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COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 1999

The 'Third Way' once again

LONDON -- "The Third Way" has become the height of intellectual fashion. But what on earth is it?
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 1999

The pendulum swings again

As Japan pulls out of a deep economic slump, it is time to ask who created the mess. But as with the war guilt question, don't expect an easy answer. Japan does not like to pin blame when its elite is involved. The guilty remain in place; the chances of another disaster remain intact.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 24, 1999

New and old blended in earthy harmony

One of the greatest challenges facing any Japanese artist is to mix tradition with meaningful innovation. Many artisans merely imitate the past with little originality -- a rehashing of past masters that leaves many of Japan's great artistic traditions in stagnation.
CULTURE / Art / ARTS AND ARTISANS
Jul 24, 1999

The food that never lets you down

Eventually, a bowl of steaming noodles will go soggy, the lettuce in a salad will go limp and turn brown and a piece of sushi will dry up.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 1999

Africa, a blind spot for Europe's left

The European left has been so stung by the rise of nationalism and religious sentiment in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain that it no longer knows if it has a reason to exist.
JAPAN
Jul 23, 1999

High court upholds ruling on Atusgi night flights

The Tokyo High Court on Friday upheld a lower court decision rejecting demands by 156 residents living near the Atsugi Naval Air Facility in Kanagawa Prefecture to halt flights from the base between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.
JAPAN
Jul 23, 1999

LDP may have to walk political tightrope

Staff writers
JAPAN
Jul 23, 1999

ANA pilot slain during skyjacking

The captain of an All Nippon Airways jumbo jet bound for Sapporo was stabbed to death Friday by a knife-wielding hijacker who flew the plane for a short time after the stabbing, police said.
JAPAN
Jul 23, 1999

Lower House approves M&A bill

The Lower House gave its approval Friday to a bill intended to encourage much-needed corporate realignment through mergers and acquisitions.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 23, 1999

Foreigner rock scene blooms in city's pubs

Shaft is pumping up another Saturday night gathering in a cranny of Tokyo. Just as the five musicians lope to the end of the first verse of their self-proclaimed rock anthem "Shaft of Light," the infectious dribble of sticks across bass drums reels the audience into the chorus.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 23, 1999

Under the sway of Petty Booka

Picture this: Two girls, cousins, growing up in the lush, tropical paradise of Hawaii, learn the ukulele at their father's knee. Singing the old, mournful island love songs with their mother, harmony and melody come as naturally as the hula.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 1999

Literary critic Eto, 66, commits suicide

Renowned literary critic Jun Eto was found dead Wednesday night in an apparent suicide at his home in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, police said. He was 66.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 1999

Airbus predicts Japan will need 660 planes by 2020

Japan needs to buy some 660 aircraft, amounting to $92 billion, during the coming 20 years to meet growing passenger demand, Airbus Industrie said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 1999

'Kimigayo' controversy leaves students indifferent, confused

Staff writer
JAPAN
Jul 22, 1999

Flag, anthem march through Lower House

Breaking a long-standing political taboo, the Lower House, by a vote of 403-86, approved a bill Thursday to legally recognize the Hinomaru as the national flag and "Kimigayo" as the anthem.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 1999

No national consensus on national symbols

Staff writers
JAPAN
Jul 22, 1999

Keidanren voices support for controversial bills

OYAMA, Shizuoka Pref. -- The head of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) on Thursday expressed support for almost all politically sensitive bills sent to the Diet for deliberation -- including one to legally adopt the de facto national flag and anthem and another to allow police...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 22, 1999

Ishikawa sake guaranteed to give you summer chills

One of the more interesting things about the sake world is that interspersed between long-famous sake-brewing regions, such as Fushimi, Nada and Niigata, are locales that have well-established sake traditions all their own. Places such as Yamagata, Shizuoka, Shimane and Tottori have well-defined styles...
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 1999

A fuzzy blueprint for recovery

The government's latest economic white paper has a strong message to the nation: Let us put the slump behind us as quickly as possible and get the economy back on a firm footing. The annual report, released last Friday by the Economic Planning Agency and subtitled "Challenge for economic revival," represents...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jul 21, 1999

'A grotesque gap'

The United Nations Development Program's annual Human Development Report is usually a pretty grim document. Sure, life is improving for most people, but the poorest seem to get poorer and the gap between haves and have-nots is continually widening. The richest 20 percent of the world's population has...
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 1999

Cobwebs on the lunar way station

What is this latest fuss about a landing on the moon? Don't get excited, nobody has walked on it again. For all the fun those astronauts had bouncing about up there in their moon-suits years ago, there has been nothing sufficiently interesting to lure human beings back since 1972. Remember the scene...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 1999

Tax cuts put Japan on track

The Japanese economy is now out of the worst phase of the recession. But the process of achieving recovery and even- tual prosperity has not been entirely smooth. First, we cannot yet claim that firms in various industrial sectors have earnestly initiated their restructuring with real zest. Second, fiscal...
JAPAN
Jul 20, 1999

Renegade monkey making Tokyo home

More than a month has passed since a monkey was spotted in the posh Nishi Azabu district of Tokyo's Minato Ward, and with residents leaving it scraps of food, the area has become the primate's second home.
JAPAN
Jul 20, 1999

Experts ponder state's next great spending project

Staff writer
JAPAN
Jul 20, 1999

Junior high school student held in Rolex heist

A junior high school student from Tochigi Prefecture was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of robbing a Tokyo jewelry store of Rolex watches worth about 12.6 million yen, police said.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 1999

'Neighbors' move from paper to screen

When I first heard that Studio Ghibli was going to base its next film on Hisaichi Ishii's "Hohokekyo Tonari no Yamada-kun (My Neighbors the Yamadas)" -- a must-read for millions in the Asahi Shimbun" -- I had my doubts.The best gag manga have a pinch of comic acid that often gets leached away in the...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 20, 1999

Battle for women's rights in Japan

THE RISE OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN JAPAN, by Akiko Tokuza. Tokyo: Keio University Press, 1999, 302 pp., 3,000 yen (cloth), ISBN 4-7664-0731-8. Buddhism instructed wives that " . . . even if (your husband) seems more lowly than you are, man is the personification of the Buddha . . . (and) you must...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jul 20, 1999

Mr. Famous Fuzzy Logic's bumpy roller Coastersride

Sometimes you get a 24-hour spell where everything feels like a mad surreal nightmare and you end up seriously contemplating spending the rest of your life as a monk sitting under icy waterfalls naked on a lonely mountain and eating nothing but nuts and honey.
EDITORIALS
Jul 19, 1999

Iran's shrewd president

There is calm again in Tehran, but the peace is likely to be only temporary. After a fearsome counterstrike by conservative forces, the students demanding more freedom in Iran have retreated to their dormitories. But if their voices have been stilled, the reform movement that they have been spearheading...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 1999

Anthem and flag just need some tweaking

The battle over whether or not to pass legislation giving the de facto national anthem "Kimigayo" and the Hinomaru flag official status has been a black-and- white, yes-or-no affair. There have been some legalistic, even occasionally Clintonesque, arguments presented in the Diet on the definition of...

Longform

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Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years