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Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 7, 2008

Survival now arcades' most pressing game

Once viewed as dens of delinquency, game center arcades are diversifying their entertainment fare, and in the process, attracting not only youths but families, high school girls, couples and video game fans.
BUSINESS
Oct 7, 2008

Mitsui Mining downgrades forecasts

Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., co-owner of Japan's biggest copper smelter, forecast a second year of profit declines on falling metal prices and higher energy costs.
BUSINESS
Oct 7, 2008

Mongolia talks slated to secure uranium as competition soars

Japan, the world's third-biggest uranium consumer, will hold talks this week with Mongolia on jointly developing ore reserves as part of efforts to secure additional supplies of the nuclear fuel.
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2008

Counterproductive antiterrorism

Buried deep in the U.S. Pentagon somewhere is an official in charge of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As he goes about his daily chores — organizing the floor shackles, bully guards, illegal confinements, arbitrary trials and occasional torture sessions — he no doubt thinks he is...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2008

Tinge of green as China becomes top polluter

SINGAPORE — The latest tally of greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for warming the world shows that China has emerged as the top polluter, ahead of the United States, by an increasingly big margin.
EDITORIALS
Oct 6, 2008

Japan's foreign workers

Japanese companies are not as Japanese as they once were. Japanese banks are taking over the assets of failed Wall Street investments firms, of course, but in addition to those economic assets, Japanese companies have been obtaining another asset — foreign workers. Statistics released two months ago...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2008

After the Dear Leader has passed

SEOUL — Korea is a unique country. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and is now remembered only as history to most people around the world. The Korean Peninsula, however, remains divided along ideological lines, and the two Koreas coexist as living remnants of the Cold War....
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2008

Farewell to Thabo Mbeki

It was widely believed of South Africa's outgoing president, Thabo Mbeki, that the only time when he wasn't plotting was when he was asleep. More than his bizarre views on AIDS or even his failure to do much for South Africa's poor, it was that reputation as an inveterate plotter that finally brought...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 6, 2008

Japan has nothing to fear but fearlessness

The accepted wisdom seems to be that Japan is being less affected than most by the ongoing banking crisis. I wouldn't bank on it.
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2008

More stimulus possible: Nakagawa

Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Sunday the government may form additional economic packages in addition to the stimulus plan now in the Diet.
EDITORIALS
Oct 5, 2008

Health concerns of the elderly

Government leaders appear to be flip-flopping on their views of the unpopular health insurance system for people aged 75 or over. People have difficulty discerning leaders' true intentions. Unless clear explanations follow soon, the views may be taken as a ruse to soothe voters ahead of a Lower House...
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2008

Election won't remake Mideast

LONDON — U.S. President George W. Bush sounded much less uncertain of his peace "vision" when he received the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas in Washington on Sept. 25.
EDITORIALS
Oct 5, 2008

U.S. bailout is a start

The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a revised bill to rescue ailing financial institutions following the Senate's approval Thursday. (The House had defeated the original bill Monday.) U.S. President George W. Bush quickly signed the bill into law. It allows the U.S. government to spend...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2008

EU financially vulnerable when confidence collapses

VIENNA — The most notable innovations of the past two decades have been financial. Like technological innovation, financial innovation is concerned with the perpetual search for greater efficiency — in this case, reducing the cost of transferring funds from savers to investors. Cost reductions that...
Reader Mail
Oct 5, 2008

Palin's premises discomfiting

In response to Barbara Smith's Sept. 18 letter, "New face of American feminism" -- about U.S. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- I would like to say that regardless of what "caused the Big Bang," teaching schoolchildren about "God" would be disastrous, because, from the tone of Smith's...
Reader Mail
Oct 5, 2008

Aso must do more than bark

The Oct. 1 editorial "Mr. Aso throws down the gauntlet" makes Taro Aso -- following his first policy speech before the Diet -- look like no more than the president of the Liberal Democratic Party preparing for an upcoming election battle, rather than the new prime minister of Japan outlining his vision...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years