For Ami Miyazaki's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
As a Self-Defense Forces recruiter sat patiently at a booth outside a supermarket in Tokyo one recent weekend, she welcomed a rare visitor, high school student Kazuaki Matsumura. But Matsumura, who plans to go to university, wasn't there to sign up. He was just curious. "There ...
When Isao Akutagawa moved to the sleepy riverside community of Mabicho in Okayama Prefecture 45 years ago, it seemed like the perfect suburb to raise his children. In the town, which was merged with the nearby city of Kurashiki in 2005 and is now called ...
The leader of the small Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which exceeded expectations in October's snap poll, now hopes that by offering clear policy alternatives he can oust Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition in the next election. One key to achieving that ambitious goal, ...
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. Nanmoku, 107 km (67 miles) northwest of Tokyo, is at ...
Japan may not achieve its carbon emissions target if an ambitious plan to build more coal-fired power plants moves ahead, the environment minister said, underlining Tokyo's struggle to meet globally agreed goals to halt climate change. Even as it champions the Paris climate agreement, Japan ...
Their youth long gone, members of Japan's generation of "parasite singles" face a precarious future, wondering how to survive once the parents many depended on for years pass away. Some 4.5 million Japanese aged between 35 and 54 were living with their parents in 2016, ...
Visa please fall on deaf ears as justice ministry insists on executing deportation orders.
Japan should spend ¥10 trillion ($99.83 billion) on fiscal stimulus both in fiscal 2017 and 2018 to offset the economy's lack of demand and eliminate the risk of deflation, an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. Abe has already compiled a stimulus package for ...
Mazlum Balibay paves Japan's roads, digs its sewers and lays its water pipes — all for a country that doesn't want him. Balibay, 24, is a Kurdish asylum seeker who fled to Japan more than eight years ago after he said his family was persecuted ...
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. Proponents say lending government money to Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) to speed ...
