Search - 2020

 
 
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2014

Deregulating the telecom industry

An expert panel of the communications ministry is reviewing anti-monopoly protections against the NTT group and is expected to recommend this fall whether regulations on the telecom giant should be eased.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 28, 2014

China plots massive state sector shake-up

Far from the spotlight, in secretive high-level meetings and company boardrooms, Beijing is drawing up one of the country's thorniest reforms: an overhaul of China's hugely inefficient state-owned industry.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 28, 2014

Governing China's 'dream'

This year's China Development Forum in Beijing revealed the clearest vision yet of how China's leaders intend to deliver the 'Chinese Dream' of improving people's livelihoods, constructing a better society and strengthening the military.
Japan Times
JAPAN / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Apr 27, 2014

Atrophied Osaka changes mindset toward entrepreneurs

Japan's young entrepreneurs flock to Tokyo because Kansai is too conservative or paranoid to embrace new thinking, but Osaka is working to change all that.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Apr 26, 2014

Palmer helping NBL players push for progress

Returning to the city where his pro basketball career was launched in 1990, Walter Palmer maintains deep convictions that a players union is a vital element for any league craving for legitimacy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2014

Costs keep mounting for idled reactors

Since March 2011, the government has focused on the cost of cleaning up after Fukushima, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Now, the bill is coming due for another unbudgeted consequence of that calamity — shutting down the nation's 48 remaining nuclear reactors for costly safety reviews that...
EDITORIALS
Apr 25, 2014

Reforming Japan's farming sector

A government panel has dismissed as inadequate a JA Zenchu reform plan aimed at making Japan's farming sector more competitive.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2014

Skin divers turn to tourism to stem the tide

At the Sea People restaurant in Shima, a coastal hamlet in Mie Prefecture, sea diver Machiyo Yamashita wants a piece of a tourism industry dominated by the cities that sapped her town's vitality by luring away its youth.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 23, 2014

Ukraine president calls for new offensive in east as crisis deal falters

Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, called Tuesday for government forces to relaunch an offensive against pro-Russian rebels after a local politician from his own party was found dead with signs of torture.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 21, 2014

Kiryu happy to forgo giant strides for steady progress

Having shed the flashy, eye-catching pink shorts of his high school and grown his hair longer, Japanese sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu has begun a new chapter in his track career, aiming to step up to the next level in a new environment.
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2014

Fukushima No. 1 boss admits plant doesn't have complete control over water problems

The manager of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant admits efforts to control the radioactive water being churned out there are failing because they were planned in haste.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 19, 2014

Team Abe's alternate-reality Kool-Aid

Japan's relations with China and South Korea are in tatters, there has been no progress on dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons program, strains with Washington persist, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are at an impasse, whaling got harpooned and hopes for a deal with Russia on the northern...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 19, 2014

Christel Takigawa gets Akita 'omotenashi'; a dandy drama; CM of the week: Nisshinbo

Former news anchor Christel Takigawa gets to sample some of that famous Japanese omotenashi (hospitality) she promoted during the bid process for the 2020 Summer Olympics. She is this week's guest on NHK's travel show "Tsurube no Kazoku ni Kampai" ("Tsurube Toasts Families"; NHK-G, Mon., 8 p.m.), the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2014

Raise corporate profile of women, confab urges

A two-day international conference aiming to empower women kicked off Friday in Tokyo with a call for companies and the government to foster more female executives — an area of gender equality where Japan greatly lags behind the global norm.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 17, 2014

Toyota ratchets up 'green car' race with 2015 fuel cell vehicle launch

In 1997, Toyota caught its competitors by surprise with the revolutionary Prius, the first commercially successful gasoline-electric hybrid car. Now it is trying to do the same with a technology that seems straight out of science fiction.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2014

Shibuya Station to be rebuilt

East Japan Railway Co. says it will start laying the groundwork for wholesale renovations of Shibuya Station in Tokyo that will take more than a decade to complete.
BUSINESS
Apr 16, 2014

Koto Ward mulls Olympic cable car

A study is underway for the possible construction of a cable car linking 2020 Tokyo Olympic venues with a business area near the Ginza shopping district, a municipal government official has said.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2014

'Japanese Only' sign sparks bigotry debate

For nearly two decades, Shunji Usui has been a fixture at Urawa Red Diamonds matches at Saitama Stadium in the suburbs of Tokyo, a face in the crowd among the most avid — and sometimes rabid — fans of any Japanese soccer club.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 15, 2014

30% female employment goal in jeopardy

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will fail to meet his goal of having women in 30 percent of management positions in the civil service by 2020 unless candidates are lured from private industry, the gender equality minister said in a recent interview.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
Apr 14, 2014

KDDI sending futuristic technologies to a screen near you

While technology continues to brings us new and unexpected ways to make our lives more convenient, it is difficult to predict how much further it will evolve and the impact it will have on the world.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Apr 14, 2014

Hagino's grand ambition on display during nationals

While some veterans have shown signs of decline, several young Japanese swimmers have shown they have the potential to raise their level higher.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Apr 12, 2014

Europe joins observation satellite race

Europe on April 3 launched the first satellite of its multibillion-dollar Copernicus Earth observation project that will supply valuable images in the event of natural disasters or even a plane crash.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 12, 2014

Weapons for peace and proactive pacifism

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has relaxed curbs on arms exports and sees great market potential in Asia. In the Pacific Century, Asia's impressive economic growth is funding expanding defense budgets, making the region the most lucrative global arms market. Alas, it is also a region of significant flash...
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 2014

Energy plan looks to the past

The Abe government's new Basic Energy Plan fails to set a clear direction for the nation's energy policy, which has been clouded by safety concerns ever since three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant melted down in March 2011.

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