Search - category

 
 
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 2, 2014

Post-school life can bring visa complications

After The Japan Times published a Lifelines column on Dec. 15 that focused on visa issues, we received a lot of mail from readers asking about their particular individual situations. We would like to stress that it is always best to have a professional look at personal cases.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 1, 2014

Extinction threatens quarter of sharks, rays

A quarter of the world's sharks and rays are probably threatened with extinction, according to the most extensive assessment of the marine species.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2014

What exactly are these Obama 'executive orders'?

In the aftermath of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, there is a lot of confusion about the phrase 'executive actions.' These are an optional tool the president can use to get something done.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 30, 2014

Are Britain's plans for its patients' private data totally healthy?

A few days ago, I dropped into my doctor's surgery to pick up a prescription and was confronted by one of those large floor-mounted pop-up displays that one finds at exhibitions, trade fairs and circuses. It informed me of an exciting new scheme by which the "quality of care and health services" would...
LIFE / Digital
Jan 23, 2014

Kid-friendly app cat gets its claws into your iWallet

It's 4.30 on a gloomy winter's afternoon. I'm sitting with my grandson having one of those conversations in which grandsons explain complicated stuff to their grandads. He is 4 years old, omniscient in the way that 4-year-olds are, and tolerant of my ignorance of important matters.
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2014

Japan heading for darker days

It's still baffling why the Abe administration was in such a hurry to have the state secrets bill passed when various opinion surveys showed that the bill was opposed by about 80 percnet of respondens on the very day the Upper House voted on it.
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2014

A Dutch cure for the Dutch disease

When a country like the Netherlands, which built one of the world's most expansive welfare states in the 1960s and '70s, reverses course to reduce welfare dependency and to restore work incentives, it is worth noting.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 16, 2014

Study dispels 'obesity paradox' idea for diabetics

The "obesity paradox" — the controversial notion that being overweight might actually be healthier for some people with diabetes — seems to be a myth, researchers report. A major study finds there is no survival advantage to being large, and a disadvantage to being very large.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 15, 2014

Honda retools tiny Fit to retake GM, Ford in U.S.

Honda Motor Co., trailing General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. in U.S. subcompact car sales, will try to boost deliveries with a new Fit hatchback that will be made in North America for the first time.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jan 15, 2014

Kusaka's All-Star selection a disservice to more deserving

Being picked as an All-Star starter should be reserved for players having All-Star-caliber seasons.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2014

Fukada's young castaways on adulthood's shores

Born in Tokyo in 1980, Koji Fukada released his first film in 2004, but his breakthrough was 2010's "Kantai (Hospitalité)," a witty black comedy about a mysterious stranger who talks his way into a job at a small Tokyo printing shop and is soon insinuating himself into the lives of the shop's proprietor...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jan 4, 2014

Kagoshima volcano erupts, warplanes fly over Tokyo, exhibit shows Okamoto's bold side, Emperor dies

A terrible eruption on Sakurajima, an island in Kagoshima Bay having an active volcano, occurred yesterday at 10 a.m. Up to that time, since the night of the 10th, more than 70 earthquakes had been experienced in Kagoshima. With thundering sounds, the eruption was visible from all sides of Kagoshima.
COMMENTARY
Dec 30, 2013

Stagnation sustained by 'wrong type of debt'

The global economic recovery has been anemic because excessive private-debt creation before the crisis and subsequent attempts at deleveraging have weakened demand considerably.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2013

Surprising elements of a Chinese city's success

Few people outside of China know Foshan, a city of 7 million located at the heart of the Pearl River Delta in southern China.
LIFE / Digital
Dec 24, 2013

Even our Facebook 'grunts' could be monetized

As Mark Twain observed: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." And that was a long time before the Web. Which brings us to a meme that was propagating last week though social media. Its essence was an assertion that Facebook monitored — and stored — not...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 18, 2013

Miura's sex 'Whirlpool' wows a bashful Paris

Looking around before "Ai no Uzu" began, there was an almost palpable anticipation ahead of our plunge into the realm of young Japanese people's sex lives. What to talk about while waiting for the orgy to begin?
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Dec 16, 2013

Kobe beef

Dear Alice,
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 5, 2013

Amnesty says North Korea's gulag network expanding

Seoul AFP-JIJI
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2013

Nation's kids top fields in PISA test

For the first time ever, Japanese 15-year-olds have topped the list in reading and science performance in an international academic survey covering 34 developed countries.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NOTES ON A SCORECARD
Dec 3, 2013

Delay in agreement on new posting system just latest black eye for NPB

Pretty sad to see the negotiations over the new posting system between NPB and MLB continue to drag on. It's already December now and MLB teams are trying to set their rotations for next season.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 3, 2013

A vital role for Caroline Kennedy

Given the nexus of issues that tie vital U.S. interests to Japan's reform process, Caroline Kennedy, the new U.S. ambassador to Japan, could well prove to be a crucial link between the countries.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past