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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Dec 7, 2005

Creative destruction augurs well for woodland well-being

Coming into Tokyo earlier this year, a mountain lad like me might have thought the city was hosting a great convention of bank robbers. It seemed that half the population were masked and looking grim indeed. The problem, it seemed, was an allergy to the pollen from sugi (cryptomeria, or Japanese cedar)....
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2005

Japan's education disability

Many economists say the Japanese economy is at a "standstill" ahead of the start of a full recovery. For some time I have used a similar expression -- but in a different context -- to describe Japan's economic condition following the "Heisei recession," which lasted from February 1991 to October 1993....
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 28, 2005

Tax reforms must sustain positive economic cycle

The Japanese economy is on the path toward a full-scale recovery driven by the private sector. The next major challenge for the nation is to its rebuildfiscal health, which is now the worst among the key industrialized countries.
JAPAN
Nov 11, 2005

New Rengo leader wants to mend fence with DPJ

, said in an interview Wednesday with The Japan Times. "As long as (such discussions) are held, I'm not at all worried about our relationship with the DPJ," he said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / U.S. THINK TANK SYMPOSIUM
Nov 10, 2005

Demonizing China will accomplish nothing

Protectionist or demonizing views of China as a currency manipulator or as a security threat could endanger the national interests of the United States and Japan, two American think tank experts told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2005

Sex inequality slows growth

NEW YORK -- A growing number of countries have adopted population and development policies to meet the health-care and education needs of women, including their reproductive health needs. In spite of that, gender inequality persists in most countries around the world. According to the United Nations...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2005

Philippine NGO head seeks help for poor

Mutually Reinforcing Institutions, said the lending arm of the group, CARD Bank, extends small unsecured loans to 152,000 poor women who have families in rural areas of the Philippines. The loans, which are repaid in small installments, helps borrowers launch businesses in handicrafts, food retailing...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Sep 25, 2005

Storm surge of deficit spending forecast

WASHINGTON -- When things go wrong, they all go wrong for U.S. President George W. Bush. We have watched his approval ratings sag through the summer as his policies in Iraq and elsewhere have begun to unravel. Then came Hurricane Katrina nearly four weeks ago, and it appears that the bottom has fallen...
EDITORIALS
Sep 24, 2005

Inconclusive poll in Germany

I n Germany's general election Sunday, described as the most inconclusive in the country's postwar history, voters refused to give a clear-cut majority to any party. Earlier in the campaign, the opposition alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 20, 2005

Brought to heel

The watchdog role of journalists in Japan is on trial in several cases with enormous implications for freedom of the press here
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Sep 11, 2005

Assemblywoman puts sex on the agenda

In April 2003, 28-year-old Kanako Otsuji became the youngest person ever elected to the Osaka prefectural assembly when she won the seat for Sakai City. It was a distinction made more special by the fact that there were only six other women in the 110-member assembly at the time. However, another distinction...
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2005

Koizumi gets some high marks but must do more: Doyukai

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration should be given high marks for having addressed issues untouched by its predecessors, but there is still more to do, according to the chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai).
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2005

Where is the German vision?

WASHINGTON -- When German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder precipitated early elections in Germany, the decision to seek electoral guidance appeared appealing. Since then, the choices on Sept. 18 have been remarkable mainly for their paucity and obscurity. Unless the parties and their candidates are able...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 28, 2005

Moves afoot to counter U.S. Big Oil's clout

Reducing the greenhouse gases that derive from human activities and cause global warming is perhaps the most critical environmental challenge facing the world community.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2005

Welfare firms training foreign caregivers

Annie Watanabe took part last month in a role-playing exercise with other Filipino students, learning both how to feed a bedridden patient and how to be cared for.
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2005

Cutting butter with a saw?

The 2005 government white paper on the Japanese economy and public finances, which the Cabinet cleared earlier this month, has a chapter titled "From Public to Private: Restructuring the Government Sector and Its Challenges." It makes the following points:
Japan Times
Features
Jul 24, 2005

Mama Calcutta

Emiko Dhar moved to Calcutta (now renamed Kolkata) in 1962 after she married an Indian engineer whom she met through her job in Japan. She has lived there ever since.
BUSINESS
Jul 19, 2005

Retired athletes learn to survive life after sport

While all workers in Japan feel pressure to perform at the top of their game, that's probably more true for professional athletes than anyone else.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2005

The most dangerous civilian job in Iraq

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- In the translation world, the Italian phrase "traduttore, traditore" (translator, traitor) is used to suggest the inability to capture all the meaning in the original text and transfer it into another language because something inevitably gets lost in translation. Insurgents in...
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2005

Bid-rigging smacks of 'amakudari' to core

As the No. 2 at the Japan Highway Public Corp., the unidentified bureaucrat wielded enormous power over Japan's major road-builders.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 10, 2005

Author asks Japanese courts, 'Where is your mind?'

Sensational crimes are defined by the media since sensations fuel the media engine. Murder has the greatest potential for sensationalism, but some murders attract more attention than others. Through a certain confluence of motive, money, and methodology some hog headlines for weeks while others never...
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2005

Thai woman admits selling girl into sex trade

A Thai woman in Kanagawa Prefecture has been arrested on suspicion of selling a teenage Thai girl to a woman who manages prostitutes, and a Japanese man in Tokyo was taken into custody for introducing the girl to another man for purposes of solicitation, police said Monday.
BUSINESS
Jul 2, 2005

Jobless rate stayed unchanged at 4.4% in May

Japan's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which dropped to its lowest level in more than six years in April, remained unchanged at 4.4 percent in May, while the number of jobless people fell for the 24th straight month, the government said Friday, underscoring the resilience of the nation's labor...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2005

Call them illegal, but they're also heroic

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- "Being that you are an alleged expert in language, you should know the difference between legal and illegal," the reader stated in his e-mail, as he reacted angrily to one of my articles on immigration.
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2005

Energy plan that terminates the econom

WASHINGTON -- "We're all Keynesians now," declared U.S. President Richard M. Nixon when he surrendered his fiscal policies to liberal orthodoxy. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did much the same with his recent executive order calling for draconian cuts in the emission of "greenhouse gases" linked...
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2005

Shantytown outrage in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe continues its slide toward destruction. In the most recent outrage, President Robert Mugabe has evicted tens of thousands of traders from their shacks and razed their houses. It is hardly a coincidence that this "cleanup campaign" targets supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 11, 2005

Indian growth must co-opt the bypassed

MANILA -- India is a paradox. The successes of a select group of sectors -- from information technology to industr and services -- are creating an urban elite showcased as the builders of a modern and vibrant country on the cusp of joining the major economic powers of the world.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2005

Medical interns should get real wage: top court

Medical interns should be regarded as workers under the Labor Standard Law and should thus be guaranteed the minimum wage, the Supreme Court ruled Friday.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2005

Sompo Japan to ask ex-staff to cover baby leave

Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. will use former employees to cover the jobs of incumbent employees on child care leave from July, company officials said Thursday.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear