Search - question

 
 
COMMENTARY
Apr 7, 2000

New leader, same policies

Yoshiro Mori, who replaced a comatose Keizo Obuchi as prime minister, inaugurated his Cabinet April 5. The Obuchi Cabinet resigned en masse April 4, after Obuchi suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. All Cabinet members, except Obuchi, retained their posts.
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Apr 6, 2000

The alchemical way of self and bamboo

"The etymology of the word 'God' in English is totally different from the Japanese word kami, and has a completely different sense," says master charcoal burner Hironori Takebayashi, in his deep, laconic voice.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 5, 2000

Nemuro rolling down a road to nowhere

We may think of America as the land of the automobile, but for a place that both produces them and is constantly involved in road works for them, we need look no further than Japan.
COMMENTARY
Apr 5, 2000

The need to talk as equals

Are the United States and Japan ready for a more equal, mature security partnership? Signs are increasingly suggesting that the answer is yes, although both sides still seem more comfortable paying lip service to the idea than actually pursuing it.
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2000

The real meaning of recycling

The throwaway mentality remains strongly entrenched here -- witness the mountains of refuse in the nation's parks and other favored sites for cherry-blossom viewing as the season reaches its peak. To anyone viewing the discarded cans, bottles and paper and plastic packaging, active recycling may seem...
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2000

Readying for future warfare

LONDON -- Could the Cold War be about to begin all over again? That is the gloomy question being asked by a number of defense analysts and gurus as they contemplate a possible decision this summer by outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton to give the go-ahead for a new National Missile Defense system for...
EDITORIALS
Apr 2, 2000

The sense of taking leave

You have to feel a spark of sympathy for British first lady Cherie Blair. Never having sought the spotlight herself, she was in it anyway, as the wife of the prime minister -- although she managed to avoid the worst of the glare by focusing on her legal career and her three children. But the wattage...
COMMENTARY
Mar 31, 2000

Obuchi heading for trouble

The sun may be setting on the administration of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. Recent polls indicate that the Obuchi Cabinet's approval ratings have fallen sharply while its disapproval ratings have risen. The phenomenon is generally blamed on the continuing recession, a growing public-debt burden stemming...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2000

Sharpening Japan-U.S. strategic ties

U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen's recent visit to Tokyo demonstrates the immaturity of the U.S.-Japan alliance, particularly from a strategic point of view.
EDITORIALS
Mar 30, 2000

The real need for foreign workers

Japan must soon get ready to accept, even to welcome, a far greater number of legal foreign workers in its midst. The possibility is not remote, in view of plans just announced by the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau to relax visa procedures for non-Japanese workers in a wider range of fields than...
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 30, 2000

Cubs take historic opener in Tokyo

One small step for the Chicago Cubs, one giant leap for Major League Baseball.
EDITORIALS
Mar 29, 2000

The man in the mirror

To no one's surprise, Mr. Vladimir Putin won Russia's presidential election Sunday. Although the acting president did top the 50 percent level, which allowed him to escape a runoff ballot, the narrowness of his margin was an eye-opener. The much-anticipated landslide never materialized, the Communist...
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2000

Diet votes to reduce benefits in retirees' pension packages

A package of seven bills designed to save the nation's financially strapped pension system by reducing the pensions of private-sector workers cleared the Diet on Tuesday, with the measures to take effect April 1.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 28, 2000

The marvelous paradox of Ise

ISE -- JAPAN'S ISE SHRINES: Ancient but New, by Svend Hvass. Holte: Aristo Press, 146 pp., profusely illustrated, 6,000 yen. Ise holds one of the most important Shinto shrines in Japan. Enshrining the ancestral gods of the Imperial family, it has a long and varied political career. Such was its power...
BUSINESS
Mar 28, 2000

Fukaya, Lamy to push WTO round

Trade chief Takashi Fukaya said he and Pascal Lamy, the European Union's trade commissioner, agreed Monday to pursue efforts to jointly hold working-level meetings with the United States and Canada in Geneva on Friday to encourage the World Trade Organization to swiftly launch a new round of free-trade...
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2000

Obuchi puts G8 before election

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi indicated Saturday that he will not dissolve the Lower House for elections before the Okinawa summit of the Group of Eight major nations in July.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 26, 2000

Vast private collection housed in London's 'unofficial attic'

LONDON -- Museums in Britain are nervously awaiting the results of the Internet publication of an official inventory of 350 works of art in British national collections whose provenance in the period between 1933 and 1945 is unclear. More than half belong to the National Gallery and the Tate, 109 and...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2000

Former Iran diplomat accused in arms case

Police sent papers to prosecutors accusing a former Iranian ambassador to Japan and a former embassy staff member of being directly involved in illegal weapons exports to Iran, Metropolitan Police Department officials said.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2000

Recovery points to power of integration

The process of recovery from the 1997 financial crisis serves as proof of the economic integration between Japan and other East Asian countries, according to Naoki Tanaka, an economist and president of the 21st Century Public Policy Institute.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2000

Crisis may not be over, more work to do: experts

The economic beating that Asia's tigers and dragons took from July 1997 left them dragging their tails between their legs, but the assumption that they have weathered the crisis is potentially an even greater danger, according to panelists attending the Asian Economic Crisis and Prospects for ASEAN-Japan...
BUSINESS
Mar 24, 2000

DPJ submits bill to rein in 'daily usurers'

The Democratic Party of Japan on Thursday submitted to the Lower House a bill to regulate moneylending businesses being run by so-called "daily usurers."
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2000

Department stores need after-sales service

Department stores have been facing intensifying harsh conditions caused by weak consumer spending, mounting bad debts stem- ming from the bubble economy, and marketing offensives by supermarkets and discount stores.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 23, 2000

Troussier: Will he stay or will he go?

It wasn't the greatest 0-0 draw in the world but last Wednesday's game in Kobe meant more to Japan and Japanese soccer fans than such exercises in futility as the nine-goal win over Brunei in the Asian Cup qualifiers last month.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2000

Monju ruling infuriates plaintiffs

OSAKA -- Antinuclear activists expressed shock and outrage Wednesday over the Fukui District Court's ruling against local residents' efforts to permanently close the Monju fast-breeder reactor, and both plaintiffs and their lawyers vowed their nearly 15-year battle was not over.
JAPAN
Mar 22, 2000

More female politicians key to gender equality, Swedish politician says

Increasing the number of female politicians may be the key to encouraging Japanese women to continue working after marriage and creating a gender-equal society in Japan, Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen said.
JAPAN
Mar 22, 2000

LDP forces pension bills further

Ignoring protests from the opposition bloc and pensioners, the ruling triumvirate on Tuesday rammed through an Upper House committee a package of bills that is supposed to save the nation's nearly bankrupt pension system.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2000

'What ifs' haunt families of Aum's sarin victims

Even five years after the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways, many questions remain.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2000

Staff office softened colonel's punishment

The Ground Self-Defense Force Ground Staff Office helped reduce the punishment for a colonel arrested last Monday for allowing his civilian friends to fire a gun during a 1994 drill, sources at the Defense Agency said Monday.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 21, 2000

Mercy, sorrow and sacrifice in spring Kabukiza program

The Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo has been celebrating the advent of spring this month with attractive afternoon and evening programs, featuring Danjuro Ichikawa, Koshiro Matsumoto and Kikugoro Onoe in title roles, and leading senior actors such as Uzaemon Ichimura, Tomijuro Nakamura and onnagata veteran...

Longform

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