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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 21, 2013

Fear and incarceration, from Kampala to Nagoya

"I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, where two men lay. I couldn't tell if they were dead or alive. They had been...
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 17, 2013

Enhancing Japan's strengths, remedying its weaknesses

Japanese society is beset with some regrettable weak points. It must find ways to remedy those, bolster its strengths and enhance global 'Japanability.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 11, 2013

Head of international short film festival finds fertile ground up north

Toshiya Kubo consistently gravitates to the peripheral. As a teenager, while his friends rushed to buy Beatles records, Kubo searched for lesser-known musicians; the mainstream in media flocked to Tokyo while Kubo preferred Hokkaido, the prefecture of his birth; producers look toward feature films as...
COMMENTARY / World
May 9, 2013

Possible solution to Apple's cash-flow problem

It's possible that Apple's best long-term move would be to release a hefty portion of its unused cash to shareholders who would then plow it back into the economy.
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2013

Globalized sacrificial altars

The Bangladeshi garment factory collapse poses moral questions for politicians and business executives worldwide, including: What is the value of a human life?
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 4, 2013

Obama picks two for trade, Commerce

President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated longtime fundraiser and hotel magnate Penny Pritzker as commerce secretary and veteran aide Michael Froman as the U.S. trade representative (USTR).
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 30, 2013

MUFG in bid for Morgan Stanley's trust-banking assets

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. is in talks to buy Morgan Stanley's trust-banking assets.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Apr 27, 2013

Trendsetting restauranteurs succeed in bringing bit of Bohemia to Osaka

You're in a breezy, open space, bathed in light. Frothy indoor plants and burnished wood surrounds vibrant splashes of azure. While sipping a "green fairy," that traditional spirit of artists around the world, someone passes you a shisha, or water pipe, and you inhale sweet, fruit-soaked tobacco. You...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 18, 2013

Holes in industrial ecosystems threaten manufacturing

Even in a globalized economy, nations need to have strong local production capabilities in order to bring innovation to the market, American and Japanese scholars said in a recent symposium held in Tokyo.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 16, 2013

Startups find there's financing in numbers

In a country where a stubbornly stagnant economy has turned the adventurous away from high-risk investment, fundraising has become one of the highest hurdles a startup can overcome.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 9, 2013

Japan's foreign trainee system said still plagued by rights abuses

Last month, a Chinese trainee went on a stabbing rampage at a Hiroshima Prefecture seafood company where he worked, killing the president and an employee and wounding six others.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 8, 2013

Return to South Korea thwarted by nationalism

A Korean-born U.S. citizen gets a rude awakening on nationalism when he returns to South Korea to launch a ministry at the president's invitation.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Apr 7, 2013

What's with the police purge on dance clubs?

If you're ever minded to dance the night away to trance music, or even old-fashioned rock, you may have a tough time finding a venue in Japan these days. In fact, you may end up waltzing away hours inside a police station, peeing into a cup after being rounded up in a raid. Yes, indeed, a War on Dance...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 6, 2013

One man's crusade against America's war on drugs

Once consigned to the fringes of libertarianism, the argument for the legalization of drugs has received an unlikely boost in America in recent months with the release of a documentary titled "The House I Live In." Coinciding with the decision by the states of Colorado and Washington to legalise marijuana,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Apr 3, 2013

Moleskines are shaping virtual notebooks

Australian author Bruce Chatwin has a lot to answer for. Specifically, he's responsible for a forthcoming initial public offering (IPO) on the Italian stock market. It all goes back to something he wrote in his 1986 book 'The Songlines.'
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 2, 2013

Nomura, Daiwa pick up most graduates in four years

Nomura Holdings Inc. and Daiwa Securities Group Inc. have hired more university graduates this spring than in the past four years, leading a resurgence in recruitment by Japanese brokerages as the outlook for the economy improves.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Apr 1, 2013

Visa program for investors gains traction

Sitting around the long, wooden kitchen table in their farmhouse on a Sunday afternoon, Rene and Judith Dekker were tired-eyed from rising before dawn to tend to their 1,200 dairy cows.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 27, 2013

Berezovsky: a tale of betrayal by pal Putin

Boris Berezovsky had always believed in British justice. It was, after all, a British judge who had granted him asylum, after Berezovsky fell out with his one-time protege, Vladimir Putin, and fled in 2000 to London.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Mar 26, 2013

Consensus: Corporal punishment in sports misguided, demoralizing, backward

The following are some readers' responses to the March 12 Foreign Element column by Richard Parker headlined "Right or wrong, corporal punishment can produce winners." See many more in the comment section below the original article.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 22, 2013

Arbitrage

Richard Gere was offered the role of Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" and turned it down, a decision he "always regretted" as he said at a Tokyo press conference some years ago. Now he's landed a role to vindicate that regret, in slow-burning thriller "Arbitrage," which stars Gere as Wall Street hedge-fund...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Mar 20, 2013

How Google made me get into bed with Hitler

One of the wonders of the online world is the "Downfall" meme on YouTube. (For those whose time is too valuable to be wasted watching video clips, I should explain that the parody is based on remixing a scene from Oliver Hirschbiegel's film, "Der Untergang [Downfall]," which chronicles Hitler's final...

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb