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LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Feb 15, 2012

Cosmetics review website goes public with IPO

Tokyo-based Internet company Istyle Inc. announced on Feb. 3 its intention to list itself on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers Market (Tosho Mothers). The planned date of the IPO is March 8, 2012.
COMMENTARY
Feb 15, 2012

Disability program reveals U.S. budget quagmire

Social Security's disability program is a political quagmire — and a metaphor for why federal spending and budget deficits are so difficult to control. The numbers are too big; the details, too complicated; and the choices, when faced, too wrenching. President Barack Obama's new budget, estimated at...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 12, 2012

A future free from nuclear energy? Yakushima may be ready

I once took a ferry from Kagoshima on the southernmost tip of Kyushu to Amami Oshima, halfway to Okinawa. Just 60 km out from the massive Sakurajima volcano that dominates Kagoshima City, our ship passed a huge granite hunk of rock some 50,000 hectares, covered in forest.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 10, 2012

Camera show breaks SLR mystique

Digital mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses grabbed the spotlight Thursday at CP+2012 as the nation's biggest international camera and imaging show opened in Yokohama.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Feb 10, 2012

Despite new plan, Okinawans fear Futenma will remain in Ginowan

Wednesday's agreement between Tokyo and Washington to delink the transfer of U.S. Marines in Okinawa to Guam from the relocation of the Futenma air base in the prefecture was greeted by politicians and pundits in both countries as an acknowledgement that the original plan was obviously no longer viable....
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2012

U.S. likely to scale down plans for bases in Japan and Guam

The U.S. military will probably scale back plans to build key bases in Japan and Guam because of political obstacles and budget pressures, according to U.S. and Japanese officials, complicating the Obama administration's efforts to strengthen the presence of U.S. forces in Asia.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2012

Plan for new marketplace on Tsukiji site gets mixed reviews

Moves by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to build a new marketplace on the site of the Tsukiji market have drawn mixed reactions, with some critics saying it is an attempt to bulldoze through the controversial relocation of the famed fish market to a new site.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Feb 8, 2012

Mao's push for third world title starts at Four Continents

Mao Asada ended last year with a month of triumph and tragedy that are hard to imagine.
COMMENTARY
Feb 8, 2012

World economy's uncharted territory

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." — L.P. Hartley, English novelist
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 8, 2012

A strategy for Russia's budding snow revolution

Nonviolent revolutions do not always remain nonviolent, as the examples of uprisings in Egypt, Libya, and Syria in the Arab Spring have shown. But peaceful movements for regime change often do succeed. They have toppled illegitimate rulers, as with the post-Soviet "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 8, 2012

Romney: the right's cup of tea

"Many tea party folks are going to find me, I believe, to be the ideal candidate," the Republican presidential contender said in a news conference in December. "I sure hope so."
COMMENTARY
Feb 4, 2012

The political hygienists' assault on free speech

Dina Galassini does not seem to pose a threat to Arizona's civic integrity. But the government of this desert community believes you cannot be too careful. And state law empowers local governments to be vigilant against the lurking danger that political speech might occur before the speakers notify the...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2012

Genba, U.S. huddle anew over '06 base pact

Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba revealed Friday evening that Tokyo and Washington have been holding talks on reviewing the 2006 bilateral accord over the realignment of U.S. bases in Japan.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 4, 2012

F.A. must make Terry stand down

Sometime in the next three weeks the Football Association's power brokers will meet to decide whether John Terry should continue to captain England.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2012

The Putin regime's terminal disease

The history of successive authoritarian regimes in Russia reveals a recurring pattern: They do not die from external blows or domestic insurgencies. Instead, they tend to collapse from a strange internal malady — a combination of the elites' encroaching disgust with themselves and a realization that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 2, 2012

"Wonder Seeds 2012"

Tokyo Wonder Site's aim is to nurture and support up-and-coming artists through it's workshops and cultural exchange programs.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 2, 2012

"Wonder Seeds 2012"

Tokyo Wonder Site's aim is to nurture and support up-and-coming artists through it's workshops and cultural exchange programs.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2012

Demilitarizing Muslim politics

Can Muslim governments free themselves from their countries' powerful militaries and establish civilian control comparable to that found in liberal democracies? This question is now paramount in countries as disparate as Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 2, 2012

Warner's Ishizaka says 'exterminate' illegal downloads

Not many music-business executives compare themselves to Oda Nobunaga or Napoleon Bonaparte.
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 2012

Fed targets and transparency

The U.S. Federal Reserve announced last week that it will keep interest rates near zero in an effort to assist a stumbling U.S. economy. While that news was expected, the length of the extension was not — the Fed plans to keep rates well below 1 percent for three more years.
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2012

Makers cut forecasts on yen surge, Thai floods

Japanese makers of cars, chips and computers said profit would be less than previously expected this year as the stronger yen undermines a recovery from output setbacks caused by March 11.
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2012

Delicate wage negotiations

The annual wage negotiations for 2012 take place in a difficult situation marked by the effects of the March 11 disasters, the floods in Thailand, prolonged deflation and the strong yen. Labor and management must search for a wage level that is not only reasonable but also will eventually contribute...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2012

Back in Russia: peeling, meeting and shopping

In mid-December, while trying to understand what was happening in Russia, I checked Twitter and found a tweet that somehow signified everything.

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’