Search - 2014

 
 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 17, 2015

Japan's accounting problem

Japan's 'lost decades' were not quite as disastrous as commonly assumed.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 16, 2015

Beware the $300 billion shift into Treasuries coming from Japan

Back in the 1980s, the billions of dollars that the Japanese plowed into U.S. government debt reflected the Asian nation's burgeoning economic might.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Mar 14, 2015

Japan still building for Premier 12, WBC

Atsunori Inaba knows a thing or two about the highs and lows of international competition.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2015

Sweden, Germany stand up to Saudi Arabia

Americans often criticize Europe for its lack of principle on foreign policy, but Sweden and German, at least, show that they stand up for their values with regard to military cooperation and arms exports — even to their countries' economic detriment.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2015

Ships beached for scrap as returns reach record low

Scrap yards are preparing for record numbers of freighters as shipping rates tumble to all-time lows.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 12, 2015

Asian airlines are running out of trained pilots

Asia's aviation market is booming, but the supply of pilots isn't keeping pace with the demand for flights. It's time that aviation companies in the West lend Asian airlines and governments a hand.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2015

Sendai conference aims to muster 'political weight' to reduce disaster risks

An upcoming United Nations conference in Sendai aims to raise awareness and galvanize political will to reduce risks posed by natural disasters, a visiting high-ranking official with the world body said Wednesday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 9, 2015

Why Beijing is giving Hong Kong less respect

The crux of Beijing's declining respect for Hong Kong is Britain's apparent efforts to enhance its economic relationship with China amid U.S. hegemonic decline.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Mar 7, 2015

Battle scars: Okinawa and the Vietnam War

On March 8, 1965, the first U.S. combat troops landed in Da Nang, South Vietnam. Their arrival significantly escalated American intervention in the war which, by its end a decade later, left more than 1 million dead and countless others suffering from the legacy of post-traumatic stress disorder, unexploded...
Japan Times
JAPAN / FOCUS
Mar 7, 2015

Chasing Chinese planes 400 times a year stretches Japan's top guns

Fighter pilot Jun Fukuda sits edgily on the couch in his flight suit, waiting for the call that sends him sprinting to his jet. On any given day, he will chase and warn off Chinese military planes nearing Japanese airspace.
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2015

A brutal murder in Moscow

The assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov last week shows that Nemtsov himself might have overestimated the state of affairs when he said in an interview the day before his death that Russia's opposition was at the absolute low point.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2015

Arts book publisher Bijutsu Shuppan-sha files for court protection

Bijutsu Shuppan-sha Co., a publisher of art books and magazines, including the widely acclaimed Bijutsu Techo magazine, has filed for court protection from creditors after being in business for more than a century.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Mar 4, 2015

Stance on 'comfort women' undermines fight to end wartime sexual violence

The prime minister's declarations on preventing sexual violence in wartime fly in the face of his government's refusal to recognize Japan's responsibilities toward the 'comfort women.'
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 4, 2015

Workers getting smaller share of corporate earnings despite record profits

Millions of workers are taking home their smallest share of corporate income in two decades as companies build record cash hoards and fail to give the substantial wage raises that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sees as critical to a durable economic recovery.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2015

Marubeni faces ship shortage, grid issues in offshore wind push

Marubeni Corp. is planning to develop more than five times the offshore wind power capacity currently installed in Japan as it moves aggressively into a poorly developed area of the country's renewable energy market.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Mar 1, 2015

Educator brings fresh learning opportunities to Tohoku youths

For Kumi Imamura, 35, an award-winning educator, setting up a place of learning for children in the disaster-hit Tohoku region was the natural next step in her career.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 28, 2015

China inadvertently promotes Islamic extremism

March 1, 2014, was China's 9/11. That was the day Islamic Uighur terrorists slashed their way into the collective consciousness of the country's ethnic Han majority.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies / ANALYSIS
Feb 25, 2015

Hitachi trains push into Europe to challenge Siemens, Alstom

Hitachi Ltd.'s agreement to buy the rail signaling business of Italy's Finmeccanica SpA in its largest overseas purchase ever will boost the company's European manufacturing base, increasing competition for the train units of Siemens AG and Alstom SA.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Feb 23, 2015

'Abenomics' divides Japan's stocks as small shares left behind

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to revive the nation's economy is leaving small companies behind.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2015

A fast-track to future losses

By calling on Congress to grant him fast-track trade authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, President Barack Obama appears to want to expand on a flawed trade model and extend it to other countries.
Japan Times
JAPAN / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Feb 22, 2015

Kyoto's tourism boom spells war for luxury hotel chains

Kyoto's recent record-setting tourism boom has sparked a mini-"hotel war," with some of the world's best-known luxury inn chains opening branches in the ancient capital, as its international popularity as a travel destination spreads even further.
OLYMPICS / OLYMPIC NOTEBOOK
Feb 21, 2015

Tokyo Dome a worthy option for basketball

One of the key selling points of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic bid was its compact plan, which called for 85 percent of the venues to be within 8 km of the Olympic Village.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 19, 2015

Fierce crackdown on dissent no laughing matter in Egypt

When President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said people should not moan about Egypt because it was not like war-ravaged Iraq or Syria, his remark gave birth to a joke: New Egyptian passports should read "The Country not like Iraq or Syria."
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Feb 18, 2015

Japanese basketball hurt by Robots debacle

The NBL, one of the two top men's basketball leagues in Japan, has endured a chaotic 2014-15 campaign, and the disarray reached its nadir with the management change of the Tsukuba Robots.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami