Search - 2020

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2013

China eyes a canal project in America's backyard

It would be easy to blow off the plans to build a canal across Nicaragua to connect both oceans if it were not for the expected support of the Chinese government.
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2013

DPJ ruins chance at power reform

The multipartisan anti-bullying law enacted by the Diet is no panacea for the nation's schools as it fails to take into account all aspects of the bullying problem.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2013

Work-life balance? Not in politics

Tamayo Marukawa, 42, seems to have it all. A University of Tokyo graduate, she scored one of the most coveted jobs in Japan as an announcer at TV Asahi. A popular presence there for 14 years, she left for a seat in the Upper House six years ago as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2013

Ten-step program could help India develop an economy as big as U.S. economy by 2050

Even with unspectacular growth of a little more than 6 percent a year, India's economy could become about as big as America's economy by 2050.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 29, 2013

Voyager 1 finds solar system's final frontier is fuzzier than once thought

The edge of the solar system has no edge, it turns out. It has a fuzzy transitional area that is not quite part of our solar system and not quite interstellar space.
EDITORIALS
Jun 28, 2013

How will Japan's farms survive?

One hindrance to the Abe government's agricultural growth policy could be the terms of trade for Japan if it participates in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 26, 2013

Suntory ¥388 billion drinks IPO priced at low end

Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd. is set to raise as much as ¥388.1 billion in Japan's biggest initial public offering this year after pricing near the low end of its range as volatile markets curbed demand.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 24, 2013

Top students shunning Japan

Making English the standard language at graduate schools in Japan won't be enough to attract more of the 'outstanding' students from abroad.
EDITORIALS
Jun 22, 2013

Kudos and caution for Mr. Abe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been praised by G-8 leaders for his monetary policy as well as warned not to forget about a medium-term fiscal plan.
EDITORIALS
Jun 19, 2013

Growth strategy misses

The 'Abenomics' growth strategy just adopted looks like a wish list of budgets with project names that will be coveted by individual government ministries.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / ABE'S PROMISES
Jun 19, 2013

Lofty educational ideal: Ability to prevail on global stage

Universities are starting to try out all sorts of new and innovative ways for Japan to develop human resources capable of 'prevailing on the world stage.'
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 18, 2013

Democracy, interrupted: How local voices were silenced in Tokyo's first referendum

On Sunday, May 26, something quite remarkable happened in Kodaira city, western Tokyo: Over 50,000 citizens voted in Tokyo's very first local referendum (jūmin tōhyō) on the issue of whether a 50-year-old plan to construct a road should be reviewed or not.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jun 18, 2013

Mr. Mayor, tear down this smoking area and make Toshima a true 'safe community'

To Yukio Takano, Mayor of Toshima Ward, Tokyo:
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jun 18, 2013

Why workers can no longer wear their demands on their sleeves

Dear reader, where are you from? To what era do you belong? I was born in 1971 in Japan and grew up here, too, but I've never — in all my years visiting hotels, restaurants, shops or government offices — seen workers wearing vests, armbands, badges, ribbons or bandanas with political messages. I've...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2013

A pork sale wrapped in a thin skin

America's reaction to the advance by corporate China, including the buyout of Smithfield Foods, is reminiscent of its reactions to the Japanese 20 years ago.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 17, 2013

'Abenomics' and the wild pursuit of inflation for inflation's sake

From June 5 to 6, more than five months after launching his Cabinet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened the government's three councils on economic and fiscal policy, industrial competitiveness and science and technology.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 16, 2013

Indonesia 15 years after the New Order

In May 1998 President Suharto resigned, ending three decades in power in Indonesia and what was known as the New Order. As an army general, he had intervened against a coup attempt in 1965 that ended with the sidelining of President Sukarno and months of massacres all over the archipelago as Suharto...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 12, 2013

Idemitsu shifts gears in Singapore amid bullish refinery outlook for Southeast Asia

Refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co., which has shut down 23 percent of processing capacity since 2003, will boost crude and oil products trading in Singapore as it expands its business overseas.
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 12, 2013

Planet on course for 5 C warming at current rate

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use rose 1.4 percent to 31.6 gigatons in 2012, setting a record and putting the planet on course for temperature increases well above international climate goals, the International Energy Agency said in a report issued Monday.
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2013

Mr. Abe's 'third arrow' misses mark

If Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's goal of boosting Japan's per capita gross national income by ¥1.5 million in 10 years sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2013

Abe plan lifts renewables at utilities' expense

Shinzo Abe's pledge to spur ¥30 trillion of investment in Japan's electricity industry opens the way for a surge in clean energy projects at the expense of traditional utilities.
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2013

Turkey boils over

A small protest over the decision to pave over a small park in Istanbul has grown into the most violent riots that Turkey has experienced in decades.

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