BRIAN COVERT

Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security by Masanobu Fukuoka. Translated by Larry Korn. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 216 pp., $22.50. This newly translated book, among the…

The late veteran American journalist I.F. Stone once said, “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” Nowhere is that more true than in a time of war — especially the first two wars to be waged in the 21st century...

Weary after a four-hour trek from the mountains of Kyoto Prefecture to check on friends in the Great Hanshin Earthquake zone, Uwe Walter stumbled upon a sight that jolted his senses: a Japanese man in Nada Ward, Kobe, sitting alone with his head...

By 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 17, the YMCA had established a headquarters to coordinate Kobe quake relief efforts among its 171 branches nationwide. By about 2:30 p.m., a regional headquarters had been set up at the Osaka YMCA in Nishi Ward, Osaka. Amid...

Following the devastating Jan. 17 earthquake, many people wondered how it would affect foreign companies operating in the city. However, most foreign companies operating in Kobe are optimistic about the future of the city, a major business center...

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale, during a swing through the earthquake-stricken area around Kobe on Tuesday, praised the students and staff of a local international school for their show of humanity at the height of disaster. “We often talk..

For two long nights and three days after Tuesday’s killer quake, hundreds of Procter & Gamble Far East Inc. employees and their families remained literally stranded at sea as they awaited rescue from offshore Rokko Island, the city of Kobe’s...

As new residents to the area, Charlotte and Greg Kirwin have gotten to know their neighbors perhaps a little better and under more chaotic circumstances than they could have expected. What the American couple from Texas has seen and experienced...

Residents fought against a sense of abandonment and isolation as they prepared for another cold night away from their homes in the vicinity of JR Koshienguchi Station, where major damage occurred in Tuesday’s killer quake [on January 17, 1995]. ...

It started with rather small shaking about 5:46 a.m. and grew very rapidly, shaking [our] whole building. It lasted about 30 seconds. It got stronger and stronger, and objects began to fall. There were lots of crashing sounds. Everything moved in...

Alberto Shiroma has become known nationwide as a young vocalist striving to bridge the gap between Japanese and Latino cultures through the music performed by his Okinawa-based Latin rock band, Diamantes. But for Kobe-area residents in particular...

The friction that results from the collision of old and new social forces in Japan can provide fruitful breeding grounds for future artists, Derek Walcott, Nobel Prize winner in literature, said Wednesday. “I think Japan is a fascinating country...

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Wednesday praised Japan’s Cold War role as a bulwark in Asia against the communist giants of China and Russia and declared that “communism would never return.” Reliving her glory days as a world...

David Jack knows he cannot please everybody with the product he puts out, and if the truth be known, in recent years he has stopped even trying. “We can’t publish a magazine for people who want to live totally in the ‘ghetto world’ of their own...

Gordon Mwangi is known for practicing what he preaches. At the beginning of each new school year he makes quite clear to all the 200-odd peace studies students at Shikoku Gakuin University what the class aim is. “I tell my students that the purpose..

Richard and Holley Galland Haymaker have nothing personal against guns in their native United States if used for sport. But they draw the line at snuffing out a human life: in their case, the tragic death of their teenage Japanese “host son”...

When a virtual Who’s Who of Japanese and foreign representatives on the business and governmental scenes got together not long ago for an unprecedented gathering, it was W. Joris Witkam who got in the memorable last word. As the first-ever joint...

When a group of attorneys in Osaka first approached Dr. Sylvia Brown Hamano a few years ago about researching international law and testifying in human rights cases, she laughed right in their faces. Though she had put in years of social activism...

The Osaka District Court rejected an anti-fingerprinting lawsuit by a Canadian missionary Tuesday, dismissing the rights of foreign residents in Japan to challenge the fingerprinting policies of the Ministry of Justice. In his ruling, presiding...

世界にはマラソンを始めとする、数多くの走るイベントがあります。豪華な懸賞をめざすものから高尚な目的のものまで、その目的は様々です。金メダルや多額の賞金、地位、トロフィー、Tシャツをめざして走る人もいれば、ただ競争のため、勝つために走る人もいます。運動のため、あるいは単に走るのが楽しいという人もいるでしよう。しかし、来たる１９９５年の夏、全く違った目的のために人々が走ります。最終ゴールは地球と地球に生存する者たちを救うこと。