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JAPAN
May 8, 2010

Busy auctions mask Tsukiji decline

Around 5 a.m., the opening bell signaled the start of the auction at Tokyo's Tsukiji Central Fish Market. Lining the floor were hundreds of tunas, tagged with their point of origin — Guam, Australia and Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture. As the sellers called out each fish's number, buyers raised their hands...
EDITORIALS
May 6, 2010

The long downhill road

The severe business environment for department stores has kept this segment of the retail industry on a downward sales path for two decades.
COMMENTARY / World
May 6, 2010

Brand, but don't ban, credit default swaps

CHICAGO — The lawsuit filed last month by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Goldman Sachs for securities fraud, charging the bank with misrepresenting the way a collateralized debt obligations had been formed, has revived public disgust at credit default swaps (CDS), the instrument...
EDITORIALS
May 5, 2010

Deflation's end on the horizon?

The Bank of Japan's semiannual "Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices" on April 30 said the nation's consumer prices should stop falling in fiscal 2011 for the first time in three years. It predicts that the core consumer price index, which excludes volatile perishable food prices, will rise 0.1 percent...
JAPAN
May 5, 2010

Secondhand market grows

When Chie Matsumoto buys anything — from a DVD player to golf goods to a telephone — she now chooses secondhand goods because brand-new items aren't necessarily what she needs.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 3, 2010

Accusations about Japan's youths lacking 'animal spirits' off mark

The old are invariably critical of the young. Japan is no exception. The older generation finds much to bemoan in the attitudes and behaviors of their successors.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 2, 2010

Renho: Japan's fiscal firebrand

Renho, a first-term Upper House member from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, shot to stardom in Japan last November when, as a member of a government committee tasked with screening ministries' budget requests, she had several fierce, face-to-face battles with bureaucrats.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 1, 2010

Not easy being green: Eco-point system tests patience

Got Eco-points? Great, but cashing them is going to take more than a little paperwork.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 1, 2010

An artist's love affair with ceramics

Ceramic artist Swanica Ligtenberg returned from her native Holland in early January with a new sense of purpose. She no longer felt an outsider in a family of goldsmiths and silversmiths, because in speaking with her uncle — still creatively active at age 91 — she realized that the roots of his and...
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2010

Akasaka Prince, favored venue for power players, to close in '11

It was a dream hotel for young ladies during the late-1980s bubble economy and the center of politics in the 2000s, but its aging facilities are failing the test of time and foreign competition.
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2010

G.com has more room for ex-Geos teachers

G.communication Co. will hire some teachers from schools that it isn't taking over from defunct Geos Corp. because it is currently experiencing a manpower shortage, G.communication President Hideo Sugimoto told The Japan Times on Wednesday.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Apr 28, 2010

Mao's magnetism resonates on a global scale

Ever think you had a fairly good idea of the popularity of a public figure only to be completely blown away when you truly found out?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 28, 2010

Learning how to arrange a date in Japanese

Whether it's a romantic engagement or dinner with friends or colleagues, making an appointment (約束, yakusoku) is a vital part of everyday language in Japan as much as anywhere else. The grammar involved isn't too taxing, though the vocabulary extends as far as your interests. Meeting for coffee (コーヒー,...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 27, 2010

Sakamoto, the man and the myth

Even though he was assassinated more than 140 years ago, the name of Sakamoto Ryoma continues to pop up today, most recently as an inspiration behind the NHK drama "Ryoma-den" and as the historical figure favored by lawmakers of all ideological stripes.
BUSINESS
Apr 27, 2010

Japanese carmakers increase output

Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. increased global auto production in March as demand rose in Asia and the U.S.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 25, 2010

Japan needs united opinion on Futenma's fate

In the middle of March, the Chunichi Shimbun published a survey of average people's opinions of the U.S.-Japan defense alliance. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents said they thought the alliance was either very important or mostly necessary. In addition, 59 percent felt the alliance was OK the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 25, 2010

Horsing around in Shinjuku

At the tail end of this year's cherry-blossom season I set off for one of Tokyo's prime viewing spots, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. My idea is to walk the quiet backstreets circling the garden, then canter through the park itself, which features several late-blooming varieties of sakura cherry trees....

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