Word: asahikawa
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...Japan's most progressive zoo is not in Tokyo or any other modern conurbation. It's in Asahikawa on the island of Hokkaido, a quiet northern city of 360,000. Since 1997, the Asahiyama Zoo, tel: (81-166) 361104, has renovated nearly half of its animal exhibits in delightfully creative ways, designed to benefit the inhabitants as much as the visitors. Zoo director Masao Kosuge installed a water tube for the spotted seals, gave the panthers rock ledges to nestle on, and lets the king penguins out of their enclosure for a daily (albeit supervised) stroll through the zoo grounds...
...blustery February day in the northern Japanese town of Asahikawa, members of the local ?lite crowded into the warm confines of the Ginneko barbecue shack to discuss the crisis in Iraq. The topic: whether Japan's deployment of troops there was a good idea?an emotive issue, given that many of the departing soldiers were based in Asahikawa. Squeezed in with the mayor and a gaggle of local reporters was a bright-eyed youngster named Noriaki Imai. The 18-year-old had just graduated from high school in a nearby town a few days earlier, and he was washing down...
...Nobody in sleepy Asahikawa could have guessed that Imai would resurface two months later?not at another smoky Ginneko gathering, but on television screens worldwide as one of three Japanese hostages taken captive in Iraq last week by a previously unknown group called the Mujahedin Brigade. The kidnappers' warning, which came with a video showing the blindfolded hostages?two humanitarian workers (Nahoko Takato and Imai) and a photographer (Soichiro Koriyama)?surrounded by armed men, was chillingly clear: "Three of your sons have fallen into our hands. We offer you two choices: Either pull out your forces or we will burn...
...aboard had to turn back to Chitose Airport, 50 miles away. Two of its cockpit windows had been cracked by volcanic shrapnel. Though no casualties were reported on the ground, everything within a two-mile radius of Usu was covered with more than a foot of debris, and even Asahikawa, a city 100 miles away, was dusted with a fine coating of ash. Rice, maize and potato crops in the area were destroyed. Tourist hotels shut down as residents of the island began digging out. Before Usu rests again, it could throw out much more debris. Japanese volcanologists report that...
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