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JAPAN
Jun 15, 2008

Japan brings North back to bargaining table

In-mid April, a senior Foreign Ministry official in charge of Asian affairs looked confident. Although bilateral talks with North Korea had been suspended for more than half a year, the official predicted Pyongyang would have no choice but to come back to the bargaining table to discuss the abduction...
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2008

Pyongyang to reopen abduction probe

Pyongyang has promised to reopen its investigation into the missing Japanese its spies abducted, and Tokyo will partially lift economic sanctions in response.
Reader Mail
Jun 12, 2008

Police check ahead of summit

Recently I went to Chitose airport to pick up a Japanese friend. I was waiting near the arrival exit and doing nothing that I would deem as suspicious when I was accosted by a plainclothes police officer. He showed me his police badge, then asked me for identification, passport etc. He said he was doing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2008

Another looming food crisis

The United Nations held a summit in Rome earlier this month to find solutions to the global food crisis. The focus was on grain shortages and high prices that have recently roiled countries around the world, causing mass protests and political instability in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 12, 2008

The space to act out in Shizuoka

Shizuoka Performing Arts Center is Japan's first so-called European-style public theater. Founded by the Shizuoka prefectural government in 1997, it has its own company (also called SPAC) and an artistic director in residence when the norm is for public theater companies to share venues and for artistic...
BUSINESS
Jun 12, 2008

Focus on batteries for Toyota hybrids

Looking to put a charge into sales of its electric vehicles, Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it will boost efforts next month to develop next-generation batteries that can outperform lithium-ion cells.
COMMENTARY
Jun 10, 2008

A shift in priority to 'happiness'

Per capita gross domestic product is a highly valued as yardstick for measuring the degree of "affluence" enjoyed by the citizens of each nation. The figures of various countries are usually converted into U.S. dollars to determine how countries rank internationally.
BUSINESS
Jun 10, 2008

Industry still not sold on cap-and-trade

While Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Monday presented his plan to introduce emissions trading on a trial basis as early as autumn, Japanese businesses remain skeptical about whether the cap-and-trade system is the best way to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2008

Emissions trading test run by fall: Fukuda

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda unveiled his new climate change initiative Monday, including an "experimental" debut of greenhouse gas emissions trading in Japan starting this fall, and also voiced his support for introduction of daylight saving time.
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2008

NGOs slam Fukuda's CO2 proposal as lacking substance

Environmentalists and nongovernment organizations were quick to denounce Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's new climate change initiative Monday, calling it "insufficient" and "lacking essence" for not proposing a solid midterm greenhouse gas reduction target.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 7, 2008

The case for the 'sectoral approach'

As hosts of this weekend's Group of Eight energy minister's meeting in Aomori Prefecture, delegates from Japan will be actively promoting the "sectoral approach" to curbing global warming.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2008

2050 greenhouse goals will be too late: EPI head

Pitches to cut worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 are too leisurely and must be brought forward by decades, Lester Brown, president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, said Friday at a symposium in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2008

Tokyo makes final round for Olympics

Tokyo has been picked as one of the four candidate cities to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, receiving the top rating in the preliminary selection round, the International Olympic Committee announced Thursday.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 5, 2008

Aomori G8 talks face nuclear-energy nudge

OSAKA — With oil hovering at around $130 a barrel and pressure growing on the world's major greenhouse gas emitters to forge a new climate change treaty from 2012, global energy security and fast-tracking "clean and green" alternatives to fossil fuels are expected to dominate this weekend's Group of...
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2008

Energy-cost issue boils over

Is the green party over? Is the ferocious rise in energy costs worldwide, driven by the soaring price of oil, undermining all the enthusiasm for saving the planet in the longer term via cutting carbon emissions and penalizing all forms of fossil-fuel consumption?
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2008

Cluster bomb ban is a good start

The British armed forces clung to their cluster bombs like a baby to its rattle, and some suspected that they were trying to sabotage the treaty on behalf of their American friends. But Prime Minister Gordon Brown overruled them, in the end, and Britain was among the hundred countries that agreed to...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2008

Bad public manners irk Bushido proponent

Sokichi Sugimura, 72, feels elements of Japanese society have lost their moral compass to the point of being downright rude and he and his associates want to put them back on course, and in the process embrace samurai values.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 3, 2008

Hard work begins once Japan signs child-abduction treaty

If my own mailbox is any indicator, the Internet is buzzing as international family lawyers, family rights activists and others share an exciting piece of news: Japan is reportedly planning to join the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction! Perhaps Japan's days as a haven...
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 1, 2008

Is aging Japan really ready for all the non-Japanese carers it needs?

One of the cliches most bandied about in the Japanese business world is yareba dekiru. An English equivalent might be the title of Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff's great 1972 hit, "You Can Get It If You Really Want."

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan