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BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2011

Economy sees first signs of nasty drop

Kiyohito Okuda is a businessman and an optimist, and so he has found at least one redeeming angle to Japan's slow-motion economic decline: Never has the pain felt too acute to bear.
EDITORIALS
Dec 21, 2011

Sex-slave issue rekindled

In a summit in Kyoto on Sunday with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak unexpectedly made a specific comment on the issue of Korean women who were forced to provide sex to members of the Imperial Japanese armed forces during the war years.
COMMUNITY / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 20, 2011

Gaba 'contractor' status under fire from staff, courts

As an 8-year-old in Indiana, William first became curious about Japan when he made friends with a Japanese guy called Hideki who introduced him to Super Mario and the magical world of Japanese video games.
Reader Mail
Dec 18, 2011

Misleading criticism of debt

In his Dec. 11 letter, "Debt clock cannot be ignored," Paul Bennett writes that Japan's "national debt clock" should be mentioned more often in the media and the Japanese people warned about how dire the situation is. He warns that Japan could follow in Greece's footsteps. However, such a comparison...
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 18, 2011

Lone holdout's first nuclear winter looms in Tohoku

As bitter winds blow around cesium and other radioactive particles spewed from the nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's reactors, Naoto Matsumura lights a cigarette, which he considers relatively good for his health.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Dec 18, 2011

Don't expect Japanese basketball to embrace a real, workable plan

Every few months a false sense of hope surfaces on the blogosphere and in the mainstream media, where optimists peddle the message that Japan's basketball "leaders" finally have their act together, that a new men's pro league will, ahem, finally replace the outdated, increasingly irrelevant JBL and the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2011

Australians recall POW ordeals

Former Australian prisoner of war Alfred Ellwood can vividly recall being interrogated and at times tortured by the Imperial Japanese Army's notorious military police after he was captured in East Timor, an experience that scarred him most of his life.
Reader Mail
Dec 15, 2011

Waiting really wasn't an option

Regarding the Dec.11 letter, "All Japan had to do was wait": I would like to refute a couple of points. First, Japan didn't really have an option to wait (for the United States to be dragged into war with Germany). The oil and raw materials embargo, in addition to the assets-freeze slapped on her by...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Dec 14, 2011

Perfect toys for retro gamers and karaoke fans

People who were kids during the early days of console gaming often look for ways to recapture the the excitement of that time. Those who spent hours playing the Famicom here in Japan, for example, still have a weakness for retro gaming. And while there are many ways to relive gaming glorydays (Famicom...
EDITORIALS
Dec 14, 2011

Glimpse of hope from Durban

The 17th Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) held in Durban, South Africa, since Nov. 28 agreed Sunday to start work in 2012 to write a comprehensive treaty that will require both developed and developing countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. According...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 13, 2011

Corporate governance in the shadow of Olympus

According to the "third-party committee" of outside experts appointed by Olympus to investigate the accounting scandal recently exposed by its sacked CEO, Michael Woodford, at least some of the company's directors, auditors and employees failed to stop or were even complicit in an ongoing effort to hide...
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2011

Debt clock cannot be ignored

Regarding the Dec. 7 Kyodo article "Welfare recipients reach nearly 2.06 million": Rarely have I seen any mention by Japan's broadcast or print media of Japan's national debt clock.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 11, 2011

Japanese 'good-for-nothings' heart Bhutan

Japan is in love — with Bhutan, a supposed Shangri-La of a country nestled in the Himalayas, famous for deemphasizing gross domestic product (GDP, the standard measure of well-being) in favor of a more abstract, possibly more human metric known as gross national happiness (GNH).
COMMENTARY
Dec 9, 2011

Russia's cooperation options for design of a trade scheme

Nowadays the trend toward trade and investment liberalization is developing under restraints of the opposite — protectionist — tendency strengthened by the shaky and unpredictable world situation, which in turn was created by the global financial and economic crisis.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 9, 2011

Jackson brothers to visit Michael's 'second home'

"Immortal," the new Michael Jackson-themed Cirque du Soleil show touring North America may sound grandiose but the self-proclaimed "King of Pop" was undoubtedly a larger-than-life character. While immortality was out of Jackson's reach, the singer's family are doing their best to keep his memory alive...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 9, 2011

Disasters an opportunity for casino advocates

The March 11 disasters may achieve what Las Vegas magnate Sheldon Adelson has been trying to do for years: persuade the government to allow casinos.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 7, 2011

Political earthquake in Osaka

Toru Hashimoto's huge victory in the Osaka mayoral election was undoubtedly a political earthquake. The question now is how sweeping and powerful will be the tsunami that follows. My worry is that Tokyo, and particularly the political and bureaucratic establishment, does not comprehend the tectonic forces...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Dec 6, 2011

Pair's engagement blossomed in China

Kazunobu Seto and his wife, Robin, met in his hometown of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, in 2004.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 4, 2011

Red Sox manager Valentine should be right at home in return to MLB

So, Bobby Valentine will be the new manager of the Boston Red Sox. Surprised? Not me. The now 61-year-old former skipper of the Texas Rangers, New York Mets and Chiba Lotte Marines said a few years ago while still working in Japan, "I plan to be in uniform until I'm 70 years old."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 4, 2011

Tenten Hosokawa: Drawing the blues away

In the last few decades, clinical depression in Japan has emerged from its longstanding obscurity shrouded in shame and guilt to becoming far more openly recognized as a national disease.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 3, 2011

A graceful hand to help elderly Japanese in Holland

In 1941, in the then Dutch East Indies, thousands of people were forced into internment camps by the invading Japanese army. It is a slice of history almost forgotten today, along with so many other wartime atrocities. It is something Chieko van Santen remembers every day, as the Japanese widow of a...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 30, 2011

Motor show opens with car firms facing triple whammy

The Tokyo Motor Show kicks off Saturday amid a variety of challenges facing the automobile industry, including intensifying global competition, the yen's historic surge and supply disruptions caused by natural disasters.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 27, 2011

Publishers' ties to distribution a barrier for e-books

On Nov. 13, publisher Takarajima took out newspaper advertisements for its magazine-like book "Denshi Shoseki no Shotai" ("The Real Shape of e-Books"), describing it as a polemic "against electronic books." It includes input from Naoki Award winning novelist Miyuki Miyabe, who explains why she isn't...
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2011

Noda seeks to appease party foes to TPP talks

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda held a meeting Thursday with lawmakers from his Democratic Party of Japan in an effort to ease their opposition to Japan taking part in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 25, 2011

Ochiai bows out after eight years in charge of Dragons

There was no secret that Hiromitsu Ochiai's days as the Chunichi Dragons manager were numbered. The team had, after all, announced in September it would not renew his contract after the season.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 23, 2011

Hawks overcame obstacles to win title

Mission accomplished.

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