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Kiyoshi Takenaka
For Kiyoshi Takenaka's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 31, 2019
Actor-turned-politician Taro Yamamoto aims for real-life starring role as future Japan PM
Actor-turned-politician Taro Yamamoto is angling for a new real-life role in which he leads his novice party and allies to victory, ousts long-ruling conservatives and takes over as prime minister within the next few years.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2018
Austere Japan detention quarters contrast starkly with Carlos Ghosn's globe-trotting lifestyle
Prosecutors have confirmed that Nissan's arrested chairman, Carlos Ghosn, is being held in the spartan Tokyo Detention House in Katsushika Ward — its many rules and restrictions making for a stark contrast with his comfortable, globe-trotting lifestyle.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 11, 2018
Aging Japan: Akita Prefecture provides glimpse of country's graying future
On a recent weekday morning, a group of men in their 70s and 80s gathered for baseball practice just down the road from a junior high school where students were arriving to start the day.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2018
Japan's demand for foreign workers may soften immigration policy, albeit slowly
Shinichiro Tsukada says his small plastering company in Tokyo wouldn't survive without the 22 Chinese and Vietnamese workers who make up half his payroll.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 18, 2017
Japan's oldest village by age sees LDP leadership as key for survival
Chikara Imai, 73, is quick to dismiss the new parties in Sunday's national election, saying old ties with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party is what the country's most elderly village needs for survival.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 14, 2017
Abe's support rate slides to under 30%, poll says
Public support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, battered by a smoldering scandal and a perception that he is taking voters for granted, has fallen below 30 percent, the lowest since he returned to power in 2012, a survey released on Friday showed.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 22, 2016
Abe's maglev decision reflects political calculus over economics
Few doubt Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision to invest public funds in a $90 billion high-tech maglev railway makes political sense. Whether it makes equally good economic sense is less clear.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2016
Hiroshima survivors look to Obama visit for disarmament, not apology
Progress on ridding the world of nuclear weapons, not an apology, is what Hiroshima would want from a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to the city wiped out in the U.S. atomic bombing 71 years ago, survivors and other residents said.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Nov 30, 2015
Japan's tiny refugee community urges Tokyo to open doors wider
Hitoshi Kino, a bespectacled clerical employee at a university near Tokyo, doesn't stand out. Only a slight Vietnamese accent betrays his past as he speaks in Japanese about being stranded on a rickety boat in waters off his war-torn homeland in 1980, starving with 32 others and left by pirates with nothing but his underpants.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2015
Hiroshima hibakusha determined to keep memory of atomic bombing alive, 70 years on
Hiroshi Harada remembers how his leg sank into one of the bodies blocking a narrow Hiroshima street 70 years ago, as he fled the spreading fire ignited by the atomic bomb.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Aug 29, 2014
Japan defense budget request highest ever as Abe boosts military
Defense planners seek a record high ¥5.05 trillion budget for 2015 as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bolsters the military in the face growing tensions with China and North Korea.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2014
Aging WWII veterans fret about shift away from pacifist principles
Tokuro Inokuma, a former Imperial Japanese Army soldier, got his first taste of the horrors of war in 1945 when he scrambled to gather up the scattered limbs of his fellow servicemen, blown apart by a U.S. air raid in Japan. He was 16.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2014
Security bid too drastic: Komeito chief
The leader of the ruling party's smaller coalition partner said Friday that he does not agree with the defense policy changes that would allow Japanese forces to fight overseas to help allies, despite U.S. support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's review of the stance.

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces