Search - news

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 3, 2018

Little buzz in Japan over Canada's move to legalize marijuana

Japan's media coverage of Canada's Oct. 17 announcement that possession and use of marijuana would be legalized — subject to certain restrictions — has been mostly brief and low-key.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Nov 3, 2018

Fukuoka enlists artificial intelligence in fight against organized crime

Advances in artificial intelligence have come along in leaps and bounds in recent years, prompting police in Fukuoka and Kyoto to look into ways of using the technology to tackle organized crime.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2018

A zero-carbon economy is within reach

But it will not be achieved without strong public policies and forward-looking business strategies.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Nov 3, 2018

Saudi sisters likely committed suicide in New York's Hudson River, police say

Two young Saudi women whose bodies were found a week ago along the rocky Manhattan shore of the Hudson River, bound together with duct tape around their waist and ankles, likely committed suicide, New York police said Friday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 2, 2018

Dissident cartoonist Badiucao cancels Hong Kong show after China 'threats'

Hong Kong organizers of an exhibition by a dissident Chinese-Australian cartoonist, a persistent thorn in the side of leaders in Beijing, cancelled the event in the Chinese-ruled city on Friday given what they said were threats by China.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2018

Freed journalist Jumpei Yasuda expresses gratitude, apologizes over Syria ordeal

Journalist Jumpei Yasuda, who returned to Japan last month after being held by militants in Syria for more than three years, said Thursday that he did not hold any grudge toward the Japanese government over his ordeal.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2018

Japan's Cabinet approves bill to introduce new visa categories for foreign workers, to address shrinking workforce

The bill marks a departure from previous policy in allowing foreign individuals to work in blue collar industries for a potentially indefinite amount of time.
Reader Mail
Nov 2, 2018

A long way from full acceptance

Regarding the Oct. 8 article "Gaijin Day: How an event in Hamamatsu about unity proved to be divisive": I lived in Japan for more than 30 years and worked in a Japanese-owned company there as well as working in several universities. I finally left Japan because I found the "quiet" discrimination there...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 2, 2018

Japanese maker of train in deadly Taiwan crash finds design flaw

The Japanese manufacturer of a train that derailed in Taiwan, killing 18 people, said it has discovered a design flaw that failed to alert the central control system that an automatic safety feature had been turned off.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2018

Japanese towns that thrive on once-abundant squid suffer as numbers decline at alarming rate

Takashi Odajima picked up a cracked and faded photograph and dusted it off with his sleeve. He smiled a little sadly at the image from long ago, back when he was a baby boy.
WORLD / Society
Nov 2, 2018

Gay witch-hunt sparks fear and panic as Tanzania's LGBT+ community goes into hiding

Gay and transgender people in Tanzania have gone into hiding fearing for their lives after a senior government official called on the public to report suspected homosexuals so that they could be arrested from early next week.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 2, 2018

'Divisive Donald at his worst': Democrats, some Republicans blast Trump ad as racially charged

U.S. President Donald Trump faced scathing criticism on Thursday for an advertisement linking Democrats and immigrants to violent crime, as Democrats and some of his fellow Republicans blasting it as the most racially divisive political ad in three decades.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / Sound Off
Nov 1, 2018

SuperDeluxe provided a safe space for experimentation that Tokyo will miss

For the past 16 years, Tokyo's SuperDeluxe has been a place where it felt like almost anything could happen, and it quite often did. So when the venue announced a few weeks ago that it would be closing in January, after its building was earmarked for demolition, the news was akin to hearing that a close...
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 1, 2018

Austria to join U.S. in shunning global migration pact

Austria will follow the United States and Hungary in backing out of a United Nations migration pact over concerns it will blur the line between legal and illegal migration, the right-wing government said on Wednesday.
Japan Times
Rugby / ADDING THE EXTRAS
Nov 1, 2018

Young players make new friends at YCAC rugby clinic

While the All Blacks and Wallabies were doing their bit to woo Japanese rugby fans at last weekend's Bledisloe Cup match at Nissan Stadium, another group of Antipodean rugby players were in Japan doing an equally important job.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 1, 2018

Japan-U.S. Business Council meet reaffirms commitment to free bilateral and global trade

Business leaders from Japan and the U.S. gathered in Tokyo on Wednesday to reaffirm their commitment to free bilateral and global trade, in a rebuke of Trump administration's tariff policies that have taken effect over the past year.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 1, 2018

Doomed Lion Air jet's airspeed failure on earlier flight may point to pitot tube issues

The Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea off Indonesia earlier this week had experienced problems with the sensors used to calculate altitude and speed on its previous flight, an issue that could help explain why the plane dove into the water.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 1, 2018

Trump contends U.S. Constitution does not cover birthright citizenship, despite 14th Amendment

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to citizenship to everyone born in the country, an assertion that runs counter to the long-established legal interpretation of the document.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / ANALYSIS
Oct 31, 2018

South Korea's ruling on wartime compensation issues may have opened Pandora's box for Seoul-Tokyo ties

A Pandora's box in terms of diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Seoul may have just been opened with South Korea's top court upholding a lower court ruling Tuesday that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. should pay about ¥40 million in compensation to four Koreans forced to work in Japan during...
EDITORIALS
Oct 31, 2018

South Korea court ruling bad news for bilateral ties

The South Korean government, which has said it 'respects' the decision of the judiciary while hoping for a future-oriented development of its relations with Japan, should set its position straight and contain any disruptions to bilateral ties.
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2018

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki pledges further action to stop construction of Henoko base

Tamaki argued that the central government's decision can be legally challenged.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 31, 2018

Bank of Japan downgrades economic growth and inflation forecast as its 2% goal remains out of reach

Speaking at a news conference, BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda denied that the revisions represented a large shift in the bank's outlook.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 31, 2018

Boston Irish mob boss James 'Whitey' Bulger, inspiration for film 'The Departed,' killed in prison

James "Whitey" Bulger, who lived a double life as one of Boston's most notorious mobsters and as a secret FBI informant before going on the run for 16 years, was killed at a federal prison in West Virginia, sources said Tuesday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 31, 2018

U.S.-South Korea alliance strained as Trump keeps suspending 'war games'

The U.S. and South Korea have spent almost seven decades honing their preparedness for war. Now fears are growing among the alliance's proponents that extended peace talks are eroding that advantage.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2018

Japan's central government has already spent ¥172.5 billion on 2020 Games

The announcement is expected to further fuel concerns about games-related costs, as the new figure exceeds the u00a5150 billion that the central government has promised to shoulder.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight