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JAPAN / The Argument: Casinos
Oct 30, 2019

Japan is going all-in on casinos. Will the gamble pay off?

More and more municipalities in Japan are considering placing a bet on casinos following the enactment of a law last year that spelled out a raft of rules on the structure of the nation's planned integrated resorts (IR), nomenclature for casinos.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 30, 2019

Shin Adachi's mission to bust the myth of marital bliss in 'A Beloved Wife'

Shin Adachi discusses his latest feature, 'A Beloved Wife,' which will be screened in the main competition at the 2019 Tokyo International Film Festival
Japan Times
JAPAN / The Argument: Casinos
Oct 30, 2019

Any economic benefits of casinos come at far too steep of a price

Those who support bringing casinos to Japan boast of their economic benefits, but any perceived boon for the economy is far outweighed by their destructive consequences.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / The Argument: Casinos
Oct 30, 2019

Casinos are misunderstood and a needed part of destination resorts

As a longtime member of a nonpartisan group of lawmakers promoting integrated resorts, my basic stance is to promote the introduction of IRs as a whole, rather than casinos alone.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2019

Over two-thirds of Japanese people say they read fewer books, blaming work and smartphones, government survey shows

Some 67.3 percent of Japanese say they are reading fewer books, with about a third of such people attributing the decline to time spent on devices such as smartphones, according to a Cultural Affairs Agency survey.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2019

How the Kurds helped in the hunt for al-Baghdadi

Now what they want is Washington's support in their negotiations with Damascus.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2019

Generation X faces a bleak future

As Gen Xers passed through each stage of life, they have been living through the worst possible time to be whatever age they happened to be.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2019

Former Canadian PM on democracy's role in world affairs

The fifth Global Opinion Leaders Summit was held in Tokyo on Oct. 17 with former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivering the keynote before a panel discussion on geopolitical and economic issues.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2019

Beautiful harmony in an angry world

The internet, which was going to bring citizen liberation, has ushered in forces of social disintegration.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2019

Baghdadi is dead but the Islamic State group is not

We've seen before that the killing of a leader can make a terrorist group more resilient.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 28, 2019

Microsoft's Pentagon cloud computing win comes at a cost, legal and internal

Microsoft Corp. scored a major victory in securing a milestone, $10 billion Pentagon contract for cloud computing services. But the contract — unthinkable for Microsoft even a year ago — will likely come at a cost, legal and internal.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2019

Trudeau survives but ...

The elections have made Canadian politics more complex: It is now chess — not checkers.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 27, 2019

Two pro-remain UK political parties to try to trigger Dec. 9 election

Two of Britain's smaller political parties have joined forces to try to trigger a Dec. 9 election and have written to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, to ask for a delay to Brexit to hold it.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 26, 2019

The mysterious case of Japan's vanishing bookstores

Decades of writing a column about the country's media industry has imparted me with a strong sense of familiarity with media personalities, companies, publications and sales channels. When they expire, it often hits me hard.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2019

Sports are feeling heat from climate change

Thanks to deadly heat waves, the Olympic marathon is moving from Tokyo to Sapporo next year. It's a sign of things to come.
Reader Mail
Oct 25, 2019

The weaponization of denial

Yoichi Funabashi's opinion pieces are usually well-informed, thoughtful and sane. It's a disappointment to find him now writing as a patriot. His article "Tokyo, Seoul and the weaponization of history" in the Oct. 11 edition boldly broaches urgent issues but fails to come to terms with the main one....
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2019

Putin took the Mideast, the U.S. can get it back

Thanks to Obama and Trump, Russia the 'regional power' has added a new region.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / Sac Bunts
Oct 22, 2019

Sawamura Award selection committee needs to adjust with the times

Ever heard the one about the guy who had to walk 5 km, uphill, through a hailstorm just to get to school every day?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2019

NATO can save the Kurds and make Turkey happy

Turkey is a member of NATO, so why not use the alliance to forge peace along its Syrian border?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2019

Where women see bias, men see a 'pipeline' problem

McKinsey's enormous new data set shows diverging opinions on what stalls young women's careers.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2019

Jeff Bezos' Amazon needs a leash, not a breakup

The New Yorker and the Atlantic have never been known for their business coverage, so when both magazines published long articles about Amazon.com Inc. in their current issues it signaled that something is in the air. That something is antitrust.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 21, 2019

No Sawamura winner named for 2019 season

The Sawamura Award is an honor given to the top pitcher in Japanese baseball each season.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2019

Southeast Asia has a weight problem

With obesity rates soaring, countries like Singapore and Malaysia are weighing aggressive interventions.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 19, 2019

Biden expands edge in presidential race amid Ukraine hearings

Former Vice President Joe Biden expanded his lead over more than a dozen other candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination this month as U.S. House Democrats looked into allegations that President Donald Trump tried to pressure a foreign leader to investigate him, according to a Reuters/Ipsos...
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 16, 2019

Shinjiro Koizumi's 'sexy' fight against climate change is untranslatable, Japan's government says

The government was forced to make sense of Koizumi's recent vow to make Japan's fight against climate change “sexy” after an opposition lawmaker requested an official interpretation of his remarks.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Oct 16, 2019

Plastic reuse the most efficient way to solve marine waste issue, experts say

Although marine plastic has become a prominent environmental issue in recent years, plastic is too valuable a resource to ever truly go away, so effectively managing such waste and placing it in a circular economy system would be the most efficient way to solve the issue, experts at a Tokyo seminar said...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 15, 2019

Your next vacation may be virtual

Airlines are investing in virtual reality because the global tourism boom is unsustainable.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 15, 2019

South Korean President Moon Jae-in faces crisis with echoes of predecessor Park's downfall

Three years ago, Moon Jae-in was among the masses on the streets of Seoul seeking to oust a president accused of ignoring the people's will. Now, his own presidency is facing a similar crisis.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 15, 2019

In election fight, Canada's Trudeau says he needs voter support to stand up to Trump

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who looks set to lose his parliamentary majority after an Oct. 21 election, said on Monday he needed a strong government to keep standing up to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan