Search - world

 
 
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2010

Save overseas assistance

LONDON — The British government, faced with the need to make drastic cuts in government expenditure, has nevertheless decided to ring-fence the overseas aid budget and has pledged to continue to work toward the U.N. target of providing aid equivalent to 0.7 percent of GDP.
EDITORIALS
Aug 24, 2010

A new push for nuclear fusion

ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) Council approved the Overall Project Schedule (OPS) and the Overall Project Cost (OPC) in an extraordinary meeting in late July. This means that the world's largest experimental nuclear fusion project, which is being undertaken by the Eropean Union,...
EDITORIALS
Aug 23, 2010

Political dues of scorched earth

The consequences of Russia's hottest summer in 130 years, which has caused forest fires and severe drought, have been devastating. More than 50 people have died and thousands of people have lost their residences to fire.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 23, 2010

'Bottle Imp' poses warning for currency and bond markets

Watching the dollar's recent plight in the foreign-exchange markets, I am reminded of a fascinating story I came across some years ago in an anthology of supernatural tales called "The Bottle Imp." It has its origins in German folklore and goes something like this:
CULTURE / Books
Aug 22, 2010

Indonesia intrigue, Tokyo high-tech high jinx

While such enduring bad guys as Nazis, KGB agents, Cosa Nostra gangsters, sinister Asiatics and the occasional vampire still receive top billing in U.S. popular fiction and cinema, the events of 9/11 have not surprisingly inspired a stream of works featuring villains of Middle Eastern and/or jihadist...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 22, 2010

Rakuten's English- only policy endures close media scrutiny

Learn to speak English, or else!
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 21, 2010

Man United's Scholes aging like a fine wine

LONDON — Sir Alex Ferguson has always placed his faith in youth during his 24 years as Manchester United manager.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 21, 2010

Voice of the times bridges cultures for seven decades

Most of us would probably be happy to have a handful of memories to reminisce over in our later years, episodes from our youth we could run past our friends while hoping their eyes don't glaze over. Ichiro Urushibara, a British citizen who has spent 69 years in Japan, has enough memories and amusing...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 21, 2010

It takes a lot of guts in Katakana Land

One struggle in learning Japanese is getting a grip on all the various loan words that have slipped into the vernacular from abroad.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 20, 2010

McDonald's sticks its Big Mac where it's not wanted

Taking a tip from the gyudon wars earlier this year, McDonald's drops its Big Mac price to a low u00a5200.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2010

Rwanda envoy pledges to work on improved business relations

Rwandan Ambassador Antoine Munyakazi-Juru, who took his post last October, says his main mission is improving business relations between his country and Japan.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 20, 2010

Drinking a brew or two for a charitable cause

As if the heat wasn't enough. Now there's another reason to chug down a beer on the beach this summer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2010

Pearl-diving sirens return

The castaway on a deserted tropical isle has inspired everything from "Robinson Crusoe" to innumerable New Yorker cartoons — but it was no joke to Kazuko Higa, the young wife of an assistant plantation overseer living on the small Pacific island of Anatahan in the closing days of World War II.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 20, 2010

Philip Selway

Over the years, rock-star side projects have not fared particularly well. More often than not they are a self-indulgent mess or an ill-advised ego-trip, having little worth to anyone other than devoted disciples. So what to make of the news that Philip Selway, the unassuming Radiohead drummer, is to...
EDITORIALS
Aug 19, 2010

Corporate social responsibility

On Aug. 4, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the second and third richest men in the world, announced that 40 American billionaires had followed their lead in pledging to give half of their fortunes to charity. They plan to turn their efforts next to China and India.
COMMENTARY
Aug 19, 2010

Another 'pearl' in Beijing's string of ports

A newly constructed harbor at Hambantota, near Sri Lanka's southern tip, began filling with water recently in readiness for the first ships in November. The port — which will have a water depth of 17 meters, making it one of the deepest in South Asia — has been carved out of coastal land in a joint...
COMMENTARY
Aug 18, 2010

Sometimes TV dramas can be good for you

TIRANA, Albania — A friend of mine, a prestigious physician who works the longest hours of anybody I know, makes only one exception from her demanding schedule in New York. Once a week, she returns home early to watch a new episode of her favorite television drama. I cannot think of a more unlikely...
EDITORIALS
Aug 18, 2010

High hopes for new sumo chief

The Japan Sumo Association, which has been rocked by gambling and other scandals suggesting the existence of ties with organized crime, elected stablemaster Hanaregoma, the former ozeki Kaiketsu, as its new chairman in an emergency board meeting late Aug. 12. It is hoped that under his leadership, the...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2010

Peace process vs. real peace

RAMALLAH — Direct talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders are the most obvious way to achieve peace in the Middle East conflict. But history has shown time and again that a high-profile peace process alone is no recipe for success.

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