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JAPAN
Apr 15, 1999

WTO to get Tokyo complaint on U.S. law in May

Staff writer
JAPAN
Apr 15, 1999

LDP, New Komeito look to soften blow to Finance Ministry

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito were close to striking a compromise deal Thursday over whether -- and how -- to strip the Finance Ministry of its policymaking power, officials of the two parties said.
JAPAN
Apr 15, 1999

60 coalition members set up study group

Aiming at increasing their presence within the Liberal Democratic Party-Liberal Party coalition, some 60 members of the two parties jointly established a new study group Thursday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 15, 1999

Japanese women say single life fine — if they're financially independent

Some say that '70s feminism began its fall from grace in 1986 when a study claimed that a woman's chances of marrying sometime in her life drops to 5 percent after she passes her 35th birthday. The notion that so many nominally liberated women found this conclusion distressing gave rise to the cynical...
JAPAN
Apr 15, 1999

IDC board votes in favor of NTT's takeover offer

In a move that could trigger a trade row between Tokyo and London, the board of International Digital Communications Inc. voted Thursday in favor of a takeover bid by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. over one by Britain's Cable & Wireless PLC.
LIFE / Travel
Apr 15, 1999

Healing society's ills from the roots up

BANGKOK -- As Thailand rapidly converts from agrarian state to economic dragon, a growing number of Thai people are looking for solutions to modern society's own brand of ills. The Bangkok-based Spirit in Education Movement (SEM) points to the country's traditional Buddhist roots for answers.
COMMUNITY
Apr 15, 1999

Choosing to release world's bonds

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, gives one sermon annually in the main temple's court, right in front of the entrance to his residence in the Tibetan exile community Dharmsala, in northern India.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Apr 15, 1999

Everyone loses but Milosevic

Recently, the Croatian government issued an angry statement saying that the continuation of NATO's air raids in Yugoslavia jeopardizes the Croatian economy: Thousands of Western tourists will cancel their bookings at the beach hotels on the spectacular Adriatic coast of Croatia and go to Spain or Morocco...
JAPAN
Apr 14, 1999

JICS handles nuts and bolts of foreign aid

Staff writer
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Apr 14, 1999

Cyberlife during wartime

My hanami last week started grimly. One participant, when asked why he looked so glum on such a happy occasion, explained that he was thinking of the Kosovo refugees. He had once been in the hills where they have fled, and even though he was prepared for it, he still remembers the cold and the discomfort....
JAPAN
Apr 14, 1999

Regulated 'amakudari' takes effect

The National Personnel Authority on Wednesday approved a former ministry official's private sector posting in the first application of a newly introduced system regulating former bureaucrats who take positions at private firms.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 1999

NTT eyes IDC buyout as C&W stands by

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. will buy out International Digital Communications Inc. if the international service carrier unanimously agrees to the deal, NTT President Junichiro Miyazu said Wednesday.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Apr 14, 1999

It's the little things

Cultural contrasts! Everywhere there are traps. I was late when I left home yesterday so I quickly kicked off my slippers as I ran out the door. Later, I returned with a Japanese friend. She laughed when she saw my slippers. "We would never do that!" she said. Do what? I asked. Of course. I should have...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 14, 1999

A British art gallery finds an answer to a perennial problem

SOUTHAMPTON, England -- The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is generally acknowledged to be the world's first modern museum worthy of the title. Unlike its predecessors, it was not just a cabinet of curiosities -- archaeological relics and anthropological wonders amassed by some explorer and shown in his...
LIFE / Travel
Apr 14, 1999

Where the roof of Europe scrapes the sky

The pictures in the tourist pamphlet showed an ideal mountain scene in the French Alps, almost too good to be true: a lake of purest blue in the foreground surrounded by bright green hills leading up to spectacular snow-capped mountains under cloudless skies. If this were real, I doubted I could afford...
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 1999

Bad news for party politics

What role did the nation's political parties play in the first round of the current nationwide local elections Sunday? True, the parties supported many candidates who ran for gubernatorial or mayoral posts in some prefectures or for seats in prefectural or municipal assemblies. But in most of those local...
JAPAN
Apr 13, 1999

BOJ remains optimistic in economic report

The Bank of Japan is sticking to a slightly upbeat assessment of the economy, reiterating in a report released Tuesday that economic conditions appear to have stopped deteriorating at present.
JAPAN
Apr 13, 1999

Hayami urges new deposit insurance plan

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami said Tuesday that a new depositor-protection system should replace a "payoff" plan scheduled to begin in April 2001.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 1999

Death and the maiden filmmaker

Death can do wonders for one's reputation. James Dean was a hot young actor with one hit -- "East of Eden" -- when he crashed his Porsche on a California back road and became an instant legend.Would his admirers have become so devoted -- and in some unfortunate cases, suicidally deranged -- if he had...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Apr 13, 1999

A Japanese musician's songs in 'The Homes of Donegal'

Hiroshi Yamaguchi of the group Heat Wave looks like any other worker at his manager's office. He sits at a desk, busily working away on a computer. After a few words, however, it's clear he could never be just any other worker. "I hate it here," he half confesses, half jokes. "I've never had to come...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 13, 1999

Despair and disillusionment, after the revolution

SPIDER EATERS, by Rae Yang. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998, 296 pp. w/ 10 pp. photos, $16.95 (paper). In her memoir "Spider Eaters," Rae Yang writes about how she wasted years of her life in China's northern countryside during the Cultural Revolution. She was an educated youth who,...
COMMUNITY
Apr 13, 1999

Dancing to make the world keep turning

Excuse me, has anyone seen Steven A. Haynes today? No? That's funny, he seems to be everywhere: on TV, on posters, in the papers, and in plays, movies and discos -- even on cruise ships. He acts, sings and dances his way around Japan, as if he's afraid the world might suddenly stop turning.
JAPAN
Apr 13, 1999

Osaka police work to get rape victims counseling

OSAKA -- Osaka Prefectural Police, in cooperation with a nonprofit organization, will on Thursday debut on a trial basis a program to introduce victims of rape to professional counselors.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 1999

Writer forever true to himself

THE LEGEND OF GOLD and Other Stories, by Ishikawa Jun. Translated by William J. Tyler. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998, 300 pp., $46 (cloth), $27.95 (paper). Jun Ishikawa (1899-1987) remains less known in the West than other Japanese writers of equal stature. With the publication of this...
JAPAN
Apr 12, 1999

'Knock' named in staffer's sex harassment suit

OSAKA -- A female university student has filed a complaint with the Osaka District Public Prosecutor's Office alleging that she was sexually harassed by Osaka Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama.
JAPAN
Apr 12, 1999

Airport foes gain ground in Kobe assembly race

Staff writer
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 1999

Spring, the sweet spring

"Nothing is so beautiful as Spring," declared a poet looking about him at this time of year more than 120 springs ago. He wasn't a Japanese poet; he was an English one. Still, he seems to have grasped the essence of the season pretty well, even though in this particular sonnet he was recommending the...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Apr 11, 1999

Along the way

When we think about takeout lunches in Japan, we must go back a long way. Surely you have seen in museums the beautiful lacquer lunch boxes the nobility used when they went to the countryside on excursions. These picnics were quite elegant occasions with poetry writing and incense ceremonies. But long...
COMMENTARY
Apr 11, 1999

Shadows of Vietnam in Europe

The shadow of Vietnam hangs heavily over events in Yugoslavia. Once again Western policymakers have proven unable to grasp the reality of events in distant lands with complex backgrounds.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan