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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2011

Facing the specter of famine

SINGAPORE — In India, a potentially huge economic and social crisis is in the making, involving extensive rewriting of recipe books to exclude a favorite ingredient. Onions are in short supply and their prices have risen by 80 percent, too expensive for many Indians to afford as part of their daily...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 23, 2011

Is 'Galapagos-thinking' Japan back at its evolutionary dead end?

There are expressions that buzz like busy little bees and ones that don't buzz anymore. One of the dead-bee buzzwords in Japan is shimaguni konjo, meaning "island mentality." As for a buzzword for 2011, you'd be hard put to find one more busily doing the rounds than garapagosu, which references the Galapagos...
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2011

Remembering Kobe

Sixteen years have passed since a devastating earthquake hit Kobe on Jan. 17, 1995, killing 6,434 people and injuring some 44,000 others. In 2010, the Hyogo prefectural government and the Kobe city government for the first time designated 328 people as having become disabled due to the quake. But 121...
EDITORIALS
Jan 14, 2011

Social welfare unraveling

Personal consumption, which accounts for more than half the nation's gross domestic product and is an important locomotive of the economy, has been sluggish. Short-term factors behind the sluggish consumption are the termination of subsidies for the purchase of eco-friendly cars and the scaling down...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2011

The happy quest beyond economic growth

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In a time of tight budgets and financial crisis, politicians nowadays look to economic growth as the centerpiece of their domestic policy programs. Gross domestic product is taken to be the leading indicator of national well-being. But, as we look ahead to 2011 and beyond, we should...
EDITORIALS
Jan 10, 2011

Overcoming deflation psychology

One reason people feel that the Japanese economy is stagnant is the long bout of deflation. Once deflation psychology has set in, it is very difficult for both firms and people to shed it.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 8, 2011

Ex-MP revisits Okinawa's Koza Riot

On a mild December night in the city of Okinawa, Bruce Lieber, a 61-year-old Ohio native, found himself surrounded by a cluster of Japanese journalists. Photographers and TV crew jostled for position while reporters asked him how it felt to be back on the island.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 7, 2011

Dommune live-streams DJ sets to a growing fan base

The crowd bristles with excitement as the first DJ of the night winds down his set. An air of anticipation sets in around the room. As the next DJ enters the booth with his CD booklet in hand, the throng begins to swarm the tiny floor, no larger than your grandmother's basement. Four Tet is about to...
COMMENTARY
Jan 7, 2011

China shows signs of recognizing its limits

HONG KONG — After behaving in an assertive, sometimes arrogant, fashion through most of 2010, when it at various times took on the United States, Europe and Japan, both Beijing and the people of China appear to recognize the need for greater caution and restraint in the coming year. For one thing,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2011

Penalties pay off for New Year's resolutions

MELBOURNE — Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New Year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know that it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier...
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Dec 31, 2010

Trends in Japan 2010: Twitter

It wasn't exactly love at first sight between Japan and the little blue bird, but by 2010, practically everyone was a-twitter.
EDITORIALS
Dec 30, 2010

MPD is slow on leak

On Oct. 28, what is believed to be 114 documents linked to the police's investigation efforts concerning international terrorism was posted on the Internet. Most of the documents are believed to have been prepared by the Metropolitan Police Department's Third Foreign Affairs Division in charge of investigation...
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2010

Japan Inc. urged to rethink Asia view

Asia is the new engine of global growth, but Japanese companies' past success models of doing business in the region may turn out to be a liability under the changing competitive environment, experts said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2010

Eye to eye with the unwanted

NEW YORK — Baruch Spinoza, the 17th-century Dutch philosopher, Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th-century British prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the 21st-century French president, have one thing in common: All were sons of immigrants.
EDITORIALS
Dec 20, 2010

Questionable insurance revisions

A new health insurance system that covers people aged 75 or over started April 1, 2008. It was unpopular at first because, in principle, premiums are withdrawn from people's pensions at the source. Participants also felt that they were segregated from younger people.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 19, 2010

