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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2014

Cannabis enters real world of taxes and regulation

Americans are just starting to see the first, hard details in the tricky balancing act of transforming recreational marijuana use into a legal business — in Washington and in Colorado. The big deal about legalization is that it may not be such a big deal, at least right away.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 13, 2014

A hard day's grind for porn's professionals

A day on set with Akira Takatsuki, arguably Japan's most famous porn director in the subgenre revolving around well-endowed female talent, and AV stars Shiori Tsukada and Mumin reveals a world of work like any other — except for the sex stuff.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 12, 2014

Deflation Watch: New Year's scorecard

It seems likely that the consumption tax increase will derail the government's economic boom train.
EDITORIALS
Jan 9, 2014

Tepco's flawed turnaround plan

Tepco should further streamline its operations and explore new avenues of business growth, such as the retail sale of electricity in parts of Japan, rather than return to its old model that depended on nuclear power for profitability.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 8, 2014

Lixil mulls another overseas takeover

Lixil Group Corp., which agreed to buy bathroom-fixture makers American Standard Brands and Grohe Group last year, is studying another overseas acquisition to boost revenue from emerging markets.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jan 6, 2014

Retirement homes come of age in booming market

In order to address its rapidly aging society, the Japanese government has enacted a variety of measures since the start of the millennium, mostly related to the health care system. A more pressing matter is housing, since so many elderly people will be living on their own compared to the past when extended...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2014

How South Korea rides out emerging-markets turmoil

With seven of every 10 high school graduates attending a university, there is a surplus of educated people in South Korea. Estimates are that 40 percent of college graduates are redundant.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 4, 2014

Back and forward: Asia in 2013; predictions for 2014

Crystal-ball gazing is a notoriously inexact science, so before getting to that, let's lessen the potential exposure to ridicule by starting with a roundup of the last 12 months' key trends and events in Asia.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GERMAN JOURNALIST SYMPOSIUM
Jan 3, 2014

Germany's role in EU divides bloc

Does Germany hurt or help Europe?
COMMENTARY / World / NEW YEAR SPECIAL
Jan 1, 2014

History overshadows present and future Japan-China relations

Can Japan and China find a way to reduce the risk of conflict, and prevent continuing hostilities that could last decades? Can they peacefully coexist in the new era when they are both great powers?
COMMENTARY
Dec 30, 2013

The distributional challenge

Assessing the recent past and looking forward to the near term may well be a necessary exercise when it comes to the global economy in 2013 and 2014.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Dec 29, 2013

South Korea's house of cards

Except for Samsung Electronics, South Korea's manufacturing industry appears to be on the verge of a big stall. How long Samsung will be able to maintain its market dominance is an open question.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Dec 29, 2013

Britons ready to welcome arrivals from Bulgaria, Romania, with caveats

Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the U.K. on New Year's Day will be welcomed by more than two-thirds of Britons if they integrate and work hard, a new poll suggests ahead of restrictions on them being lifted.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2013

Britain's charity shops go after the label-conscious but risk alienating the bargain-seekers

In the U.K., charity wardrobe chic is pushing prices up and putting charity shops out of the reach of poorer people, a reversal of the original goal of the stores.
COMMENTARY
Dec 27, 2013

Abe and Xi swam naked with Buffett in 2013

In Japan and South Korea this year, talk of epochal change from two newish leaders was shown to be empty. Meanwhile, China's supposedly peaceful rise was laid bare by aggressive actions.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 25, 2013

Snowden declares his mission accomplished

In a candid interview, NSA leaker Edward Snowden breaks his silence on surveillance, democracy and the meaning of the top-secret documents he exposed, and says his mission is 'already accomplished.'
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 23, 2013

From Mikimoto's pearls to ones of publicity wisdom

Having invented a method for creating cultured pearls in 1893, Meiji Era entrepreneur Kokichi Mikimoto set about selling them to the world. Apparently not one for understatement, he once announced he hoped to "adorn the necks of all women around the world with pearls."
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2013

Help Ukrainians stand up for Western values

Make no mistake, Ukraine's so-called oligarchs still support President Viktor Yanukovych, and they will be prime beneficiaries of the $15 billion in bailout loans and lower natural gas prices that he secured from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 22, 2013

Story of  ‘systematic’ exploitation of women becomes reporter’s life

On the first day that Jineth Bedoya Lima arrived for work at the offices of Colombia National Radio in Bogota, she was assigned to cover a story that would become her life. That day, in December 1996, her task was to report on a riot at what is probably the most dangerous prison in the world, La Modelo,...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 22, 2013

Rental video stores ponder their reason for existing

DVDs still may be the cheapest, and easiest, way to watch videos at home.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic