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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Oct 17, 2012

Apple should team up with local companies to solve Maps dilemma

In September, a major update of Apple's iOS software for iPhones and iPads (iOS6) replaced the devices' long-standing Google Maps application with Apple's self-made Maps service. However, the new app soon caused outrage among iDevice users around the world due to the low quality of the maps.
BUSINESS
Oct 17, 2012

Japan Inc. nears record year of overseas M&As

Softbank Corp.'s bid for control of Sprint Nextel Corp. is adding to evidence that Japan Inc.'s overseas buying spree isn't about to abate.
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2012

Pakistan's choice

Sometimes, a single act can reveal everything there is to know about someone or something. The attack by the Taliban last week on a 14-year-old Pakistani girl, Ms. Malala Yousafzai, is one of those clarifying moments. The assassination attempt was a cowardly, barbaric deed. A political movement that...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 16, 2012

Softbank shares dive as Son the 'gambler' bets on Sprint

Softbank Corp.'s Masayoshi Son has a history of picking winners. Investors say his latest choice may not be a repeat performance.
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2012

Senkakus not a dumping ground

Regarding the Oct. 7 letter "Radioactive debris to Senkakus," I believe this opinion is unreasonable and unacceptable. First,we should not bring the radioactive debris of Fukushima to the Senkaku islands. The islands and the surrounding ocean would be contaminated with radioactive waste. This would mean...
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2012

Remembrance is 'compensation'

This week, seven former American POWs of the Japanese will travel to Japan and revisit former campsites where they were held during World War II. Some of them will also visit the companies for whom they were forced to work. Although their memories of Japan from 68 years ago are still painful, they know...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 14, 2012

Korean film on school bullying rings true in Japan

Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released statistics for 2009 in which Japan ranked 31 out of 31 developed countries in terms of the portion of GDP spent by the public sector on education. It was the third straight year that Japan placed last.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 14, 2012

Farmer plows own antiradiation furrow

At the end of March 2011, a few weeks after the Great East Japan Earthquake, 20 rice farmers affiliated to J-Rap, an agricultural distribution company in Sukagawa, central Fukushima Prefecture, got together to assess the situation.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 14, 2012

Spirits linger on storied Kudaka Isle

The 25-minute hop from Azama Port to Kudaka Island provides just enough time to glimpse back at Okinawa's receding coast before turning to gaze at the shoreline looming — not that I expected a great deal from an island so easily and frequently linked by ferries to the much-developed mainland.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 13, 2012

Softbank-Sprint tie could be game-changer in Japan, abroad

If Softbank Corp. manages to acquire Sprint Nextel Corp., the deal would dramatically increase the mobile carrier's influence in both the domestic and overseas markets and severely rattle its major rivals, experts said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2012

Tehran feels the squeeze

Iran is hurting. Economic sanctions imposed by Western governments designed to push Tehran back into nuclear negotiations have triggered a virtual collapse of Iran's currency, and the effects are being felt throughout the entire economy. While there are reasons to be concerned about the impact of sanctions...
BUSINESS
Oct 13, 2012

Lexus U.S. sales off target amid BMW challenge

Toyota Motor Corp. said its Lexus model, dethroned in 2011 as the best-selling luxury auto brand in the United States, may miss its U.S. sales target this year amid fierce competition from BMW AG.
BUSINESS
Oct 13, 2012

China boycott ups firm's bond risk

Toyota Motor Corp.'s two-year reign as a better credit than the Japanese government has ended as violent protests over the Senkaku Islands dispute with China hurt its sales in the world's biggest car market.
JAPAN / IMF-WORLD BANK IN TOKYO
Oct 12, 2012

Kajima develops technologies to cope with disasters

As a way to demonstrate its commitment to the growing corporate and social requirements for business continuity plans (BCP), Kajima Corp., Japan's leading general contractor, conducted a large-scale anti-disaster drill on Aug. 30. It was conducted on the assumption that a magnitude 7.3 earthquake with...
BUSINESS
Oct 12, 2012

Tokyo fills in G-7 on fiscal crisis control, yen worries

At a meeting in Tokyo of finance ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, Japan detailed its ongoing efforts to defuse the nation's looming fiscal crisis and raised concerns about the yen, which it considers stubbornly overvalued, Finance Minister Koriki Jojima told reporters Thursday....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 12, 2012

Treasures from China's rich tapestry of cultures

"China" has always been something of a simplification. This is because it is an idea that has been used to encapsulate a vast heterogeneous portion of the World's population. With current relations with Japan tense, the idea of China as a monolithic giant with a single purpose, bringing its weight to...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 12, 2012

Hunting for Tokyo's real bagel heads

By now, everyone has likely heard of — and been baffled by — the recent "bagel head" phenomenon. Last month, a video clip that showed three people in Tokyo undergoing a beauty treatment that involved saline injections into their foreheads went viral on the Internet. The clip, taken from the program...
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2012

Mr. Chavez wins again

It was supposed to be a close vote; some even believed that an upset was in the works. But when the dust settled, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had won another election. This time, however, his margin of victory was considerably reduced, from 25 percentage points six years ago to about 10 percentage...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 12, 2012

Aircraft show to offer visitors close-up tour

The Japan International Aerospace Exhibition in Nagoya this weekend offers a special opportunity for the general public to view a variety of airplanes up close.
Reader Mail
Oct 11, 2012

The working class is to blame

Regarding Joseph Jaworski's Oct. 4 letter, "Laws of economics and physics": He asserts quite correctly that wealth has already been distributed. What he fails to appreciate is the reality of how that has been achieved and how it continues to be achieved.
Reader Mail
Oct 11, 2012

Responsibility for economics

A return thank you to Joseph Jaworski for his Oct. 4 letter, "Laws of economics and physics" (which was a response to my Sept. 27 letter, "Why do producers finish last?"). I am a little baffled, though, as to why most of the response was an effort to argue semantics. I don't think most readers of The...
BUSINESS
Oct 11, 2012

Global debt woes said increasing

Bleak assessments of the global economy continued to emerge at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Tokyo Wednesday, with the IMF's Global Financial Stability report warning that market players' confidence remains fragile.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 11, 2012

Lapalux, Taquwami tap into a West Coast sound

It's early on a Saturday evening at the 1-2-3-4 Shoreditch festival in London and Lapalux is taking the stage. He's only armed with a laptop, a MIDI controller and some select software, but the hundreds in the audience haven't shown up expecting a flashy light show; the music is more than enough to hold...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 11, 2012

Yamamoto named Japan's manager for WBC

Without a captain, a boat can't depart from port.
BUSINESS
Oct 11, 2012

French banker says Europe on track

The eurozone is properly addressing the cause of its financial crisis, though weaknesses persist and challenges remain, Bank of France Gov. Christian Noyer said Wednesday in Tokyo.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years