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BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 12, 2016

Knowledge is power: Navigating the household electricity market after deregulation

The country's household and small business electricity market will be deregulated from April 1, allowing individuals to choose their electricity provider. Optimists, especially renewable energy advocates and small entrepreneurs, hope the development will break the stranglehold that the country's 10 regional...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 21, 2016

Family registers are off-limits to lawyers unless relevant to a case

An American asks if he can hire a Japanese lawyer to find out whether his current wife is legally divorced from the Japanese man she once married.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 31, 2016

Bank remittance case suggests My Number may be tough to opt out of

A reader asks about the relationship between the My Number registration system and sending money abroad.
Japan Times
JAPAN / 2016 NEW YEAR SPECIAL
Jan 1, 2016

An opportunity to experience authentic Japanese New Year's

For most urbanites, the New Year's holidays is a time to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life, go back to their hometowns, go skiing or loosen up their bodies and minds at an onsen hot spring, but there are also many interesting and unmissable events going on in and around the Tokyo metropolitan....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 2, 2015

Life after work in Japan: tackling readers' pension questions

Among the questions that Japan Times readers send to the Lifelines column, a perennial topic is navigating the Japanese pension system. Here are some answers.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Sep 17, 2015

Foreign Joso flood victims hit out at city's monolingual response

One week after an unprecedented flood overwhelmed the city of Joso in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japanese-Brazilian resident David Kiyoshi Shibata believes it's a miracle he's still alive.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2015

A veil of secrecy masks stepped-up cyberattacks in Asia, experts say

Once a month, cybersecurity lawyer Paul Haswell gets a call from an Asian company with the same question: We've been hacked. Who do we need to tell?
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 6, 2015

Data hacked from U.S. government date back to 1985: official

Data stolen from U.S. government computers by suspected Chinese hackers included security clearance information and background checks dating back three decades, U.S. officials said Friday, underlining the scope of one of the largest known cyberattacks on federal networks.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 21, 2015

Apologizing in Japan: Sorry seems to be the hardest word

Dressed in a light-gray suit with her hair pulled back tightly into a bun, McDonald's Holdings Co. (Japan) Chief Executive Officer Sarah Casanova walked stiffly into a news conference on Feb. 5 and addressed a throng of reporters.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2014

Activist challenges secrets law with anonymous whistle-blower website

A Japanese Internet activist and academic is challenging the recently enacted state secrets law by setting up a website aimed at making it easier for government officials to leak sensitive information to the media without getting caught.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 26, 2014

Islamic State plotting to attack U.S. and Paris subways, Iraq premier claims

Iraq has "credible" intelligence that Islamic State militants plan to attack subway systems in Paris and the United States, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Thursday, but American and French officials said they had no evidence to back up his claims.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 9, 2014

Yahoo cyberattacks reveal gaping holes in Japan Inc.'s hacking shield

Shortly after the alert sounded at 9:10 p.m., Yahoo Japan Corp.'s risk team knew it had a problem. More than 20 million usernames and passwords belonging to its customers were being dumped into a file, primed to be stolen.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2014

Toothless secrecy oversight body

The ruling coalition's bill to set up a Diet committee to oversee government designations of 'state secrets' needs drastic revision as it does not give the committee effective power to rectify classifications.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 4, 2014

A cut-out-and-keep guide to getting legal advice in Japan

With the new school and fiscal year bringing plenty of new arrivals to Japan, here are some basic tips on how to use various legal services in Japan.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 7, 2014

New SDF unit shores up thinly protected cyberborders

Japan has embarked on an effort to improve cybersecurity as an ever-increasing number of sophisticated computer viruses threaten to endanger national security.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 20, 2014

Citizen watchdogs see secrets law reviving tax money abuses

Democratic societies often have an ombudsman system of ordinary citizens who monitor how local and national tax money is spent.
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Dec 18, 2013

Supreme Court could hear NSA phone plan

A federal judge may have laid the foundation for U.S. Supreme Court review of the National Security Agency's telephone data surveillance program when he said it probably violates constitutional privacy rights.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 11, 2013

Reporters who divulge secrets could face new law's wrath: Ishiba

Two days before the contentious state secrets law getting the official nod, Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba waded into the fray Wednesday by saying journalists could be punished for reporting state-designated classified information, only to backpedal slightly.
EDITORIALS
Nov 25, 2013

Opposition parties fail their duty

By supporting the government's secrecy bill, opposition parties failed their duty to serve as a check on the ruling coalition.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2013

Let's help the Philippines, just not like we helped Haiti

The international community must embrace the technology available to strengthen disaster preparedness, resilience and aid.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2013

Ex-Mainichi reporter blasts Abe's push for secrets bill

Takichi Nishiyama, an ex-reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun who uncovered the secret pact on the U.S. return of Okinawa, criticizes Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for trying to centralize power and control information with the state secrets bill.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 13, 2013

Abe faces tall order in extra Diet session

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will get 53 days to pass a host of critical economic and defense bills when the extraordinary Diet session opens this week.
WORLD
Sep 2, 2013

U.S. in unending hunt for terrorists in spy agencies

The U.S. government suspects that individuals with connections to al-Qaida and other hostile groups have repeatedly sought to obtain jobs in the intelligence community, and it reinvestigates thousands of employees each year to reduce the threat that one of its own may be trying to compromise closely...
EDITORIALS
Aug 19, 2013

'Big data' becoming big business

IT companies expect bigger profits for various industries thanks to the analysis of 'big data.' But is enough attention being paid to protecting people's privacy
EDITORIALS
Jul 26, 2013

Internet campaign results

Japan's first use of the Internet for campaign purposes may have helped to inform voters but did not spur a higher voter turnout for the July 21 Upper House poll.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 7, 2013

Strict rules help U.S. access data traffic on undersea cables

The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the fiber-optic cables traversing the world's oceans, carrying torrents of data at the speed of light. And one of the biggest operators of those cables was being sold to an Asian firm, which might complicate American surveillance...
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 17, 2013

Open-source software aids NPOs

The Grameen Foundation was providing health care to pregnant women in Ghana in 2010 when it came up with a new idea: As cellphones become more widely available in developing nations, health information can be more quickly disseminated to poor patients in remote locations via voice and text messaging....

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji