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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 24, 2014

Temp workers threaten housing recovery

Momoko Suzuki quit her sales job in Tokyo and took a temporary position so she could pursue her film ambitions. Suzuki's employment change may force her to abandon another goal — owning a home.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Mar 23, 2014

Hiroshima International School and Think Global School students mix it up in Multiculturalism 101

With the weak economy resulting in fewer families coming to Japan, international schools here are exploring new ways to attract students.
EDITORIALS
Mar 22, 2014

Kyoto University's bold hiring move

The recent news that Kyoto University will publicly seek candidates for its next president from abroad, as well as from Japan, may come as a shock to some in academia.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Mar 21, 2014

Abe, Park to meet at Obama's urging

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet next week with his South Korean counterpart, Park Geun-hye, the first Tokyo-Seoul summit in two years.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2014

Nationalism not on the rise: Abe's brother

Nationalism is "absolutely not" on the rise and Japan remains committed to peace almost 70 years after its defeat in World War II, said Vice Foreign Minister Nobuo Kishi, the younger brother of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 21, 2014

Cracks in the ruling coalition

The exercise of Japan's right to collective self-defense has become Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's political creed, but ruling coalition partner New Komeito wants Abe to slow his approach, and others close to Abe have grown apprehensive about the rise of anti-American conservatism within Abe's Liberal Democratic Party. The ruling coalition is showing cracks.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 19, 2014

Ishigaki replaces Fukuhara for worlds

An unexpected phone call turned out to be surprising, but a pleasant one for Yuka Ishigaki when the 24-year-old table tennis player learned she would replace the injured Ai Fukuhara in the upcoming Japan Table 2014, the World Team Table Tennis Championships.
EDITORIALS
Mar 19, 2014

A sign from North Korea

Last week's meeting in Ulan Bator between the parents of 1977 Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota and Megumi's North Korean daughter could be a sign that Pyongyang wants to resolve the abduction issue and end its diplomatic isolation.
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2014

Yokota couple: Meeting a 'miracle'

The parents of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by North Korean agents in 1977, say their dramatic meeting in Mongolia last week with her 26-year-old daughter was 'like a miracle' and they were also very happy to see her 10-month-old baby, both for the first time.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 17, 2014

U.S. military report suggests cover-up over toxic pollution in Okinawa

Perhaps the most serious concern raised in the internal U.S. military report is the fear that PCB contamination at Kadena — if made public — would prompt demands for widespread tests on other U.S. bases.
BUSINESS / Economy / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Mar 15, 2014

Economy can do without structural reform

While critics of "Abenomics" begrudgingly agree Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy package has been a success so far, they are equally quick to highlight its looming headwinds.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Mar 14, 2014

Dahl still drawing on the joys and absurdities of expat life

For over 20 years, Roger Dahl has been making Japan Times readers laugh — and think — with his Opinion Page political cartoons and “Zero Gravity” comic strip, which pokes gentle fun at the foreign experience in this country.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 14, 2014

Culture of safety can make or break nuclear power plants

On the third anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and its devastating impact on Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima nuclear power plants, we need to understand why Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s Onagawa Nuclear Power Station — which was even closer to the quake epicenter — had a drastically different fate.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Mar 12, 2014

J. League and media must show red card to racism

On Saturday, during their J. League match against Sagan Tosu at Saitama Stadium, some Urawa Reds fans hung a 'Japanese only' banner over an entrance to the stands.
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2014

Abe pitches trilateral meet to kick-start chilly ties with Seoul

The government is trying to arrange a trilateral summit with South Korea and the United States for this month in a bid to thaw Tokyo's frozen relations with Seoul, an official said Wednesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2014

Reactors still feared despite new rules

The cost of restarting Japan's nuclear power plants: ¥1.3 trillion and counting.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 10, 2014

There is a giant serving of culture in one bowl of rice

Rice. A bland, white carbohydrate? Staple food that forms the nourishing core of every meal? A crop that has molded culture and society? Or primal sustenance imbued with mystic life force of the gods?
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Mar 10, 2014

Mathieson ready for action after refreshing offseason

If there was one thing Scott Mathieson enjoyed about the offseason, it was the family time.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 9, 2014

Thai crisis puts Japanese companies on notice

With Japanese investors already nervous about the domestic recession, the global economic recovery and competition with China, Thailand's political crisis threatens to spur a dangerous outflow of Japanese capital.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 8, 2014

Media complicit in normalizing xenophobia

Since Japanese reporters are averse to characterizing domestic right-wing positions as being extreme, those positions come across as being normal, even sensible.
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2014

Don't reopen old wounds

If the Abe administration tries to weaken or scrap the 1993 'Kono statement,' the perception is likely to strengthen in the international community that it is bent on whitewashing Japan's wartime behavior and, even today, lacks respect for the honor and dignity of women.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 7, 2014

Job market set to overheat with labor shortage

Kazufumi Yamamoto is having such a hard time finding waiters and sushi chefs to fill jobs at Ganko Food Service Co. that he's going to boost wages for the first time in more than a decade.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2014

Indonesia's economy growing steadily

Indonesian politicians and business experts, along with their Japanese counterparts, discussed investment opportunities in Southeast Asia's most populous country at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 6, 2014

All-genre focus is the key to Art Fair Tokyo's success

It is difficult to criticize Art Fair Tokyo, the commercial art fair that celebrates its ninth edition at Tokyo International Forum in Yurakucho this weekend. Truth be told, it's a wonder that the event has reached nine editions at all, what with the inherent fickleness of the art market and Japan's...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 6, 2014

Osaka challenges Tokyo with tallest skyscraper

Japan's tallest building will open Friday in Osaka, as Asia's third-biggest metropolitan economy aims to lure tourists and stem businesses from moving to Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Mar 5, 2014

Much more than mere vandalism

Although most of more than 300 copies of 'Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl' and other Holocaust-related publications recently discovered vandalized in Tokyo and Yokohama libraries have been replaced, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department should leave no stone unturned in its effort to find those responsible for the acts.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’