Search - people

 
 
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 11, 2013

Biden rides wave of success as second term begins

So close to that presidential microphone . . . yet so far away. As President Barack Obama delivered his 2,000-word inaugural address outside the Capitol last month, his chief governing partner, Vice President Joe Biden, looked on from his chair just to the left, always the loyal and supportive cheerleader....
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2013

Measurement of hope competes with setbacks

Progress in getting aid to the world's poorest is now measured by one improved life at a time. That kind of news still lacks the visibility of a big setback.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 10, 2013

Future leaders stress 'politics of the daily'

In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar's current president, Thein Sein, will both turn 70, so a great deal depends on future leaders. On a recent visit I caught up with two promising aspirants who focus on the "politics of the daily."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2013

Evacuee suits target Tepco, government

Fukushima residents forced out of their homes by the nuclear crisis plan to file group damages suits against the government and Tepco on the second anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 8, 2013

Life under the kotatsu — let the upper body fend for itself

I'll never forget my first winter in Japan when I heard that some Japanese people sleep under the kotatsu.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013

How to cope when home is where the radiation is?

When she hears the phrase "a sense of home," filmmaker Michale Boganim always endures a wave of sadness. "Home can mean a whole lot of things, but to me it has connotations of displacement and loss," she tells The Japan Times. "I come from a family that was always moving around, and even as we were moving,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 3, 2013

Constitutional revision may bring less freedom

Article 18 of Japan's Constitution states, "No person shall be held in bondage of any kind. Involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, is prohibited."
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Feb 1, 2013

Six months on, U.K. schools are losing the Olympic legacy

Near the entrance of York High School in northern England, painted in large letters, are the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." It is not a bad motto, particularly for a school that prides itself on its sporting prowess. Along all the corridors and outside...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Feb 1, 2013

Canadian uses sports as bridge to teaching, writing, understanding

Writer, teacher and sports fan Trevor Kew, 32, pedals and kicks his way through culture shock. He uses sports to help him adapt to unfamiliar cultures or new places when traveling, trusting his bike or a soccer ball to bridge the gap with locals.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 30, 2013

With Medicaid rolls set to grow, Oregon bets it can slow costs

In 2011, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber faced a vexing problem: The state had a $2 billion hole in its Medicaid budget and no good way to fill it.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2013

The Little Englanders are gaining

The real problem is continental drift: Brussels, the capital of the European Union, is getting further and further away from England. Or at least that is British Prime Minister David Cameron's line.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 25, 2013

Can the discovery of oil save Ecuador's rainforest?

American biologist Kelly Swing thwacks a bush with his butterfly net and a dozen or so bugs and insects drop in. One is a harvester, or daddy-long-legs, another a jumping spider that leaps onto a leaf where two beetles are mating.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 25, 2013

I still haven't found what I'm looking for ...

Thinking about Google over the last week, I have fallen into the typically procrastinatory habit of every so often typing the words "what is" or "what" or "wha" into the Google search box at the top right of my computer screen. Those prompts are all the omnipotent engine needs to inform me of the current...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2013

Schools to close but their songs go on

Music has played an important role in easing the pain of many people in the Tohoku region whose lives were affected by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 19, 2013

Citizens' woeful social consciousness ensures a bleak outlook for Japan

What is behind the miserable social status of women in Japan?
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jan 17, 2013

Fujiwara chases a scoop in news-themed thriller

There aren't many celebrities who would make good journalists, but something tells me Norika Fujiwara is one. She's well-traveled, socially active and not constrained by the mechanisms of public-relations strategies.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 16, 2013

Agricultural land grabs in developing countries?

Should rich countries — or investors based there — be buying agricultural land in developing countries?
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2013

Chinese media test their limits

Recent protest, including strikes by some reporters, against Chinese authorities' heavy censorship of new year articles by the Southern Weekly, a Guangdong newspaper known for its hard-hitting investigations, points to Chinese people's strong desire for freedom of speech and expression.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2013

Agricultural land grabs in developing countries?

Should rich countries — or investors based there — be buying agricultural land in developing countries?
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2013

Chinese media test their limits

Recent protest, including strikes by some reporters, against Chinese authorities' heavy censorship of new year articles by the Southern Weekly, a Guangdong newspaper known for its hard-hitting investigations, points to Chinese people's strong desire for freedom of speech and expression.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 8, 2013

Online English studies benefit Japanese, Filipinos

Mohammad Moin tries to realize what he calls "intellectual fair trade" through his operation of an online English conversation school for Japanese — all taught by Filipino teachers.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 6, 2013

Abe returns to 'retrieve' Japan from its history — or will he just repeat it?

Way back in the heady 1960s, Japan was one big Cathedral of Optimism, and I found myself among a people who believed their country was finally on that road laid out before them in the post-feudal Meiji Era (1868-1912) to "catch up with and overtake" the West. And indeed, by the end of the decade Japan's...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 5, 2013

Obama unilaterally reshapes immigration

The Obama administration's decision this week to ease visa requirements for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants represents its latest move to reshape immigration through executive action, even as the White House gears up for an uncertain political fight over a far more sweeping legislative package...
WORLD
Jan 5, 2013

Obama unilaterally reshapes immigration

The Obama administration's decision this week to ease visa requirements for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants represents its latest move to reshape immigration through executive action, even as the White House gears up for an uncertain political fight over a far more sweeping legislative package...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 30, 2012

As the new year approaches, Japan still reels from 2011

What a sad, sad country this is. What sad shape it's in, as this Year of the Dragon draws to a close. Economically, politically socially, individually, it is merely scraping by, surviving rather than living.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight