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Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 1, 2014

New tech brings cinema to the deaf and blind

The lights dimmed inside the theater at the Tokyo International Film Festival and the audience quieted down. As Masayuki Suo's film "Maiko wa Lady (Lady Maiko)" began, the viewers were ready — with glasses-shaped head-mounted displays and earpieces designed to make cinema accessible to the deaf and...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2014

Japan's 3/11 tsunami evacuees caught in $30 billion money trap

Some ¥3.28 trillion in funding for roads, bridges and thousands of new homes in areas devastated by the tsunami in Tohoku 3½ years ago is still languishing unspent in the bank. That means Keiko Abe is heading into a fourth winter of subzero temperatures in a cramped, temporary dwelling that is succumbing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 30, 2014

Looking back to 1964 as Japan envisions 2020

"In Yedo, nothing is so common as to hear the citizens lament the times that have only just come to an end." So ran one editorial of "The Far East," an English-language periodical published in Japan in the 1870s.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Oct 30, 2014

Thai junta's focus on school reforms raises eyebrows

Sixteen years old and studying 13 hours a day, high school pupil Worapot doesn't have time to waste meeting a military-led government's idea of what makes a good Thai.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2014

Fukushima Reactor 1 dismantling to be delayed

In the first-ever delay in the plans to dismantle reactor 1 at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government and the utility have agreed to postpone the removal of fuel rods from the spent-fuel pool by two years from the initial plans, NHK reported Thursday....
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2014

China banking on infrastructure

It's hard to fault the ambitions of China and 20 other nations in agreeing to start up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. After all, Asia does need infrastructure. But there are fears that AIIB is aimed partly at undermining prevailing norms on international lending.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 27, 2014

Taiwan eyes homegrown submarines after 13-year wait on U.S. deal

Taiwan is moving ahead with plans to build its own submarines, with an initial design to be completed by year-end, after lengthy delays in getting eight vessels under a 2001 U.S. defense deal and as China's navy expands rapidly.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Oct 26, 2014

Japan struggles to keep up as China woos international students

Japan's efforts to increase the number of international students coming to its shores are being dwarfed by similar initiatives in neighboring China.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2014

Tsunami-hit Miyagi mulls casino to hasten recovery

Business and political leaders in the northeast bet on a casino as the brightest hope to speed reconstruction in a region battered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / ANALYSIS
Oct 24, 2014

Give addicts priority over casinos, activist tells politicians

Gambling has always been a part of 50-year-old Noriko Tanaka's life.
Japan Times
JAPAN / HOTEL SPECIAL 2014
Oct 24, 2014

Respecting other cultures leads to success

ANA, Japan's premiere airline and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) began a joint venture, ANA InterContinental, in 2006, becoming the largest international hotel operator in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / HOTEL SPECIAL 2014
Oct 24, 2014

Renovating an iconic hotel

One of Japan's — if not the world's — most iconic hotels, and a member of the select luxury hotel collection, The Leading Hotels of the World, the venerable Hotel Okura Tokyo will from September 2015 embark on a renovation of its main building with completion of the new facilities scheduled for spring...
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 24, 2014

MHI and Chiyoda plan first offshore hydrogen plant

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Chiyoda Corp. will jointly launch a project to build the world's first offshore hydrogen production plant, NHK reported Friday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 23, 2014

U.S. calls out Japan on coal plant exports

The United States has challenged the Japanese government over moves to ramp up exports of coal-fired power technology and to offer cheap loans to lure buyers, according to a U.S. source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 23, 2014

Seafood a sweet spot in Japanese exports as yen weakens

Seafood is a sweet spot in Japanese exports this year that is pushing sales of food abroad to a record and gaining strength as the yen weakens.
BUSINESS
Oct 22, 2014

Casino bill delayed again, sources say

Japan's plan to open up to casino gambling has been delayed again, three people familiar with the process said, dealing a blow to one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy priorities and to hopes the first resort will open in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2014

Maglev line gets a green light

There are many questions about the future of the maglev line to be constructed between Tokyo and Osaka that now must be answered as the government has given the go-ahead for the project.
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2014

Abe's 'womenomics' is little more than skin deep

The sudden resignations of two female Cabinet ministers over separate spending scandals suggest that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prefers to appoint warm, telegenic figures to help him sell unpopular policies rather than strong, independent-minded women.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 20, 2014

Benesse to buy Minerva, forecasting rising demand for English learning

Education services provider Benesse Holdings says it will acquire Minerva Intelligence with the aim of strengthening its English-education businesses.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2014

China need not dominate new bank for Asia

If America's allies — and even the U.S. itself — would join China's initiative for an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Beijing could not dominate it as some fear.
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2014

Casino legalization delay likely, Komeito official says

The plan to legalize casino gambling has likely been delayed again, a senior Komeito official said Monday, dealing a further political blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 20, 2014

Subtle humor of haiku's cousin senryū is on a roll

"Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit," philosophizes the long-winded Polonius in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." That's also a fitting description of senryū — a form of short poetry defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "a three-line unrhymed Japanese poem structurally similar to haiku, but...
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Oct 19, 2014

Abe's shift to regional woes fails to erase mistrust in LDP

Local experts and ex-bureaucrats pan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plans to rejuvenate stalled local economies, saying the idea is another half-baked initiative from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Oct 19, 2014

Abe's inner circle sprouting horns over next tax bump

A major battle appears to be brewing between the office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Finance Ministry — the most powerful bureaucracy in Japan — over whether to raise the consumption tax from the current 8 percent to 10 percent next fall.
EDITORIALS
Oct 17, 2014

Promoting women at work

Draft legislation prepared by the Abe administration would require large companies as well as the national and local governments to set targets for promoting women in their organizations, beginning in fiscal 2016.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan