Search - real_estate

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2011

Imagining a euro-less world

For the fathers of the euro, the end of the Cold War in 1990 was a time for worry as well as celebration. As they looked to the future, they were also obsessed with the continent's bloody past.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 21, 2010

'Freeter' drama reflects Japan's income gap

The American media keeps wondering whether or not the United States will have to endure a "lost decade" of sluggish growth and stagnant employment like the one Japan suffered through after the real-estate bubble burst in the early 1990s. It seems unlikely. The American economy is dynamic while Japan's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Oct 26, 2010

Plans for public space need the public's input

Dear Prime Minister Naoto Kan,
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 10, 2010

Crisis a chance for consolidation

The European debt problem triggered by the Greek crisis this year provides a good opportunity for both Japan and Germany to start fiscal consolidation efforts in the face of mounting public-sector debts, experts from the two countries told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jun 3, 2009

Tiny HD TVs, a jogger's dream and a tough camcorder

Small and defined: Sharp is looking to save on space with an innovative addition to its high-definition TV family. Sharp claims the Aquos DX, or LC-20DX1, is the world's first 20-inch LCD TV with a built-in Blu-ray burner. Apart from the basic function of showing high-definition television, the DX also...
COMMENTARY
Nov 11, 2008

Laissez faire has taken a powder

In the wee hours of Oct. 11 Tokyo time, finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven industrialized countries met in Washington to discuss how to resolve the global financial crisis and agreed to protect all depositors and inject public funds to rescue financial institutions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 2008

Halls of light in a city of horses

Something for everyone — that seems to be the motto for the new Towada Art Center in Aomori Prefecture. With cash in hand and a desire to see their town turn around, Towada has banked on art as a way to bring back vitality to an area that has lacked it of late.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007

'Kazoku no Hiketsu'

The Kansai region, which includes the cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, is Japan's comedy center. The biggest comedy talent agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo, is based in Osaka and its comics mostly deliver their quips in the Kansai dialect.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2007

Putting students' works on the block

The evening was a festive red that illuminated the enthusiastic bidding by the 300-plus attendees at Japan's first ever university-run contemporary art auction. At the Kyoto University of Art and Design (KUAD) last Saturday, 18 students and three teachers, dressed in student-designed fire-red outfits,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 11, 2006

U.S. lawyer gets the impossible done in Japan

Legal beagle Tim Langley is both blessed and dogged with an interesting surname. "When I worked inside the Diet as a blue-eyed, moustachioed, Japanese-fluent American fresh out of Japanese law school, the CIA in Langley, Va., naturally came up. Some thought my name was a joke."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 12, 2006

Fumio Nanjo's vision comes to the fore

The departure of director David Elliott from the Mori Art Museum to take over the Istanbul Modern in Turkey is the first major leadership change at Japan's largest privately endowed cultural institution. Though it was not without controversy, Elliott's tenure saw the 3-year-old museum develop into what...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 14, 2006

Home and away

AUSTRALIA Respect brings harmony without being workaholic
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2005

Resurgent interest in noodles starts fad

Japanese men who have slaved away for decades at their companies during the postwar era, and who have had quite a few chances to wine and dine after work, are rediscovering their love for "soba," the simple buckwheat noodle mainstay that's been around for more than 400 years.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 16, 2005

Single thirtysomethings under the spotlight

Last weekend, Nihon TV broadcast a two-hour program based on Junko Sakai's bestselling book "Makeinu no Toboe (The Howl of the Loser Dog)," a piece of nonfiction. The show, however, was a standard trendy drama, meaning long on ritzy real-estate and product placements, short on situations that resemble...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 29, 2004

An Eastern art show to rival Venice

On May 18, 1980, the city of Gwangju, South Korea, hit the headlines with an explosion of civilian dissent against the military junta that had seized power the day before. The junta's brutal crackdown culminated in the Gwangju Massacre of hundreds of students and civilians. The uprising would spark South...
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2004

Saving best for last, guru verdict done deal?

