Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
“Children should be seen and not heard.” This is a phrase we have long heard. Should not the same hold true for governments? After all, politicians are very much like infants. They make a lot of noise, most of which is incomprehensible, their attention ...
Two central bankers have been catching intense media attention over the past couple of months. One is Bank of Japan Gov. Toshihiko Fukui. He is in a bit of a dog house for his investments in the now notorious Murakami Fund, as well as ...
Here are three questions to ponder over in the summer season: Is inflation back? When will Japanese interest rates start rising? Do global imbalances matter? These questions will determine whether we will have a nice and quiet second half of the year or become ...
In the novel “A Caribbean Mystery,” Miss Marple asks Mr. Rafiel about takeover bids. She sounds like someone who is talking about a word in a foreign language. Miss Marple is of course Miss Jane Marple, the gentlewoman sleuth created by Agatha Christie, whose ...
John Kenneth Galbraith died last month. He was arguably one of the most influential economists of our time. One wonders what his comments would have been, had he been asked to say something about the course of the Japanese economy during these past few ...
French students are victorious. They have managed to push the infamous “first-time employment contract” (“contrat premiere embauche”) out of the window. Prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who proposed the CPE idea, is in the dog house. His authority is in tatters and his humiliation ...
“The quality of mercy is not strained.” So Shakespeare tells us through the words of Portia, that intrepid heroine of the Bard’s account of financial dealings in the city state of Venice. The quantity of money likewise has been unstrained for the past five ...
The Winter Olympics were last held in Japan in 1998. The stage was Nagano, and on that stage, the Japanese athletes performed brilliantly. They won no less than five gold medals, one silver and four bronzes. Many of the winning athletes sported auburn, if ...
Takafumi Horie, aka Horiemon, is in disgrace. He and other senior executives of Livedoor, the Internet company, have been arrested on suspicion of violating securities laws. Everybody calls Mr. Horie an alchemist now. They have taken to doing so ever since allegations about his ...
To end or not to end. That is the question. The Bank of Japan says yes. The government says no. The BOJ feels the time is ripe to do away with the policy of “quantitative easing.” The govern- ment feels it is premature to ...
