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JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Economy-class syndrome has struck 30 Japanese

Some 30 people in Japan have developed such symptoms after long flights as breathing difficulties, increased heart rate, chest pains, loss of consciousness, and interruption of blood circulation, a study conducted by a team of doctors showed Monday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 7, 2000

No chippie off the old block

WOODBLOCK KUCHI-E PRINTS: Reflections of Meiji Culture, by Helen Merrit and Nanako Yamada. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 284 pp., profusely illustrated, $65. That category of woodblock print called the "kuchi-e" has not been widely investigated. In the large bibliography that concludes...
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2000

Memories of the 'Montmartre of Japan'

London has its Bloomsbury, Paris its Montmartre and New York its Greenwich Village.
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2000

Officials grapple with illegally moored boats

While illegal parking on city streets has been a cause of headaches for urban authorities for years, officials now also face a similar challenge on the waterfront as illegally moored pleasure boats take up precious water space.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 5, 2000

Diagnosis is key to curing the English patient

My English writing students always say they want me to correct them. But, I've decided to stop giving out correct answers. Instead, I'm going to give out prescriptions. The ESL doctor is IN.
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2000

KSD affiliate hit for abusing foreign trainees' rights

An affiliate of KSD, a mutual aid group under criminal investigation for alleged lending irregularities, has been admonished by the Justice Ministry for alleged violations of foreign trainees' human rights, according to ministry officials.
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2000

Six receive honor from Emperor

Nobel laureate Hideki Shirakawa and five others were awarded this year's Order of Culture by the Emperor at the Imperial Palace on Culture Day on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2000

Tax evasion vs. official misbehavior

Globalization is widely seen as contributing to clear increases in economic growth. Yet many governments view this development as a poisoned chalice. Politicians and bureaucrats fear that eliminating exchange controls and removing barriers to capital flows will lead to extensive revenue losses from tax...
COMMENTARY
Nov 3, 2000

Secrecy and greed behind BSE tragedy

LONDON --I am stunned at the awfulness of being British at the moment. A report written by Lord Phillips into the BSE tragedy has just been published. Though it does not roar with horror or screech with condemnation, its quiet steady tone fills me with anger and horror at Britain's farming, veterinary...
EDITORIALS
Nov 2, 2000

When the people rise up

It has been an extraordinary year for people power. Mass protests have overturned governments round the world, checked blatant abuses of power and offered hope that the 21st century may prove to be an era of genuine democracy. In each case, however, the government that was turned out had already ridden...
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2000

Annual visit to spies' tombs to be the last

The last organized visit to the tombs of Richard Sorge and Hotsumi Ozaki, who were hanged in 1944 for relaying top-secret military information to the Soviet Union, will take place Saturday at a cemetery in Fuchu, western Tokyo, organizers said.
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2000

The rising price of knowledge

BEIJING -- It should have been party time on the bright summer day 18-year-old Li Junliang was accepted by prestigious Beijing University. Fewer than one in 10 of China's students secure places at any of the country's crowded colleges and universities, let alone the Oxford University of China. But the...
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2000

Teito unveils derailment safety plan

Tokyo subway operator Teito Rapid Transit Authority on Monday announced a set of new safety measures to prevent derailment, worked out in accordance with a recent Transport Ministry panel report urging the operator to strictly manage wheel load balance.
JAPAN / LIFE OFF MIYAKE
Oct 31, 2000

Evacuees long for home, gird for worst

Namiko Morishita did not expect it to last this long. She and her family fled their home on Miyake Island in late August as volcanic activity on Mount Oyama intensified.
COMMUNITY
Oct 29, 2000

Food Bank Japan to aid homeless

It is hard to imagine how Charlie McJilton makes ends meet as a single father living in Tokyo. He says he does "this and that" to pay the bills. Committed to staying in Japan for love of his daughter, most of his time is spent helping those in the direst need -- foreign residents who have fallen through...
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 26, 2000

Eco-farm points way to sustainable agriculture

Orderly rows of plump, green tea bushes march across the slope above Kiyokazu Shitara's farm. By comparison, his fields look like a weedy, tangled mess.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Nobel chemist to get Order of Culture

Nobel laureate Hideki Shirakawa will be among the six people to receive this year's Order of Culture from the Emperor at the Imperial Palace on Culture Day on Nov. 3, government officials said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

It's a matter of life and death

Staff writer Brain death: It's a phrase we hear every day. In Japan, the public has been exposed to it to the point of numbness through nationwide campaigns for more organ donors. "Brain death is human death, and organ donation saves lives," we are exhorted. In the United States, the world's leading...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2000

Portrait of Laos, Asia's 'forgotten country'

LAOS: Culture and Society, edited by Grant Evans. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 2000, 313 pp., $24.95 The colorful volumes of anthropology produced in the past by gifted amateurs, lady travelers of independent means, colonial officers and the like, have been replaced by the works of highly trained...
JAPAN
Oct 22, 2000

Ditched public works projects back on agenda

Regional construction bureaus and local government panels are trying to revive 38 of the 281 questionable public works projects that the ruling coalition and the national government want scrapped, a Kyodo News survey showed Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2000

Bidding goodbye to the monoculture myth

Some years ago I was sitting at the counter of a rather exclusive sushi restaurant in the Roppongi district of Tokyo when I noticed that a middle-age man a few stools along was making monosyllabic comments each time I ordered a morsel of sushi or slipped one into my mouth.
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2000

Japan still No. 1 ODA donor

Japan's official development assistance of $15.32 billion in 1999 made it the world's top donor to developing countries for the ninth consecutive year, according to an annual report on ODA endorsed Friday by Cabinet.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Zhu tones down stance on wartime atonement

Visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said Monday that Japan needs to admit its wartime aggression and be careful not to repeat the same mistake.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2000

Calm rejoicing in simple, ordinary things

OLD TAOIST: THE LIFE, ART, AND POETRY OF KODOJIN (1865-1944), by Stephen Addiss, with translations of and commentary on Chinese poems by Jonathan Chaves, Columbia University Press, 2000, 173 pp., $27.50. The photograph of Kodojin inside this book is very much what the title leads us to expect -- an elderly...
COMMUNITY
Oct 16, 2000

Tasty seeds have hidden health benefits

Sprinkled on hamburger buns, bagels and cooked vegetables, sesame seeds add extra zest with their nutty flavor. Recent research has found, however, that there is much more to the humble sesame seed than just its good taste.
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2000

Dioxin in mother can shrink son's prostate gland: report

Even minute quantities of dioxin in a pregnant woman may cause shrinkage of her son's prostate gland and weaken his immune system, according to the results of recent experiments on rats conducted by a Japanese scientist.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 14, 2000

King's not dead, long live Crimson

Robert Fripp is rock 'n' roll's quintessential English eccentric. Not in a flamboyant, over-the-top way like the late Vivian Stanshall or Keith Moon, but in an offbeat, understated manner -- like a country vicar whose avocation is the study of reptile eggs or quill pens. Fripp's quirky, yet iron-willed...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Oct 13, 2000

Tomorrow today

Predicting the future is always a risky business, but the uncertainties seem to be magnified when it comes to information technologies. Blame it on "tipping points," unstable equilibriums, systems analysis, whatever, but planning ahead has never been a more hazardous exercise.

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