Search - 2012

 
 
EDITORIALS
Jul 10, 2013

Japan's first 'Internet election'

Political candidates don't seem to be using the Internet effectively ahead of the July 21 Upper House polls. The messages read more like diaries than policy arguments.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2013

Koreans find breaking up with chaebol hard to do

Park Geun-hye has one five-year term to undo her father's legacy in South Korea. Thus far her efforts to build a more creative economy lack teeth as well as creativity.
JAPAN
Jul 10, 2013

Tokyo Skytree proves boon for Hato Bus tours

Thanks mainly to the opening of Tokyo Skytree in May last year, the number of people who took Hato Bus Co. sightseeing tours of Tokyo in fiscal 2012 rose to 914,004, the company announced. It's the first time the number has exceeded 900,000 in 20 years.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / GAME OF NUMBERS
Jul 9, 2013

Tech-savvy candidates hope to reach young voters via online campaigns

For Kan Suzuki, a tech-savvy Upper House member, the Internet is a powerful campaign tool that he can use to help him win a third term at a time when his party is facing so much adversity.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2013

Revolution and democracy

The military coup in Egypt and the arrest of President Mohamed Morsi do not signal the end either of the Arab spring or of progress toward adopting democratic norms.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2013

Plunging rupee sends New Delhi a wake-up call

The real reason to worry about India is that it has lost international competitiveness and has been buying time from lenders — not because the rupee's value has slid.
EDITORIALS
Jul 8, 2013

Safety first with iPS transplants

A Kyoto University research team is to be applauded for getting the go-ahead to test the safety of an iPS transplant procedure on six patients with an age-related eye disease.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2013

Deterring an Asia nuke race

Asia risks sliding into a nuclear arms race, aggravated by underlying mistrust. Potential 'threshold' countries include South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 8, 2013

Repression surges in Putin's Russia

Last week was a busy one for Russian authorities, who arrested the only nationally known opposition mayor for bribery, sought six years in prison for crusading blogger Alexei Navalny and asked a court to find a long-dead attorney guilty of tax evasion.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jul 7, 2013

Race takes backseat at Zimmerman trial

Thousands streamed into Fort Mellon Park, hard against the south shore of Lake Monroe, on that night in March 2012. An unarmed African-American teenager in a "hoodie" sweatshirt had been killed the month before in this central Florida city, but the agitated crowd felt echoes of another era. "Trayvon...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2013

Never mind Obama's hedge on the rule of law

President Barack Obama acts as if he can simply post a 'never mind' notice on the White House website if he finds a law's details politically inconvenient.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 7, 2013

Egyptian secularists get a second chance

Egypt's liberal and secularist groups, long plagued by infighting and poor organization, say the coup that ousted the Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, has given them a second wind and a fresh chance to unite.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 7, 2013

Britain to Google: Fix privacy policy or face legal action

Google is facing increased pressure over its privacy policies, as British regulators ordered the tech giant Friday to give users more insight into how the information it collects on them is used.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Jul 7, 2013

Explosive costs hamper U.S. effort to dispose of nuclear arms

Costs can explode like fireworks when it comes to disposing of nuclear weapons.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 7, 2013

South Korea's spy agency takes lead role in political scandals

During last year's presidential election, a team of South Korean intelligence agents allegedly flooded the Internet with several thousand political comments, including some describing left-leaning candidates as North Korea sympathizers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 6, 2013

Letting opportunity slip away

So why hasn't March 11, 2011, been the game-changer that many anticipated? Richard Samuels' masterful account of Japan's policy responses to its greatest crisis since World War II explains why continuity has trumped change. But maybe, just maybe, it hasn't, as he also reminds us that the consequences are still unfolding.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 6, 2013

Reddit's opinionated audience is growing

Six percent of American adults who are online say they've visited Reddit, which encourages its users to submit links to stories, photos and other Web postings and then vote them up or down, according to results from a survey out Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 6, 2013

Crime pays: Vampire squids wriggle free in wink-and-nod world

It seems the financial world lurches from scandal to scandal as if coated with Teflon, shrugging off demands for accountability.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 6, 2013

Several NPB pitchers keeping hitters in check despite altered baseball

OK, so now we know the ball used in Japanese pro baseball games has been changed again and, in spite of the fact there was no initial announcement by NPB, everyone seems happy about the change — except maybe the pitchers.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 6, 2013

Snowden assisted by WikiLeaks' 'gatekeeper'

He didn't have the space for it, but Gavin MacFadyen needed more bodies. The American running a British think tank for investigative journalism had eight employees crammed into a 4.5-by-3.5-meter office in east-central London, trying to crack a story on wrongdoing at a multinational company.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jul 5, 2013

Children of the 1960s will pay a higher price

To some, it must have been a very long time coming but here it is at last. That smug, gold-plated, bloated slice of the population, whose main preoccupation appears to be, on the one hand, continually bragging about their unique birthright of rock 'n' roll, flower power, feminism and the sexual revolution...
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2013

Bankers' group to ratchet up oversight of Tibor

The Japanese Bankers Association will step up oversight of the country's benchmark interbank lending rates as part of global efforts to tighten supervision in the wake of the Libor rate-rigging scandal.

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