Tokyo

TOKYO -- Telephone sex has come to Japan, and it has gray-suited executives of the world's biggest corporation squirming -- with embarrassment.Scores of phone-a-moan lines have taken over more than one-fourth of the business of Dial Q2, an 18-month-old information-call service that at first provided sports results, advertisements and medical guidance.Going beyond the lead of tele-porn pioneers in the United States, Japan's entrepreneurs buy space in tabloid newspapers, sports dailies and mass-circulation magazines to run full-color photos of semi-nude women as promotions for tape-recorded sex programs or for a purported chance to talk with a female porn star.

Behold the snuggling! It can't be easy for a creature with a neck like a crane to manage a snuggle. But this mama giraffe is doing it, all in the name of motherhood. The mother and baby giraffes live at the Tama Zoological Park in Tokyo. The baby giraffe was born on August 6 at the zoo.

President Bush spoke before a Congress last night that is remarkably united behind his military stand in the Persian Gulf but restive about the degree of support being offered by key allies -- especially West Germany and Japan. Before the president addressed a joint session of the House and Senate, several Republicans voiced bitter complaints aimed at Bonn and Tokyo. After his speech, House majority leader Richard Gephardt made this the central theme of an otherwise supportive Democratic response.

None of the members of Tokyo Police Club were even alive when "Rock Lobster" was released. But just a day after the 30-year-old group the B-52s perform at the 9:30 club, this young Canadian foursome will take the stage at the Washington venue. The show is part of the headlining tour they began to promote the new album "Champ," following a supporting tour opening for the English electronic band Passion Pit. It's a sign, if anything, of the new New Wave band's mega-fast, five-year rise to success on the back of a bunch of tracks that, at least in spirit, are not that different from Schneider and company.

The release of nerve gas at 16 Tokyo subway stations during the Monday morning rush hour could only have been terrorism by a group of people including at least one skilled organic chemist to handle the material.Like the bombing of the New York World Trade Center in February 1993, it turns the greatness of a city into its vulnerability. The denser the development, the greater the inter-dependence of people, the higher the reliance on a universal minimum standard of civility. There may be no other urban rail transit system that is both as large and as efficient.

Though its name might lead you to think otherwise, Aloha Tokyo does not serve Hawaiian food. The Aloha refers to the look of this cute neighborhood restaurant, which is done up like a Hawaiian tiki bar, with a bar made of bamboo, wicker stools and fake-flower leis adding bursts of sunny color. In fact, the restaurant, which opened in Locust Point in September, serves Japanese and Korean food, sometimes fusing the two cuisines in unusual ways. Owner Seonpil Kim said he grew up in Korea and then moved to Tokyo, where he owned a similar restaurant.

TOKYO -- Guests at a new hotel in Tokyo that bans smoking have reacted favorably to the rule, according to a hotel official.Smoking is prohibited throughout the 120-room Tokyo Kiba Hotel, which opened March 16. Two Japanese hotel associations said it is the first hotel in the country that bans smoking throughout the premises.General manager Yasutaka Yamada proposed the no-smoking rule before the hotel was built, but had to convince other hotel executives that the idea would be a moneymaker.

WASHINGTON -- Japanese government officials might target U.S. aircraft, computer and agricultural products for retaliatory sanctions if the White House imposes steep tariffs on imported Japanese luxury cars next week, trade officials in Washington and Tokyo said yesterday.A Japanese foreign trade ministry official in a telephone interview from Tokyo said the retaliation talk is meant to go beyond short-term pressure tactics by Japan."President Clinton doesn't think we'll retaliate, but we will if we're pushed and pushed, as is happening now," the official said on the condition his name wasn't used.

TOKYO -- "Alert: Sarin in Shinjuku tomorrow" screamed the headline of one of the Tokyo tabloids in 5-inch type.It was not the only such warning and rumor that the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect, suspected in last month's sarin nerve agent attack on the Tokyo subways, would launch another attack today to fulfill an apocalyptic prophecy by its leader, Shoko Asahara.Sect members were reported to have told family members to stay away from Shinjuku, the bustling area of Tokyo that houses the municipal government and the country's largest red light district.

TOKYO -- The secretary-general of Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's governing party resigned yesterday after his candidate for governor of Tokyo took a whipping from an 80-year-old incumbent.Resisting two days of intense pressure to stay on from Mr. Kaifu and the chief power brokers of his own faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, Ichiro Ozawa insisted on taking responsibility for a backfired attempt to dump Gov. Shunichi Suzuki.To cheers of "Banzai!" -- 10,000 years, a traditional Asian wish of long life -- Governor Suzuki savored his lopsided fourth-term win yesterday morning at a victory ceremony at the recently dedicated, twin-towered City Hall.

Democratic capitalism is in eclipse. From Berlin to Tokyo, governments struggle to instigate enough growth to pay their bills and gainfully employ workers. Meanwhile, anti-democratic but increasingly capitalistic China enjoys breakneck progress. Democratic capitalism is not flawed. Rather, government policymakers, through deceptions, delusions and abuse, are destroying a system that brought mankind from dark, feudal superstitions to cracking the secrets of life. Politicians from Athens to Sacramento — and yes, most certainly in Baltimore too — have deceived voters by telling them that pension systems can be constructed allowing retirement at ages 55 or 60. Whether funded by savings and investments or taxes, no solvent pension system is possible that permits educated professionals, unionized workers and government employees, who get most of the income and benefits, to work only 30 or 35 years and retire for another 20 or 25 years.

TOKYO -- Masahisa Tsujitani is getting a lot of attention these days for a man who has spent much of the past 40 years bent over a lathe in a garage workshop, where amid the sharp smell of burnt oil and iron he grinds out some of the finest 16-pound shots ever tossed by Olympic athletes. But Tsujitani's cheerful face is showing up on Japanese television and in newspapers not because of what he does but because of what he is refusing to do. After four Olympic Games in which his finely grooved iron balls were the shots of choice for most medalists, this Tokyo craftsman has told Chinese Olympic officials that they will not be receiving any of his products at this summer's Beijing Games.

The clubhouse television usually is turned off in the mornings, unless reliever Jamie Walker decides to crank up CMT and torture his teammates with the latest country hits. But players gathered around the set yesterday to catch a few innings of the Boston Red Sox-Oakland Athletics season opener from Tokyo. By the time the media was allowed inside at 8 a.m., the game already had progressed to the sixth inning. Jeremy Guthrie and Jim Johnson pulled up chairs so they could watch in comfort.

Though its name might lead you to think otherwise, Aloha Tokyo does not serve Hawaiian food. The Aloha refers to the look of this cute neighborhood restaurant, which is done up like a Hawaiian tiki bar, with a bar made of bamboo, wicker stools and fake-flower leis adding bursts of sunny color. In fact, the restaurant, which opened in Locust Point in September, serves Japanese and Korean food, sometimes fusing the two cuisines in unusual ways. Owner Seonpil Kim said he grew up in Korea and then moved to Tokyo, where he owned a similar restaurant.

KISHO KUROKAWA, 73 Architect Kisho Kurokawa, the influential Japanese architect and theorist behind projects including Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, a futurist complex penetrated by a rain forest, died Oct. 12 in Tokyo. He was 73. The cause was heart failure, the Associated Press said, quoting a hospital spokeswoman. Mr. Kurokawa was one of the youngest founding members of Japan's Metabolist movement, which advocated an organic, renewable architecture that could evolve through the addition of clip-on modular units.

Sushi bars often open in the Baltimore area. Japanese restaurants that aren't steakhouses, not so much. Hence the interest in the new Aloha Tokyo (1120 Fort Ave., 410-685-0545) in Locust Point. It was scheduled to open this week where the French Quarter was. The owner is Sean Kim. (His neighbors, he says, Americanized his first name, Seon, and he likes it.) Kim is Korean-Japanese from Japan, and somehow Hawaii has gotten into the mix as well. He describes the cuisine as Asian, with yakitori (skewered chicken)

The clubhouse television usually is turned off in the mornings, unless reliever Jamie Walker decides to crank up CMT and torture his teammates with the latest country hits. But players gathered around the set yesterday to catch a few innings of the Boston Red Sox-Oakland Athletics season opener from Tokyo. By the time the media was allowed inside at 8 a.m., the game already had progressed to the sixth inning. Jeremy Guthrie and Jim Johnson pulled up chairs so they could watch in comfort.

The Tokyo summit and its putative trade agreement over sushibetween President Clinton and the humiliated Prime Minister Kiishi Miyazawa may not have done much for the president. It was a triumph for the prime minister.Mr. Miyazawa presided as host of the summit despite the vote of no confidence against him and the campaign for tomorrow's election that made him, in Japanese idiom, a ''dead body.'' (We would say ''lame duck.'')No American knows whether the agreement in reality will open Japan to American commerce and industry.

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor reported a 32 percent rise in quarterly profit yesterday, continuing a streak of record earnings as the Japanese car company overtakes General Motors as the world's largest automaker. Toyota also said it expects its sales in the all-important North American market to remain as strong as they were last year, despite a sales drop last month and broader concerns of a possible U.S. economic slowdown. Toyota said it saw brisk sales during the April-June quarter in the United States, where high pump prices raised the popularity of high-mileage vehicles like Toyota's Prius, a gasoline-electric hybrid, and RAV4, a small sports utility vehicle.

TOKYO -- Nine elderly people were crushed to death in an earthquake yesterday off Japan's north coast, a powerful undersea shudder that left 900 others injured while flattening dozens of houses, tearing up highways and causing a small amount of radioactive water to leak from the world's largest nuclear power station into the Sea of Japan. The radioactive leak, which the nuclear plant's owners said posed no health threat but took several hours to discover and report to the public, brought a flurry of criticism.