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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 20, 2011

World's best shoppers at my beach shop

Having run a beach shop for eight years now, I've been able to observe the shopping practices of the Japanese firsthand.
COMMENTARY
Aug 19, 2011

Lighter shade of NATO fading still

During the Second World War, a future prime minister, Harold Macmillan, said America is "the new Roman empire and we Britons, like the Greeks of old, must teach them how to make it go."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2011

Obama risks 'junk status'

Standard & Poor's controversial decision to downgrade the credit rating of the United States from AAA to AA-plus brought an instant angry riposte from President Barack Obama that "We've always been and always will be a Triple-A country."
COMMENTARY
Aug 17, 2011

ASEAN faces a Chinese dilemma

As the United States and Europe struggle with heavy debts and weak growth, China increasingly powers the expansion of nearly every economy in the Asia Pacific region. It raises a critical question, particularly for Southeast Asia and Australia: Which are the ties that bind — those of commerce and rising...
COMMENTARY
Aug 16, 2011

The Song of Chu and Japanese politics today

"Song of Chu all around" (si-mian-Chu-ge) is an old Chinese saying that means "being besieged or deserted on all sides."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2011

What is not blamed for the riots in Britain

To a watching world, the sight of Britain on fire last week has surely been shocking. The looting and torching has revealed an inner-city London, Birmingham and Manchester seldom glimpsed in the England usually offered for export via soft-focus period dramas, Hugh Grant movies or stories on Will and...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
Aug 16, 2011

With debt climbing, Japan debates tax hike

Japan has within its sights the obvious but precarious solution for its fiscal mess: a tax hike.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Aug 14, 2011

Japan's unsung role in India's struggle for independence

Nestled in the upmarket Wada district of Tokyo's Suginami Ward, Renkoji Temple is a model of gentility. On weekday mornings, pensioners sit and sketch its prayer hall while housewives chat quietly in the shade of its well-tended trees. Given this setting, it would be easy to mistake the bust of a bespectacled...
BUSINESS
Aug 13, 2011

Yen drives short sales, Deutsche says

Hedge funds investing in Japan increased their short-selling of companies sensitive to the yen's fluctuations as the currency surged amid the U.S. credit downgrade and concerns that Europe can't contain its debt crisis, Deutsche Bank AG said.
EDITORIALS
Aug 12, 2011

Airport reform in Japan

A study panel of the infrastructure and transport ministry has released a report on the privatization of 27 airports managed by the central government. At present, the central government usually manages aviation-related facilities, such as runways, at these airports, while companies set up jointly by...
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2011

Honda may cut full-year profit forecast

Honda Motor Co., Japan's third-largest carmaker, said it may revise its full-year profit forecast when it announces first-half earnings in October, depending on how long the current market turmoil lasts.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 9, 2011

Scant legal justification for unpaid overtime

John has a question about unpaid overtime:
EDITORIALS
Aug 8, 2011

Taming the yen

The government on Thursday intervened in the foreign exchange market to weaken the yen, which had hovered at near record-high levels against the U.S. dollar. In collaboration with the government, the Bank of Japan promptly took steps to ease the money supply to help the economy overcome the effects of...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2011

Debt deal reveals empty toolbox

When President Barack Obama signed into law the bill increasing the debt ceiling to $16.7 trillion, Americans might have breathed a sigh of relief that the danger of default is over — for now (and probably until spring 2013).
EDITORIALS
Aug 6, 2011

Old and new nuclear perils

Aug. 6 and 9 are the days on which Japanese pray for the souls of those who died due to the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and renew our resolve to seek a world without nuclear weapons.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 5, 2011

Ichikanjin: Sun, sea, sand and slurping soup noodles

There's nothing like a sea breeze and a day spent lounging by the ocean to generate a healthy appetite. And nothing hits the spot better or faster than ramen. If the beach in question happens to be in Kamakura, then we know exactly where to go to refill and recharge on the way back from the waterfront...
COMMENTARY
Aug 3, 2011

U.S. reputation suffers in Asia

U.S. prominence in Asia since World War II has rested on a widespread belief among friends, foes and nonaligned nations alike that Washington would use its economic and military power to prevent what it saw as dangerous challenges to the region's peace, stability and growth.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Aug 2, 2011

Hara needs to show patience as Giants try to bounce back

One could only imagine the thoughts running through Tatsunori Hara's mind as he watched his Yomiuri Giants blow a five-run lead against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows on Sunday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2011

The rightwing terrorism threat

Three articles about Muslims ran in the same paper on the same day (The Independent, July 25):
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2011

Better legal training and services

Agovernment forum on nurturing law professionals — judges, public prosecutors and lawyers — has started discussions. It is scheduled to come up with proposals by the end of this month on the question of whether the scholarship system for trainees at the Supreme Court's Legal Training and Research...
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2011

A less blinkered view of the Dalai Lama

As expected, China reacted strongly to the meeting between Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, saying this had "grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, hurt the feelings of Chinese people and damaged Sino-U.S. relations."
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 31, 2011

Tadanobu Asano's 'Family History'; dramatization of 'Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni'; CM of the week: Sakai Moving Service

Tadanobu Asano is the guest and subject of this week's installment of "Family History" (NHK-G, Wed., 10 p.m.), which probes a famous person's background in depth.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 31, 2011

Tantalizingly tangled dead-man mystery

THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X, by Keigo Higashino. Translated by Alexander O. Smith. Minotaur Books, 2011, 304 pp., $24.99 (hardcover) A jogger discovers a male corpse wrapped in blue tarpaulin on the Tokyo embankment of the Edogawa. Someone has stripped the man's body, beaten his face until unrecognizable,...
Reader Mail
Jul 31, 2011

Reports on Viet Cong made sense

On the question of Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, who was denied a passport in the 1960s by the Australian government, I agree with Roan Suda's July 28 letter, "Portrayal of a leftist journalist," that Burchett was both pro-communist biased and sometimes sloppy in the use of dates and names....
BUSINESS
Jul 30, 2011

South profits from nuke scare

South Korean food exports to Japan are climbing at their fastest pace on record after radioactive contamination and supply disruptions prompted consumers to switch to overseas producers.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes