August 25, 2025

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COMMENTARY / Japan

Macroeconomic challenges amid the COVID-19 crisis

Share prices have remained robust despite the steep GDP fall brought on by the pandemic's impact on retail sales and exports. | AP

Share prices have remained robust despite the steep GDP fall brought on by the pandemic's impact on retail sales and exports. | AP

By Heizo Takenaka
Contributing writer

Aug 21, 2020

Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.

Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?

By Tomoko Otake

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.

From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

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