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JAPAN
Apr 28, 2014

New recruits less ambitious: survey

This year's crop of new workers is less willing to work abroad or to start their own businesses compared with the previous year, a survey says.
BUSINESS
Apr 26, 2014

LDP mulls reversal on consumer lending; interest rates would soar to 29%

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party may loosen restrictions imposed to block usury and coercive lending in the consumer finance industry.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 26, 2014

Asian paradox: Closer but cooler

The mini-Cold War between Japan and South Korea has kept Washington busy as it tries to forge closer security ties between its allies to offset the rise of China. Policymakers confront the Asian paradox of deepening distrust and conflict in tandem with widening economic and human exchanges. Relations...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 26, 2014

Chinese gobble up U.S. real estate

For the first time, the Chinese have become the biggest foreign buyers of apartments in Manhattan, real estate brokers estimate, taking the mantle from the Russians — whose activity has dropped off since the unrest in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions against Russia by the United States.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 26, 2014

Jun Ikeido's "Roosevelt Game" gets drama; dancer Ebina profiled; CM of the Week: Lawson

In baseball parlance, a "Roosevelt game" is one where a team wins by one run. The new TBS drama series, "Roosevelt Game" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), is based on a novel by Jun Ikeido, who wrote last year's smash series "Hanzawa Naoki." This one is also set in the corporate world, but in manufacturing rather than...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2014

Costs keep mounting for idled reactors

Since March 2011, the government has focused on the cost of cleaning up after Fukushima, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Now, the bill is coming due for another unbudgeted consequence of that calamity — shutting down the nation's 48 remaining nuclear reactors for costly safety reviews that...
LIFE / Digital
Apr 25, 2014

Understanding Facebook and Google's pursuit of drone technology

Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, one of the most revered branches of the inexact sciences was Kremlinology. In the West, newspapers, think tanks and governments retained specialists whose job was to scrutinize every scrap of evidence, gossip and rumor emanating from Moscow in the hope that it...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2014

Perilous road to Slovyansk

The utter disconnect between America's diplomatic principles and practice is emboldening the country's adversaries. The lone actor most responsible for threatening world peace might unwittingly be U.S. President Barack Obama.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 24, 2014

Did Barack, Shinzo get down to sushi or business?

U.S. President Barack Obama had his first session with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday in Tokyo, treated at what is often touted as the best-ever sushi bar in Japan: Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo's Ginza district.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2014

China holding three workers, Marubeni says

Three employees at one of Marubeni Corp.'s grain trading units in China have been detained by authorities, the trading house said Thursday, a move sources said was prompted by allegations it evaded taxes on soybean imports.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2014

Painful love in decaying Hokkaido port town

My interview with Mipo Oh, the director of the turbulent new love drama 'Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku (The Light Shines Only There),' did not begin smoothly.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2014

Late but handsome apology to Sephardic Jews

Spain isn't just saying sorry for expelling its Jews 522 years ago; it's offering to give their descendants back their citizenship. And Spanish citizenship is practically citizenship in all 28 EU countries.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 23, 2014

Best to approach Gursky's photos with a painterly eye

The invention of photography was supposed to bring about the death of painting.
BUSINESS
Apr 22, 2014

H.I.S. eyes island off theme park for casino

H.I.S. Co.'s Dutch-themed Huis Ten Bosch amusement park along the Nagasaki coast is considering buying a deserted offshore island in an expansion to boost its appeal as a possible site for a casino resort.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 22, 2014

Aiful leads as rules face easing

Aiful Corp. led gains in consumer finance stocks after the Nikkei newspaper reported that the Liberal Democratic Party is considering loosening lending restrictions and allowing the interest rate cap to go up to 29.2 percent.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2014

Europe lacks leadership over Ukraine

The sad truth about February's revolution in Kiev is that the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych ended the regime of one-clan dominance, but not the oligarchical system of governance that underpinned it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE PERSISTENT VEGETARIAN
Apr 22, 2014

In search of the fruits of Okinawa's oceans

Seven years ago, I bit into a delicate variety of seaweed called umi-budō, or "sea grapes." I remember sampling a few dishes at Unjami, an Okinawan-style izakaya off Nakano Broadway in Tokyo (5-55-1 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo; 03-5345-5836), but the umi-budō stood out as something special. These tiny,...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2014

The irrelevant German consumer shines on

With regard to global rebalancing, the German consumer is a sideshow. What is needed is an investment surge in Germany and Europe, and a coordinated exit from ultra-loose monetary policies.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2014

How to run the euro area

To manage the eurozone, a multifaceted approach is required to prevent a vicious circle of public- and private-sector deleveraging leading to weaker economic activity that in turn results in a further deterioration in banks' asset quality.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 21, 2014

Artists' mission to revitalize an onsen town

It begins with a long, slow hiss. The valves open, and a thick fog is released into the air, pouring from the roof of Dogo Onsen Honkan, the famous three-tiered bathhouse built in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, in 1894. It flows down the side of the building, past bathers in bathrobes on the open balcony...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / NET NEWS WATCH
Apr 21, 2014

Where there's smoke . . . there might be adults giving minors cigarettes

The Kanagawa Prefectural Police on Wednesday sent reports to prosecutors on 33 adults on suspicion of allowing minors to drink and smoke.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 20, 2014

Sex slave issue still barrier to South Korea ties

Tokyo and Seoul are finally talking again, but any failure to resolve the resurgent compensation issues involving former “comfort women” may doom their progress.

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