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Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Dec 17, 2009

Time to face up to reality with Nakamura's star on the wane

As national team manager Takeshi Okada runs the rule over the year gone by, he will have to face up to an uncomfortable but unavoidable truth — 2009 has not been kind to Shunsuke Nakamura.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2009

Gridlock threatens to doom COP15

COPENHAGEN — U.N. negotiators at the COP15 conference worked through the night Tuesday, increasingly desperate to reach agreement before more than 120 world leaders gather Thursday night and Friday and following an official warning that the stalemated negotiations could doom the conference.
COMMENTARY
Dec 15, 2009

Business challenge for Europe after Lisbon

CINDERFORD, England — The much-delayed final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, and the appointment of former Belgium Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as president of the European Union and Britain's Cathy Ashton as de facto foreign minister, means that the EU will increasingly take center stage on...
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2009

Japan under fire for laying low in Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN — Japan needs to step up and take a more prominent and visible leadership role at the U.N. climate talks or the conference could end in failure, Japanese and foreign nongovernmental organizations said Thursday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 5, 2009

Tom-san, the big man in kids' soccer

So who is the most famous soccer coach in Japan? Well, it could be Japan team coach Takeshi Okada or maybe Gamba Osaka's Akira Nishino. On the other hand, it may be someone many adults have never heard of: Tom-san.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
Nov 28, 2009

Japan water, solar tech high, global share low

Third in a series
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2009

Solid foundation for U.S., China

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao held a summit in Beijing earlier this week and agreed to push cooperation on such issues as the fight against global warming, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and efforts to realize a world without nuclear weapons. The two leaders refrained...
COMMENTARY
Nov 19, 2009

Wrong way to halt warming

Here's a surprise. The countries with the best stories to tell at the forthcoming U.N. Copenhagen conference on climate change will probably be the ones that have not signed up to carbon-reducing targets at all, or have only signed up very recently. It could be China, the United States, India and Japan...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 15, 2009

Matsui could extend career in field with a move to first base

Japan is justifiably proud that native son Hideki Matsui was named the MVP of the 2009 World Series, and Japanese fans of Matsui and the New York Yankees are eagerly watching to see what happens now.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 8, 2009

Eco-tourism the camel-dive way

It's 4 a.m. and I wake up on a beach on the Sinai Peninsula of eastern Egypt. The moon has set and the mountains of Saudi Arabia just 18 km away across the Gulf of Aqaba are silhouetted against the stars. The camel I rode here is sleeping nearby, and it is still so warm even in late October that a single...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2009

Personifying 'evil' makes war so much easier

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Equating war with individual evil has become ubiquitous — if not universal — in contemporary international politics.
Japan Times
Rugby
Oct 30, 2009

Eternal rivals get ready to spread Bledisloe Cup gospel to Tokyo crowd

The Bledisloe Cup, one of rugby's showcase events, will debut on Japanese soil Saturday at Tokyo's National Stadium.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2009

It's Italy for America and Japan for Europe

MUNICH — The American business model has collapsed. During recent years, the United States borrowed gigantic sums of money from the rest of the world. Net capital imports exceeded $800 billion in 2008 alone. The money came largely from selling mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations,...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 25, 2009

Of simmering frogs and economists leaping to terminal conclusions

They say that if a frog is dropped into boiling water it will jump out, but if it is placed in water that is then heated slowly it will steadily acclimate and boil to death — having missed its chance to escape.
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2009

Fading trust in the political class

LONDON — The world is clearly passing through a crisis of political legitimacy. People in growing numbers do not trust their governments or their governing classes. In many cases they despise them.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 14, 2009

New concerns bring fresh hope for renewable energy

VIENNA — A decade ago, renewable energy was viewed as an unwelcome offspring of fossil fuels, but the recent establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) indicates that governments worldwide are taking "renewables" seriously. With mounting concerns about climate change and volatility...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 8, 2009

Nissan Chuzousho President Shunichiro Tsuji

Shunichiro Tsuji, 62, is president of Nissan Chuzousho Ltd., Japan's last surviving beigoma maker, located in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture. Beigoma are small cast-iron spinning tops that are spun in a game that has been a favorite with kids and grown-ups in Japan for many generations. Tsuji has...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2009

The Middle East and Iran issue

The small country of Lebanon lies at the center of the Middle East jigsaw. Its labyrinthine internal politics reflect and connect with all the complexities of the region and the surrounding countries.
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2009

Challenges for China concern political future, not economics

NEW DELHI — Six decades after it was founded, the People's Republic of China has made some remarkable achievements. A backward, impoverished state in 1949, it has risen dramatically to now command respect and awe — but such success has come at great cost to its own people.
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2009

Losing control of the heat

LONDON — My youngest daughter is 17, so she will have lived most of her life before the worst of the warming hits. But her later years will not be easy, and her kids will have it very hard from the start. As for their kids, I just don't know.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2009

Murdoch: Japan newspapers will have to charge for online content

KYOTO — Japanese newspapers are eventually going to have to charge users to read general news stories online, media mogul Rupert Murdoch said Sunday at a conference here of scientists and engineers.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2009

Why not try a trade system that optimizes each nation's interest?

Many of us thought that the World Trade Organization (WTO) was dead when the world financial and economic crisis demolished the myth of the benefits of free trade regimes, and that the poor of the world could rejoice. But suddenly, by some kind of voodoo trickery, it is back.
BUSINESS
Sep 28, 2009

NYSE Euronext chief sounds alarm against overregulation

When the major economies map out their postcrisis financial reforms, they should avoid overregulating the financial services industry in the United States and focus instead on smarter application of existing regulations, the chief executive officer of NYSE Euronext said in Tokyo recently.
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2009

Divining Japan's new leadership amid the expectations of change

LONDON — On a recent visit to France, I was frequently asked about the results of the Japanese election. Did the results mean that Japan was really changing? Would the new Japanese government increase Japan's influence in the world?
LIFE / Digital / Japan Pulse
Sep 19, 2009

I want my Augmented Reality TV phone!

The highly anticipated Sekai Camera for iPhone is unveiled in Tokyo, giving us a preview of what life will be like with augmented reality.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 19, 2009

Tokyo rabbi gives unconditionally

"Whatever we have, we give 100 percent," says Binyomin Edery, the 33-year-old chief rabbi at Chabad House in Tokyo. "Our bank account is at zero! If we have one, we give two; if we have two, we give four. That's what we do."
COMMENTARY
Sep 10, 2009

Words of wisdom from Hatoyama

It was just this side of comical. The leader of the new ruling party of Japan barely finishes acknowledging his Democratic Party of Japan's landslide win and a public relations disaster strikes. The result: an ignominious international climb-down.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan