TEARS AND HOPE
``Please keep your spirits high,'' urged EMPRESS MICHIKO, gently touching the hands of refugees at an emergency shelter in Kobe. One woman, overcome with emotion, wept when the Empress, who is usually kept at a distance from ordinary Japanese, tenderly embraced her. Protocol yielded to compassion as the Empress accompanied Emperor Akihito on an eight-hour visit to the stricken city, stopping at a site where many had died to place a bouquet of daffodils from the gardens of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Their tour of the disaster area was delayed two weeks, so as not to...
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