Search - people

 
 
EDITORIALS
Jan 26, 2014

Guarding against norovirus

Norovirus food poisoning is back this season, and the health ministry says the number of cases has been on the rise for the past 10 years. No drug or vaccine will weaken or kill norovirus. Hand-washing with soap is the best preventive.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2014

Mindless inventiveness for checkered legacies

To say that the late Ariel Sharon's eight-year-long coma had given Israel time to 'come to terms' with his checkered legacy is a cliche that deserves to be swept away.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 26, 2014

Special K: Mini-cars come of age in a maxi-world

Japanese mini-cars are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
WORLD
Jan 25, 2014

'Abe-genda': nuclear export superpower

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now in New Delhi to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Indian Republic. His presence speaks volumes about closer diplomatic, security and economic ties and, at least from Tokyo's perspective, a common agenda on responding to the rise of China. India remains...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 25, 2014

Is altruism our hope, and growth a curse?

My day job is at Chuo University in western Tokyo, and January at Japanese universities is chaotic, what with final classes, reports and grading as our second term comes to an end and the academic year winds down toward its conclusion in March. Among the words that come to mind, "happiness" is not usually...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 25, 2014

A double dose of Fumiyo Kohinata; arson attack survivor featured on "NHK Special"; CM of the week: Ajinomoto

Well-known character actor Fumiyo Kohinata not only gets a rare opportunity to star in a two-hour drama, but stars twice — playing twin brothers in the mystery "Twins: Saotome Kyodai no Suiri Nisshi" ("Twins: The Saotome Brothers' Deductive Diary"; TBS, Mon., 9 p.m.)
EDITORIALS
Jan 24, 2014

Limits of secrecy oversight panel

An expert council for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may be able to serve as a minor check against the arbitrary application of the new state secrets law, but the the defects of the law will remain.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2014

SoftBank to Dentsu, firms start to court gays

With less than a 0.1 percent share of Japan's car market, Alfa Romeo knew it couldn't match the marketing muscle of the local giants like Toyota Motor Corp., which together make nine out of every 10 vehicles sold in the country.
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2014

Quake will cut water to 94% of Osaka

A powerful earthquake originating in what seismologists call the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast could cut off tap water to roughly 8.32 million people in Osaka, or 94 percent of the prefecture's residents, the Osaka Prefectural Government said Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2014
Jan 23, 2014

Young entrepreneur out to change education

The Global Shapers are highly motivated young people between the ages of 20 and 30 with the potential to be society's future leaders, according to the World Economic Forum, which selects them based on several factors, such as their initiative, commitment and potential to "make a difference."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2014

Hiraki Sawa’s dream world: Worth the pause for thought

Sometimes it can be irritating visiting an exhibition of video-based art. You come in halfway through one of the videos or near the end of another, and you feel that you've missed something and wonder if you should stick around to watch it from the start.
Reader Mail
Jan 22, 2014

Avoiding the nuclear debate

Regarding the Jan. 17 Kyodo article "Fukushima No. 1 engineer's warning to Taiwan: Nuclear power unstable": So now we know that the government — the Liberal Democratic Party, that is — was not only clearly informed of the likelihood of a nuclear disaster but has been deliberately covering up this...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2014

Reforms open SE Asia's 'last frontier'

Newly democratizing Myanmar is a suitable destination for Japanese direct investment as it is Southeast Asia's "last frontier," two researchers based in Singapore said at a symposium in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2014

Syria could signal farewell to arms at Geneva II

The Geneva II conference on Syria, set to begin in Montreux, Switzerland, this week, is unlikely to achieve its goal of forming a transitional governing authority with full executive powers, but it could produce a ceasefire agreement between government and opposition forces.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jan 18, 2014

In Jomon and Heian, the times weren't a-changin'

"Man the change-maker." That is one definition of Homo sapiens. Other creatures are changed — by Nature, by evolution — over vast expanses of time measured in hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Humankind consciously generates change. We innovate, build, invent, destroy, build again. Even...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 18, 2014

Meditation may reduce anxiety, depression

Meditation may offer the same relief as antidepressants for people with symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to an analysis of previous findings on the practice.
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 18, 2014

Will Japan prepared mean nature ruined?

"Resilience" is a hot topic these days — not in self-help books, but among policymakers worldwide. As governments become convinced that climate change is a real threat, they are taking steps to ensure communities can bounce back from the increasing impact of floods, storms, fires and droughts they...
EDITORIALS
Jan 18, 2014

School costs gap wider than ever

A fiscal 2012 education ministry survey of parents throughout Japan reports that total spending for a child going to private schools from kindergarten through senior high school came to ¥16.77 million on average, significantly more than the ¥5 million for a child going to public schools.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2014

How U.S. won — and lost— the war on poverty

In reality, Americans both won and lost the War on Poverty launched 50 years ago this month. This is an ambiguous truth that the acrimonious U.S. political culture has trouble accepting.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2014

Why is Stalin honored despite killing millions?

It is impossible to imagine a Hitler statue anywhere in Germany, so why is it that statues of Josef Stalin have been restored in towns across Georgia (his birthplace) and that another is to be erected in Moscow as part of a commemoration of all Soviet leaders?
LIFE
Jan 16, 2014

Google brats are ruining Frisco for the locals

Just under a year ago, Rebecca Solnit, a writer living in San Francisco, wrote a sobering piece in the London Review of Books about the Google Bus, which she viewed as a proxy for the technology industry in nearby Palo Alto, Mountain View and Cupertino.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jan 15, 2014

No refuge from booze in Tokyo, paradise for alcoholics in denial

Many of us foreigners living here know deep down that we and many of our friends are at least mild alcoholics, masking each other's addictions, and the allure of alcohol is not an easy monkey to get of your back. It's difficult in any city, though living in Tokyo provides it's own unique set of problems.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2014

Economic inequality by the click

Free markets are expected to distribute the fruits of some new technologies in dramatically unequal ways. Will the relative losers, satiated by computer games and Internet entertainment, and provided with the basics of a minimally acceptable life, be too docile to revolt?
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014

Inequality nightmare continues to plague world

While demand for private jets is booming, 60 percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day. As the world overall grows richer, the benefits continue to flow overwhelmingly to a tiny elite.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014

Boosting the global economy

Although we have avoided the worst-case depressioin scenario over the past five years, thanks to the efforts of global policymakers, the world economy is not yet flying on all engines and is likely to remain underpowered this year as well, says the IMF managing director.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014

Burke, Paine still haunt U.S. politics

The British statesman Edmund Burke and the Anglo-American revolutionary Thomas Paine both favored free trade but for different reasons. More than 200 years later, their differences in outlook underlie much of our politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014

Warring dogmas block climate-change progress

National debates over environmental issues are sometimes derailed by two kinds of extremists: eco-doomsayers and techno-optimists. Noisy, headline-grabbing dogmas are an impediment to progress.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014

Why Pope Francis is right to call inequality unjust

To say that Pope Francis' preoccupation with inequality promotes the sin of envy and that inequality in itself is of no great account doesn't make much sense to Harvard lecturer on ethics and public policy.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight