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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Feb 9, 2014

Globally focused International Baccalaureate diploma needs local-level support

The education think tanks were busy in 2013. As the Year of the Snake slithered to a close, the education ministry made headlines by announcing bolstered English education plans — again — in an attempt to better prepare Japanese students for an increasingly connected world.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 8, 2014

Blast from the past: Lucky Dragon 60 years on

Sixty years ago, on March 1, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat named Lucky Dragon No. 5 was doused by radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen-bomb test, codenamed Castle Bravo, on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Although the bomb was over 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 6, 2014

Sony sees ¥110 billion loss, to cut 5,000 jobs

Sony Corp. reverses its forecast for the full year from a ¥30 billion net profit to a ¥110 billion loss and says its electronics division will likely spend another year in the red.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jan 31, 2014

Three decades on, Tokyo bluesman is still rambling

'You can't go home again,' but you can take a little bit of home with you wherever you roam. 'Rambling' Steve Gardner does; a Mississippi roots and bluesman based in Tokyo, Gardner travels the world making music and giving seminars about musical history.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 31, 2014

Docomo starts to reap benefits from iPhone

NTT Docomo Inc. has strengthened its competitiveness since it began selling popular Apple iPhones in September, President Kaoru Kato said Friday.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 27, 2014

War redress reversal in South Korea

Recent South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese firms to compensate Koreans who were forced to perform labor for them during the war have cast a shadow on already strained bilateral ties.
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2014
Jan 23, 2014

Japan's economy strong enough to weather tax hike storm

Last year Japan's economy finally refound some backbone, with strong growth, better company earnings, falling unemployment and the key stock index soaring by a half to a six-year high, thanks mainly to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic measures, the so-called "Abenomics."
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2014

Internet wiz courts offbeat vote

A Tokyo gubernatorial candidate with an offbeat platform surfaced Wednesday, just one day before applications to run in the Feb. 9 election have to be filed.
EDITORIALS
Jan 18, 2014

School costs gap wider than ever

A fiscal 2012 education ministry survey of parents throughout Japan reports that total spending for a child going to private schools from kindergarten through senior high school came to ¥16.77 million on average, significantly more than the ¥5 million for a child going to public schools.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 18, 2014

Lexicon for today's Japan: Reading between the lies

Plowing through the news, one is often struck by the proliferation of acronyms, jargon, new names and terms. It can be a baffling experience, so I thought I would provide some explanations, keywords, synonyms, associative notions and interpretations to aid comprehension — even at risk of differing...
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2014

Putin PR hides woes in 2014

The Kremlin's dismay at the scale and longevity of protests in Moscow and other cities, following the fraudulent election in December 2011, is forcing Putin to find new ways to shore up his presidency.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2014

Preparing for the age of disruption

By 2020, the quantity of stored data could be 50 times greater than it was in 2010. Many pundits regard this massive explosion of data as the new oil, even a new asset class.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 6, 2014

Arrival of 'bad inflation' trend bodes ill for Japan's rebound

Price increases are prompting Japanese shoppers to buy less mayonnaise, showing the fragility of any economic rebound unless wages keep up with living costs.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 4, 2014

How we scored on calling 2013

A year ago, we brought you an analysis of the forces that appeared likely to shape the U.S. economy, for better and worse, in 2013. So, what did we get right and what did we get wrong? And of the things we posed as open questions, what did the answers turn out to be? Here, in the interest of pundit accountability,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 30, 2013

Kuroda seen limiting '14 losses as JGB run ends

Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has scope to increase unprecedented stimulus, limiting losses on Japanese government bonds in 2014 as global sovereigns slump, economists predict.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2013

Help Ukrainians stand up for Western values

Make no mistake, Ukraine's so-called oligarchs still support President Viktor Yanukovych, and they will be prime beneficiaries of the $15 billion in bailout loans and lower natural gas prices that he secured from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
WORLD
Dec 22, 2013

U.S. secretly helps Colombia kill rebel leaders

The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according...
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 5, 2013

Amari admits he has early-stage tongue cancer, vows to stay on

Economic and fiscal policy minister Akira Amari, a key policymaker and trade negotiator of the Cabinet, confessed Thursday that he has early-stage tongue cancer but vowed to stay at his post.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2013

Economics that aids people

Confronted with a worldwide, systemic economic crisis, isn't it time we rethink the foundation of mainstream economic theory and move to change the way we measure the quality of life for mankind?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2013

English part of equation for science students

Even as Japan was praised for its English presentations during the bidding process to host the 2020 Olympic Games in September, it is no secret that Japanese are still said to be poor at communicating in English.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society / FOCUS
Nov 24, 2013

Chinese families still at officials' mercy despite one child policy easing

When 36-year-old Lois heard the news that China was relaxing its one child policy, she was delighted and relieved.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2013

China's billionaire problem remains in Xi Jinping's way

Chinese President Xi Jinping's economic program so far is looking all too much like 'Abenomics.'
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Nov 11, 2013

Okinawa: the junk heap of the Pacific

Over the past seven decades, Okinawa's sea, land and air have been contaminated with a cocktail of toxins by the U.S. military that have poisoned Okinawan civilians and U.S. troops alike.

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?