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JAPAN
Nov 18, 2000

1,900 recipients of unheated blood dead

Of an estimated 2,600 people -- apart from hemophiliacs -- who received treatment with unheated imported blood products in the 1980s, some 1,900 have died, although not all causes of death have not been confirmed, according to Diet testimony Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2000

A history lesson for the litigants in Florida

HONG KONG -- It was with a sense of sickening dread that one heard, not the result of the U.S. presidential election, but the news that at least 50 high-powered (and highly priced) lawyers were hastening to the state of Florida on behalf of the Democratic Party, quickly followed by a similar squad representing...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 17, 2000

A song that stirred the music of the heart

The season was far advanced when Etoile Nord came to Kyoto to study at a certain university.
COMMENTARY
Nov 17, 2000

Kato challenge divides LDP

A political drama is unfolding over the fate of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's administration, and it is anybody's guess how it will end.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

Panel discusses granting voting rights to minorities

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday began discussing two bills that would give permanent foreign residents in Japan the right to vote in local elections.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 15, 2000

North Korea plans to participate

OSAKA -- North Korea will take part in next spring's East Asian Games in Osaka, an official of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun) said Tuesday, even though the country has not formalized its plans.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 15, 2000

Textbooks in the service of the state

CENSORING HISTORY: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United States, edited by Laura Hein and Mark Selden. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 301 pp., $24.95. History loomed over the recent visit of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji like a threatening storm cloud. But other than some scattered...
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Nov 15, 2000

A democratic farce

www.infoplease.com/spot/closerace1.html Infoplease goes all the way back to the 1876 election to explain what happened the last time the U.S. Constitution overruled U.S. voters. As in last week's presidential race, the voters elected the Democratic candidate only to see their government overturn their...
SOCCER / World cup / SPORTS SCOPE
Nov 15, 2000

Reasons to be fearful: Part 1

For Calvin in the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes there are always monsters under the bed. You can't see them, but you know they're there.
JAPAN / COP6 AGENDA
Nov 14, 2000

Negotiators face a tough time at climate talks

Beneath the blanket of obscure terms used to determine what countries will do to curb global warming lurk a few key concepts. How they are interpreted by negotiators at ongoing climate change talks in Holland will drastically alter climate change measures and the future world environment.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2000

Rightist held in alleged bid to blackmail Giants

Police on Monday arrested a member of a rightwing organization for allegedly attempting to blackmail Yomiuri Giants Corp. by threatening to disclose embarrassing information about third baseman Akira Eto.
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2000

Through a glass creatively

"Truly, though our element is time," said the English poet Philip Larkin, "we are not suited to the long perspectives/ Open at each instant of our lives./ They link us to our losses."
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2000

Japan's not-so-silent media conspiracy

Some months ago I went up to Tohoku to give a public lecture sponsored by a television station. After the talk there was a delightful, informal dinner, during which I chatted with an old friend, a producer at the station.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 11, 2000

Art transcends time in 'Julius Caesar' production

A talented theater director can breathe new life into an old play, and David Lan, the new artistic director of the Young Vic Theater in southeast London, has done just that.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Nov 11, 2000

And the confusion begins

I said that this was going to be a historically close election, that it was quite possible that one presidential candidate would carry the popular vote while the other won the presidency by capturing the Electoral College vote, and that the counting would not be conclusive on election night.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 10, 2000

Kobe's FBI investigates improvisation

Improvisation is a tricky business. In mediocre hands, it is interminable at best, masturbatory at worst. But with skilled practitioners, improvisation becomes the haute couture of the music world, each piece tailored on the spot to a particular confluence of musicians, audience, time and place.
COMMENTARY
Nov 10, 2000

Mori's nine lives are almost used up

The coalition government of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is clearly in a delicate situation. Should he make another serious mistake, Mori will be forced to resign. I had some hopes for Mori as prime minister, since the late Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe, a friend of mine, had praised his political acumen....
JAPAN
Nov 10, 2000

Another medical figure nabbed in bribery case

OSAKA -- The director of a medical corporation was arrested Thursday on suspicion of bribing a then professor at the prefectural Nara Medical University in an ongoing recruiting scandal, the Osaka District Public Prosecutor's Office said.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2000

Archaeological hoaxes spur history text rethink

Six publishers of high school history textbooks are considering revising entries in their books about Japan's earliest stoneware, following Sunday's disclosure that a leading archaeologist had fabricated his discoveries of such artifacts.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2000

Jiang's troubling ambitions

CAMBRIDGE, England -- So the U.S. presidential-election campaign is over and we will soon know who is the next "leader of the free world." This time no one has alleged that any Chinese organization or individual has tried to affect the outcome. But why shouldn't they? Analysts say that Texas Gov. George...
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2000

Sea of Japan ports to berth fast coast guard patrol boats

The Japan Coast Guard announced Tuesday that it will station three special high-speed patrol vessels on the Sea of Japan coast by the end of March. The move comes in the wake of last year's failed chase of apparent North Korean spy boats.
LIFE / Digital
Nov 8, 2000

Nintendo's new boy has bigger byte

SEATTLE --In 1989, a few short weeks after the worldwide launch of Nintendo's Game Boy, rival Atari released a handheld game system with a backlit color screen. The engineers at Atari considered Game Boy and its dim, low-resolution monochrome screen to be a technological joke.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2000

The outlook after 100 days

The June summit in Pyongyang kicked off a summer of symbolic and historic "firsts" on the Korean Peninsula, marked by the dramatic symbolism of inter-Korean reconciliation after more than five decades of stalemate. Sufficient time has now passed to evaluate what might be called the "honeymoon period"...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 7, 2000

From great fiction, more fiction still

THE TALE OF MURASAKI: A Novel, by Liza Dalby. Doubleday, 2000, 424 pp., $25.95. What if the author of "The Tale of Genji" had written an autobiography and it had remained undiscovered until now? What would it be like?
COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2000

Japan has no monopoly on obscuring past

The fuss surrounding a recent book by U.S. academic Herbert Bix, "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan," said to detail for the first time the Showa Emperor's allegedly close involvement in Japan's past militarism, seems strange. The critics are making much of Japan's lack of interest in these revelations....
CULTURE / Art
Nov 5, 2000

Redefining to rescue Kyoto

KYOTO -- When people talk about traditional Kyoto culture, all the "a" verbs come out -- everyone appreciates it, everyone admires it, many adore it. So why is it disappearing so rapidly?
COMMENTARY
Nov 5, 2000

Mori administration reeling

The administration of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is in crisis, visibly weakened by the resignation of Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa over a drug-related extramarital affair.
EDITORIALS
Nov 4, 2000

Babes in Gizmoland

It's almost that time of year again. The cold is closing in, the lights are coming on earlier, the leaves are turning and everywhere there are intimations of jingling. Even as early as November you can hear it: the jingle of bells, the jingle of cash registers, and the real or metaphoric jingle of coins...

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?