Search - 2012

 
 
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 30, 2013

The sakura season is here, but which one?

The sakura season is here! The question is, does this refer to the horsemeat season or the cherry blossom season? It's hard to tell when the Japanese use the word "sakura" to describe horse meat, which is pink. Sakura nabe is not nabe made with cherry blossoms, for example, but nabe made with horsemeat....
EDITORIALS
Mar 30, 2013

Lessons of the Cyprus crisis

The collapse of Cyprus' banking system may have been averted thanks to an international rescue, but causes of the crisis have not been eradicated.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 29, 2013

Iraq, Afghan wars to cost U.S. up to $6 trillion: study

The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost American taxpayers $4 trillion to $6 trillion, taking into account the medical care of wounded veterans and expensive repairs to a force depleted by more than a decade of fighting, according to a new study by a Harvard University researcher.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2013

Venture manufacturers on the rise

Surrounded by fields and houses on the outskirts of Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, few people would recognize this office as the headquarters of an electronics company. But this is where Keita Yagi runs Bsize Inc., making, designing and selling products all on his own.
WORLD / Society
Mar 28, 2013

How Proposition 8 passed in California, and why it wouldn't today

Lost amid the day's Supreme Court oral arguments on California's Proposition 8 is a simple question: How did a gay marriage ban pass in one of the most liberal states in the country just four years ago?
EDITORIALS
Mar 28, 2013

New panel for pension ID task

Health and welfare minister Norihisa Tamura will establish a new panel to continue identifying records for millions of public pension account holders.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 28, 2013

Pope Francis should look east to end poverty

Philippine President Benigno Aquino faces a huge roadblock in his push to end the poverty weighing on his 106 million people: the Catholic Church.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2013

ECB head Mario Draghi's opiate of the markets

From the standpoint of EU economic stability, the division of Italy's parliament into three mutually incompatible political forces is a terrible outcome.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2013

Testing times for U.S., China

It's easy to imagine the U.S. as a threat to China when the U.S. spends six times more on defense and has pacts with Japan, India and South Korea.
EDITORIALS
Mar 27, 2013

Keep minority views alive

The Liberal Democratic Party discloses a flawed proposal to alter the electoral system toward less vote-value disparity between Lower House districts.
EDITORIALS
Mar 27, 2013

Making clinical use of iPS cells

Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research asks the health ministry for permission to do a clinical study using iPS cells to treat eye disease.
BUSINESS
Mar 26, 2013

Cyprus bailout's long-term impact uncertain

European leaders Monday hailed a last-minute bailout for Cyprus as an important step in defending their unified currency, but some officials and analysts questioned whether the deal raised new problems that could still threaten the survival of the euro.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / JAPAN-CHINA RELATIONS SYMPOSIUM
Mar 26, 2013

Private sector urged to do more to help rebuild Japan-China relations

The private sector has a key role in the efforts to rebuild mutual trust between Japan and China as political disputes begin to affect economic relations, experts from the two countries said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
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.
PRESS / Corporate Trends
Mar 25, 2013

The Japan Times, New York Times announce publishing agreement for Japan

TOKYO — The Japan Times and The New York Times Company today announce a publishing agreement that will see the International New York Times packaged with The Japan Times in the Japan market. The combined product, which will be distributed Monday through Saturday, will be known as The Japan Times /...
PRESS / Corporate Trends
Mar 25, 2013

ジャパンタイムズ、ニューヨークタイムズと提携合意

Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2013

Long-ago wiretap inspires a battle with the CIA for more information

Paul Scott, the late syndicated columnist, was so paranoid about the CIA wiretapping his home in the 1960s that he'd make important calls from his neighbor's house. His teenage son Jim Scott figured his dad was either a shrewd reporter or totally nuts.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 25, 2013

Obama's Middle East trip leaves behind hope, skepticism

Rescuing the decades-old idea that Israelis and Palestinians can live together in neighboring states emerges as the broad goal of U.S. President Barack Obama's Mideast trip.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 25, 2013

'Abenomists' beware: Rising prices just one pitfall of spiraling yen

The Bank of Japan on Wednesday installed a new governor and two deputy governors who — in line with the wishes of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — are advocates of ultra-easy monetary policy.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2013

Prosperity for fisheries

Fortunately a fishing cooperative in Fukushima Prefecture has been able to shake off rumors that its products are tainted with radioactive substances.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2013

Coping with a Nankai megaquake

It is estimated that economic damage from a magnitude-9 quake centered in the Pacific's Nankai Trough could amount to 40 percent of Japan's GDP.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2013

Zen master indulges Japanese sword myth

'The one who kills is empty, his sword is empty, and the one who is attacked is empty, too. Thus the one who attacks is not a person. And the sword that strikes is not a sword. For the one who is attacked, it is just like cleaving in a lightning flash the breeze blowing in the spring sky.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2013

Alterations of idealized beauty in China, Japan

THE SEARCH FOR THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN: A Cultural History of Japanese and Chinese Beauty, by Cho Kyo (Zhang Jing), translated by Kyoko Selden. Rowman & Littlefield, 2012, 287 pp., $49.95 (hardcover)

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’