At the pinnacle of pole

There was a palpable buzz in the air at Tokyo Dome City on Dec. 9 as some 2,000 people — many dressed in their finery as if for the opera — awaited the first competitor's appearance at the 2010 International Pole Championship.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2010

WikiLeaks' flawed answer to a flawed world

NEW YORK — Long ago, I wrote about the Internet pioneer Julf Helsingius, who ran a precursor to WikiLeaks called anon.penet.fi. As I said then: "Anonymity in itself should not be illegal. There are enough good reasons for people to be anonymous that it should be [allowed] — at least in some places...
COMMUNITY
Dec 11, 2010

Mover, shaker aids Goa's poorest kids

Stephen Young has always felt "driven to see the world" and left London at the age of 17 to do just that. He loves music, celebrates life and love and sees value, use, and often great potential in the world's outcasts, whether they be unwanted appliances in Tokyo or street children in the slums of Goa....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2010

On a mission to save bankrupt city

Naomichi Suzuki walked away from a stable job at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government last month, deciding he'd rather run for mayor of a bankrupt city in Hokkaido.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Dec 5, 2010

Kawachi has backers, detractors

Knowing that the Japan Basketball Association (JBA) had no interest in establishing a legitimate professional league several years ago and that he would face fierce resistance from the sport's old boy network, Toshimitsu Kawachi took a courageous step and formed a rival circuit, which included a pair...
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2010

Young urged to pursue St. Gallen forum

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when student protests were commonplace worldwide, five people at a Swiss university launched the St. Gallen Symposium, a bid to hold a dialogue with the world's leaders.
EDITORIALS
Nov 29, 2010

Financial pinch for nursing care

An estimate disclosed Nov. 19 by the health and welfare ministry says that the monthly premium for nursing care insurance paid by people aged 65 or over could go above ¥5,000 in the near future.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 28, 2010

It's time Japan shook off its past and stopped toadying to the U.S.

Allow me to introduce a Japanese word to those unfamiliar with it. It is the verb kobiru, which means "to flatter"; "to curry favor with"; "to play up to"; "to toady to." In more up-to-date parlance, it may be rendered as "to suck up to."
LIFE
Nov 28, 2010

Summiteering with Nobel peace laureates

Hiroshima is a beautiful city with cute trams cruising along its tree-lined streets.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2010

Dangerous myth of the hero entrepreneur

NEW YORK — Earlier this month, I sat on a panel in Monte Carlo, a hot spot of the establishment, discussing the question, "Why can't Europe be more like the U.S.?" The formal name of the panel was "Silicon Envy: Will Europe ever build the next new media giant?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 23, 2010

Performance art's expatriate players push the envelope

Exotic dancing. Nonsensical poetry. Harsh electronic noise. Doughnuts. These are just some of the manifold sights and sounds you'll find on the bill at Paint Your Teeth, a bimonthly performance art event in Tokyo.
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 21, 2010

'Evacuate' to whole new worlds

In the foyers of theaters in Tokyo's new "happening" hub of Ikebukuro — where the provocative Festival/Tokyo (F/T) drama event is running through November — odd exchanges can often be overheard.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 19, 2010

Joan of Arc takes center stage

Though widely known in the West, St. Joan of Arc is an obscure historical figure for many people in Japan. Maki Horikita, who portrays the 15th-century French war heroine in the upcoming TBS stage production "Jeanne d'Arc," rises to the challenge of making Joan's tragic life story relevant for a Japanese...
EDITORIALS
Nov 19, 2010

Damaged credibility on security

On the night of Oct. 29, an Internet technology firm, after noticing that some 100 documents, most of them apparently made by the security police, had been posted on the Internet, notified a prefectural police headquarters near Tokyo. Alerted by this police headquarters, the Metropolitan Police Department...

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan