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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.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Newspapers seek exemption from privacy law

Newspaper publishers told the government on Monday that they should be made exempt from pending privacy legislation because its principles may discourage people from talking to the media.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Men caught on video held in case of murdered company exec

OSAKA -- Police said Monday they arrested two men the previous day on suspicion of murdering the president of a local household fittings company who has been missing since July.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Joyu to leave Tokyo apartment soon

Aum Shinrikyo has notified residents of the Tokyo apartment building where senior cult leader Fumihiro Joyu resides that he will leave within a month, an official of Kita Ward said Monday.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Railways toughen stance on cellphones

A Tokyo subway operator and six major private railways launched a joint campaign Monday to stress the ban on mobile-phone use on trains during peak hours due to the danger of radio-wave interference with pacemakers.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Diet turmoil continues over election system bill

Confrontation between the ruling and opposition camps continued at the Diet on Monday, with a mediation proposal offered by the president of the House of Councilors earlier in the day snubbed by both sides.
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...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2000

An unambiguous democrat

At the moment of his greatest personal triumph, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung once again demonstrated his magnanimity. "I return all my honor to the people and the citizens of the world, who love democracy and human rights," the president was quoted as saying after he was awarded the Nobel Peace...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2000

Japanese will fight for rights

THE RITUAL OF RIGHTS IN JAPAN: Law, Society, and Health Policy, by Eric A. Feldman. Cambridge University Press, 2000, 219 pp., 14.95 British pounds (paper). Debunking myths is a noble endeavor, especially for scientists who are in the business of separating fact from fiction. The belief that Eric Feldman...
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Obituary: Werner Hefti

Werner Hefti, president of IDC, a Tokyo-based exporter of electronic calculators, died last Tuesday of cancer, his family said Monday. He was 70.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Oct 17, 2000

We gotta get outta this place: tales of extraordinary madness

Dusk, or dawn, and when the doorbell sounds my brain vibrates painfully. It's John and Queenie, on vacation from Hong Kong. And once you've been a good host once, it's impossible to live down the reputation. Here we go again.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2000

A celebration of interracial marriages

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER?, by Brenda Lane Richardson. Wildcat Canyon Press/Circulus Publishing Group, Inc., 2000, Berkeley, Calif., $14.95. Brenda Richardson is an award-winning African-American writer and partner in a 16-year marriage to a Swedish-American Episcopalian priest. She set out nearly...
CULTURE / Music
Oct 17, 2000

Badly drawn but beautifully sketched

Until I saw Damon Gough, the singer-songwriter better known as Badly Drawn Boy, in concert, it never occurred to me that the audience might be there for the performer's amusement rather than the other way around. At one point, Gough started handing out roses to women in the front row while he serenaded...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2000

Japan's pop culture conquers the world

JAPAN POP Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture, edited by Timothy J. Craig. M. E. Sharpe, 235 pp., $58.95 (cloth). Japan is undergoing a quiet revolution. Long known for its talents in miniaturization and for the mass production of electronic consumer products, Japan is gaining a new image:...
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2000

A Nobel lesson for Japan

The selection of Mr. Hideki Shirakawa, professor emeritus of Tsukuba University, as a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry is wonderful news. It has cheered up the nation in a difficult moment. We extend him our hearty congratulations. The prize is shared by two American professors, Mr. Alan...
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

12 injured in firework explosion at Okayama shrine

OKAYAMA - Twelve people were injured Sunday when a firework rocket exploded near the ground during a festival at a shrine in Okayama Prefecture, police said.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

Hatoyama calls for 'national forces'

Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, on Sunday said that the Constitution should provide for "national forces" rather than "self-defense" services.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

Rail firms to beef up mobile-phone ban

A Tokyo subway operator and six major private railway firms plan to launch a joint campaign today to stress their ban on mobile-phone use in trains during rush hour, due to the danger of interference with pacemakers, the companies announced Sunday.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

Japan eyes wider role in war games

Japan will try to persuade its allies to let it participate more in multilateral military drills in the Asia-Pacific region despite the limitations imposed on its forces by the Constitution, Defense Agency sources said Sunday.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

Court asked to settle H-II rocket bill

In a rare move, the National Space Development Agency of Japan is requesting court arbitration to settle the bill for the failed launch last November of an H-II rocket, NASDA officials said Sunday.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

Zhu backs Doi's plan

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Sunday expressed support for a nuclear weapons-free Northeast Asia, a plan proposed by Japan's Social Democratic Party.
COMMENTARY
Oct 16, 2000

Reorganization isn't reform

Japan's central bureaucracy will be reorganized, effective Jan. 6, to mark the start of a new administrative system. The reform will have significant influence on local governments and the public, too. It is part of efforts to restructure Japanese society, which has been bound by webs of restrictions...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2000

Globalization proves a taxing issue

Listening to the bureaucrats at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and in other transnational organizations like the European Union, it appears that the most pressing issues about globalization is the impact upon governments' ability to collect taxes. Of course, these international...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2000

The Net surviving in China

CAMBRIDGE, England -- China is in the process of establishing the rule of law. Not common law as in England or civil law as in most other countries, but socialist law. The basic difference between socialist law and other forms of law, it seems from recent practice, is that only the Chinese Communist...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2000

South Korea grapples with rapprochement

SEOUL -- Some days ago I received an e-mail from a friend I hadn't heard from for a while, who teaches North Korean affairs at one of the major universities in Seoul. "I am worried," he wrote. "This is not a good time for South Korean scholars dealing with North Korea to express their views freely."...

Longform

The students at Mitaka Municipal No. 7 Junior High School have access to various cooling devices for when they play sports.
Japan's extreme heat is causing a rethink of school sports