Friday is verdict day in the eight-year trial of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara, who if the state has its way will hang for masterminding or ordering 13 heinous crimes that resulted in 27 slayings at the hands of his disciples.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 29, 2003

250 reasons to be happy, then some

I'm happy! The reason I'm happy is I love art, and this month a total of four -- yes four -- new contemporary art spaces opened in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Jul 10, 2003

Wrong light at the end of the tunnel

Stock prices and long-term interest rates in Japan have climbed rapidly of late. On Monday, the Nikkei index hit a 10-month high of 9,795 points while yields on 10-year benchmark government bonds topped 1 percent, more than double the level of a month earlier. That is good news if it signals an upturn...
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2003

New BOJ head's main task

On March 20, former Bank of Japan Deputy Gov. Toshihiko Fukui will replace current BOJ Gov. Masaru Hayami as head of Japan's central bank. Mr. Fukui, now director of the Fujitsu Research Institute, will be assisted by two new deputies: Mr. Toshiro Muto, former vice minister of finance, and Mr. Kazumasa...
BUSINESS
Jul 24, 2002

Japan stocks weathering U.S. downturn: ministers

Japanese stocks are showing resilience despite the ongoing plunge in U.S. share prices, key economic ministers in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet said Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 23, 2001

The city within

There are three things that stir the heart of every true Tokyoite: sento (public baths), mazelike roji (alleys) and matsuri (festivals). Over the last couple of decades, all three have been gradually fading from the city scene, though there are still pockets in the megalopolis where they can be found...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2001

U.S. mortgaging wealth before recession

NEW DELHI -- It's becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. economy, despite a sharp slowdown, is holding the world against a global recession. Americans are borrowing globally and using the money to consume the goods of the world. Alas! This can continue only as long as U.S. assets exceed liabilities....
BUSINESS
Apr 16, 2001

Improving profitability critical to concluding bad-loan debacle

The government's emergency economic package released April 6 featured steps to promote bad-loan disposal in the banking industry. The specific targets involved a two-year deadline for major banks to remove some 12.7 trillion yen in outstanding loans to borrowers either bankrupt or on the brink of collapse,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2000

The banks' 'lost decade' continues

Japanese banks' performance for the first half of the current fiscal year delivers a disquieting message: They are still saddled with a large number of problem loans. For years, they have been saying that the worst is over -- and it is true that the danger of a financial meltdown no longer exists. But...
JAPAN
Oct 13, 2000

Foot-reading guru denies bilking flock

Hogen Fukunaga, founder of the Honohana Sanpogyo foot-reading cult, denied in his first trial hearing Thursday that he conspired with other members of the sect to defraud 31 people out of about 149 million yen.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2000

Counterfeit cigarette trade rampant in rural areas of China

Kyodo News On the surface, several farming villages near the port of Xiamen in Fujian Province appear as calm as any other Chinese village, with no outsiders believing in the existence of clandestine bases.
BUSINESS
Jun 17, 2000

Firms expected to raise capital spending 5.2%

Capital spending by major Japanese companies is expected to rise 5.2 percent in fiscal 2000 from a year earlier, the first increase in four years, a government advisory panel said Friday.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000

Fingleton deflates the New Economy

IN PRAISE OF HARD INDUSTRIES: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Technology, Is the Key to Future Prosperity, by Eamonn Fingleton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999, 273 pp., $26 (cloth). A 24-year-old Englishman with a ponytail waltzed into the offices of a London venture-capital company...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 16, 2000

Inflation scare won't loosen purse strings

Most of Japan's modern economic history consists of a long series of achievements pronounced impossible by the outside world. Japan was building the foundations of world-beating steel and electronics industries while Occupation officials urged that scarce resources be devoted to "suitable" exports such...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Dec 4, 1999

The buzz in Washington: New Millennium parties and would-be new presidents

WASHINGTON -- I experienced some interesting feelings as I typed in the date on this piece. We writers and pundits will have an emotional ride during the next few weeks as we put pen to paper -- or fingers to keyboard -- for the last time in this century and millennium. The temptations are rife: to be...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight