Search - business

 
 
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2014

Most Japanese voters oppose security shift

Half of Japanese voters oppose dropping a ban that has kept the military from fighting abroad since World War II, a survey showed on Monday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe readied a landmark shift in security policy that would ease the constraints of the pacifist constitution on the armed forces. A third...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jun 30, 2014

China suffers karoshi, as white-collar workers die from overwork

Chinese banking regulator Li Jianhua literally worked himself to death. After 26 years of "always putting the cause of the party and the people" first, his employer said this month, the 48-year-old official died rushing to finish a report before the sun came up.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 29, 2014

Reclusive cleric takes charge in Iraq crisis

Najaf is far from Baghdad's palaces and the battlefields of northern Iraq. Its mud-brick houses, dirt alleys and concrete office blocks project little in the way of strength or sway. But it is here, where Iraq's most influential clerics work from modest buildings in the shadow of a golden-domed shrine,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jun 29, 2014

Comic books champion debate on Fukushima disaster

Farmers in Fukushima try to convince skeptical visitors that their crops are safe from radiation. Blood trickles from the nose of a reporter who visits the area.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 28, 2014

Not ducking tradition in Higashi-Ueno

With its lotus-laden Shinobazu pond, park grounds, and national museums, the Ueno area in Tokyo draws millions of visitors a year. Nearby Higashi-Ueno (Eastern Ueno), however, seems to be another world altogether. When I exit Shin-Okachimachi station, under skies portending summer heat, this low-lying...
EDITORIALS
Jun 28, 2014

Hong Kong's democratic 'farce'

The prospect of a clash between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland has become more real in recent weeks as Hong Kong residents participate in a poll on how to select their top leader. Although it is not legally binding, the ballot has angered Beijing.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 27, 2014

Suzuki Motor's CEO, 84, spurs succession fears

After almost three decades helming Suzuki Motor Corp., investors are becoming increasingly concerned at the lack of clarity over who will succeed the carmaker's octogenarian chairman and president.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Jun 27, 2014

BBC news to turn Japanese with translated website

A recent job posting for a digital editor for BBC World Japan sparked interest online, with local Web-watchers noting that the job description called for a Tokyo-based editor with fluent Japanese to head up a team that will publish content from the main BBC News website on "a new, Japanese-language...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 26, 2014

Tepco shrugs off activist investors

Tokyo Electric Power Co. shot down a bevy of anti-nuclear policy proposals lobbed up by irate shareholders at its annual meeting Thursday in Tokyo and vowed instead to restart its idled reactors.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Jun 26, 2014

UFC returning to Saitama on Sept. 20

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is bringing its brand of mixed-martial arts back to Japan with not only one of the most highly anticipated heavyweight bouts in recent memory, but also what may be among the most important UFC debuts by a Japanese fighter in some time.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 26, 2014

Kurds to pump more oil from new fields

Iraq's self-ruling Kurds outlined plans on Wednesday to swiftly ramp up oil exports now that their forces have taken control of Iraq's main northern oil fields, a move that could tear up the settlement holding Iraq together since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 26, 2014

Ajinomoto looks to take 'umami' worldwide

Ajinomoto Co., the creator of monosodium glutamate flavoring more than 100 years ago, plans acquisitions and is looking to expand in Poland as it seeks growth in frozen food and seasoning in Europe and the United States.
EDITORIALS
Jun 26, 2014

Old silk mill gains new importance

Gunma Prefecture's Tomioka Silk Mill, which UNESCO has decided to add to the World Cultural Heritage List, symbolizes 19th-century Japan's efforts to become a member of the industrialized world.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 25, 2014

Sewol survivors return to school

Holding hands as they walked through the school gates, some fighting back tears, 75 children who survived South Korea's worst maritime disaster in 20 years returned to class on Wednesday pledging to remember their lost friends.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Jun 25, 2014

The naked American at Narita airport

Leaving Narita, stripped of your African accoutrement and any other identifiers that speak to your nationality and sensibilities, you advance through an array of unfamiliar sights and sounds, just as brown and naked as the day you were born.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2014

'Scary stories' series reaches limit

In "Hyakumonogatari," a 1911 novella by the great author and translator Ogai Mori, the protagonist explains that its title refers to a traditional way of telling ghost stories, saying: "In hyakumonogatari (meaning '100 tales'), people gather together and arrange 100 candles. Each person tells a ghost...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 25, 2014

Murdoch protegee Brooks cleared of cellphone hacking

Rebekah Brooks, the former boss of Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper arm, was acquitted Tuesday of orchestrating a campaign to hack into phones and bribe officials in a case that has shaken the British political establishment.
JAPAN
Jun 24, 2014

Cabinet adopts economic plans

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet has adopted a set of reform strategies to boost growth, including attracting more foreign investors to prop up stock prices.
BUSINESS
Jun 23, 2014

Foreign maids the talk of Kansai zone

Discussions began in Osaka on Monday on a proposed special economic zone in the Kansai region that will include an experimental program to attract foreign maids to the region.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2014

Stop this president from distorting rule of law

None of the policy disagreements roiling Washington at present is as important as the unchecked presidential aggrandizement of Barack Obama and his distortions of the rule of law.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2014

Time to make 'Chindia' a reality

Ten years ago, Indian economist and politician Jairam Ramesh raised the idea of China and India joining forces to cooperate as much as they compete. With both countries now in the hands of self-described reformers, could 'Chindia' finally come to fruition?

Longform

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