just agreed to merge by April 2002, which will create the world's second-largest banking group, with assets of about 99 trillion yen. Earlier this year, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan announced...
JAPAN
Oct 15, 1999

Groups host Canada education fair

An education fair will be held at the Canadian Embassy today and Sunday in Tokyo's Akasaka district. The fair will be the first sponsored by the Canadian Education Centre Network in conjunction with the Canadian Education Alliance, two nonprofit organizations officially supported by the embassy.
EDITORIALS
Oct 15, 1999

The shortsighted U.S. Senate

The United States Senate this week voted down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This is the first time since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 that the Senate has rejected a major international agreement. We can only hope that the results of this shortsighted move will not be as great. Still, the vote...
JAPAN
Oct 15, 1999

Aoki sees coalition gaining public support

Staff writer
JAPAN
Oct 15, 1999

Convenience stores in race for Y2K compliance

Staff writer
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Oct 15, 1999

Tell JB to get a new bag -- this girl's got her own funk

Takako Minekawa is a sound nerd.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 14, 1999

Megawati has lost her way

HONG KONG -- Indonesia faces a more profound immediate national crisis than India or Japan -- but all three face the same basic political problem: They badly need an effective ruling coalition. In New Delhi and Tokyo, a coalition government is in place. In Jakarta, it isn't.
JAPAN
Oct 14, 1999

Obuchi, Arafat pledge to work for peace

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and visiting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reaffirmed Thursday that they will cooperate to ensure peace in the Middle East.

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it