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BUSINESS
Jan 19, 2012

Takayama vows to stay at Olympus helm until late April

Olympus Corp. President Shuichi Takayama, one of the defendants in a suit over the firm's massive hidden losses, said Wednesday he will stay at his post until the second half of April, when the company will hold a shareholders' meeting.
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2012

JAL to appoint first ex-pilot president to steer new team, fall TSE relisting

Japan Airlines Corp. will appoint Senior Managing Executive Officer Yoshiharu Ueki as its new president following a shareholders' meeting in February, a move intended to strengthen its new management team ahead of its relisting later this year.
BUSINESS
Jan 17, 2012

Machinery orders climb 14.8% as firms stay optimistic on investment

Machinery orders rebounded in November, signaling that companies are willing to invest even as the yen remains strong and the global economy slows.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 16, 2012

Looking for a doomsday scenario to believe in?

You've probably heard about the Mayan carvings that predict the year 2012 will be our last. Supposedly, the war and creation god Bolon Yokte will return, bringing with him certain doom. Scholars have been trying to tamp down those claims, saying that's an erroneous interpretation of the Mayan calendar,...
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2012

Finer details of atmospheric science in Beijing

In July 2009, China's Foreign Ministry made a demand of the American embassy: Stop taking measurements of air pollution in Beijing available to ordinary Chinese since they conflicted with official data and could lead to "confusion" among the public and undesirable "social consequences."
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2012

Noda hoping latest reshuffle bucks trend of dismal failures

Cabinet reshuffles are generally called a gamble prime ministers take to reverse dismal approval ratings, but in recent years most of them have failed miserably.
BASKETBALL
Jan 14, 2012

Expansion team awarded to Tokyo

A Tokyo-based expansion team will join the bj-league next season, giving the capital city a new franchise after the disappearance of the Tokyo Apache.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 13, 2012

'Robo-G'

Japanese commercial films nearly always run on the well-worn rails of franchise and formula. Originality in script and concept is gifted to only a chosen few with strong box-office track records — Hayao Miyazaki, Koki Mitani and Shinobu Yaguchi among them. Though not as well-known as the anime master...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 13, 2012

Bearing witness to brutality in 'Devil's Double'

"Should I ask him whether it's true or not?" That's the question I had for my editor regarding my interview with Latif Yahia, the Iraqi exile whose story about being the lookalike body-double for Saddam Hussein's psychotic son Uday has been parlayed into a best-selling book and a movie. "Probably," said...
LIFE / Digital / Japan Pulse
Jan 12, 2012

Incubators set the stage for big things

With a bit of seed money and the right guidance, bright ideas find a future via Japan's incubators.
Reader Mail
Jan 12, 2012

Nuclear accident solutions

Tune into Asian news on PBS in the United States on any given weekday morning and the chances are that the lead story will be about the March 11 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 9, 2012

China's Un-relenting watch

The entire world was shocked by the news of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who was as vicious a dictator as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin or Mao Zedong.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Jan 9, 2012

The Kanji of the Year for 2011: human ties that bind

Every November, in its Kanji of the Year poll, the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation invites the public to vote for the character that best symbolizes the year drawing to a close. It then announces the winner in mid December.
LIFE
Jan 8, 2012

Stories spiked despite journalism's mission to inform

Olympus isn't the only story that has been or is being ignored or squashed by powerful forces in Japan. Here are three more gems from that rich vein.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 8, 2012

Stop the presses and hold the front page

It was perhaps the biggest financial story of postwar Japan — or it should have been.Yamaichi Securities, one of the nation's four top brokerages, which was among the world's six largest in the 1980s, had in 1992 started to illegally bury millions of dollars in red ink off the books, setting up dummy...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Jan 8, 2012

Nakajima's predicament illustrates why posting system needs changes

Hiroyuki Nakajima is one of the top shortstops in Japanese baseball, possibly even the best at the moment. A versatile infielder with a good bat and a slick mix of power and speed, Nakajima would seem to have the tools necessary to carve out a niche for himself in the major leagues.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years