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JAPAN
Aug 30, 2011

Noda victorious in race for prime minister

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda won the Democratic Party of Japan presidency Monday and will replace Naoto Kan as prime minister, becoming the ruling party's third leader since it swept to power in the historic 2009 general election.
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2011

Mitsubishi unit to raise ¥15 billion for property loan fund

Diamond Realty Management Inc., a unit of Japan's biggest trading house, aims to raise as much as ¥15 billion for a fund that provides loans for property acquisitions and refinancing in the country.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 30, 2011

Views from Kobe: Who is your favorite Japanese mascot?

David Mystify
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2011

Contracts for rare earths shifting to quarterly basis

Japanese rare earth buyers are switching to quarterly sales contracts and looking for alternative sources after China curbed shipments, increasing prices for the materials used in hybrid cars and missiles.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 29, 2011

Global fiscal reactor meltdown contains a warning for Japan

Public finances are melting down in Europe, in America and of course Japan. The situation is going nuclear, left, right and center. It's not so much China Syndrome as it is Global Syndrome.
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2011

ANA to receive first 787 Dreamliner in September

Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner will be delivered to All Nippon Airways on Sept. 25, three years behind schedule, after Friday's regulatory approvals of the world's first plastic-composite jet.
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

Don't export what you won't use

I don't understand the Japanese government's policy on nuclear power plants. On one hand, it has come out with a denuclearization policy domestically; on the other, it is planning to sell nuclear power plants to Turkey, Jordan, Vietnam, Lithuania, and Kazakhstan by 2020. This is a double standard.
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

China-baiting goes over the top

Regarding Michael Richardson's Aug. 24 article, "Taiwan arms deal serves as litmus test of U.S. resolve": Richardson's biased assumptions and pandering to paranoid anti-China elements borders on yellow journalism. He uses the straw man of a Chinese "red line" regarding U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan to...
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

Tragic adult behavior on river

Regarding the Aug. 19 Kyodo article "Trio still missing in boat sinking": I know this will probably conflict with the knee-jerk reaction that most people have to this tragedy (on the Tenryu River in Shizuoka Prefecture), but I do not lay blame on the tour company or the boat skippers. I believe it falls...
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

Where did Agent Orange stop?

Regarding Jon Mitchell's Aug. 24 article "Okinawa vet blames cancer on defoliant": The Japan Times journalists working on this very controversial story should be considered eligible for a Pulitzer Prize. I don't know of any newspaper in the United States that is reporting on this story. There are probably...
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

Japan trip looks good in Scotland

Regarding Takahiro Fukada's Aug. 23 article, "Restoring foreign tourism tall order": I am very sorry to hear that foreign tourism is so badly affected by recent events in Japan. From this side of the world, I only hear words of support for your country and an earnest desire to see Japan recover as quickly...
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

U.S. response will cause chaos

Regarding Barry Eichengreen's opinion article, "What can take the dollar's place?": The naivete of the American consumer and the greed of international corporations allowed the accumulation of dollars in Japan and China, which were used to further the economic needs of those outside the United States...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 28, 2011

Building excitement in Shirokanedai

Exiting the Nanboku Line at Shirokanedai Station in west-central Tokyo, my sandaled feet immediately start to sizzle. So instead of walking to Meguro's Institute of Nature Study as planned, I bolt down the first shaded slope I find.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 28, 2011

Speculation swirling as MLB scouts swoop in to watch Darvish

Because of the late start of the 2011 Japan pro baseball season following the events of March 11, we still have almost two months remaining in the schedule. Final regular season games will be played as late as Oct. 16, and there will no doubt be make-up games added in the Central and Pacific Leagues...
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2011

Kan bows out, says he did best he could

Prime Minister Naoto Kan officially announced Friday he will resign after 15 turbulent months in office during which the nation experienced its greatest postwar disaster and one of the world's worst nuclear crises.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 27, 2011

Mask maker keeping Shimane tradition alive

Hanging on the walls of Jake Davies' home are around 20 artifacts that seem at odds with the idyllic village in Sakurae, Shimane Prefecture where his rustic abode is set.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 26, 2011

Young souls a sacrifice too far for fictional wartime officers

The conventional Japanese World War II movie is something of a paradox. Usually set in the war's closing days and after (I've heard Emperor Showa's surrender statement so many times now I could recite it in my sleep), with a pacifist message implicit or explicit, it nonetheless celebrates traditional...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2011

Spooked consumers snapping up cheap Geiger counters

Geiger counter manufacturers and retailers are offering more affordable models to cash in on continued consumer radiation fears six months into the Fukushima triple meltdown crisis.

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