Search - about-us

 
 
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 25, 2020

Now is the time for Japan to make a digital shift

The coronavirus pandemic has made it clear that Japan lags far behind other countries in putting new digital technologies to actual use.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 25, 2020

Finding strength and unity within our uncertain 'socially distant' future

Japan's long history of 'bending to adversity' prepares Tokyo for what comes next in terms of global and international implications.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 25, 2020

G20 finance chiefs and central bankers to develop COVID-19 action plan

Finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s 20 largest economies agreed Monday to develop an action plan to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which the IMF now expects to trigger a global recession, but disclosed no specifics.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 25, 2020

80% of Diamond Princess coronavirus patients had mild or no symptoms

The SDF report is believed to be one of the largest analyses of symptoms caused by the new virus to be compiled in Japan, according to the Defense Ministry.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2020

Osaka court rejects retrial over Wakayama curry poisoning murders

The Osaka High Court has rejected a retrial petition by an inmate who was sentenced to death for murdering four and sickening over 60 others in 1998, by poisoning curry served at a festival in Wakayama Prefecture.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2020

What pushed this Shiga assistant nurse to falsely confess to murder?

Why did Mika Nishiyama, a former assistant nurse who served 12 years in prison for murdering a male patient in 2003, falsely confess to killing him?
OLYMPICS
Mar 25, 2020

Japanese athletes react to Olympic postponement

Some of Japan’s top athletes have expressed mixed feelings following Tuesday’s announcement that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the International Olympic Committee had agreed to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics for “about a year” amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Mar 25, 2020

An old dog makes for a solid companion

Chibikoro arrived at ARK some 13 years ago when he was just a young pup. He’d been rescued from a place in Tokushima where dogs lived and bred at will with no real human contact. Sadly, this quiet, gentle dog is still at the shelter. Described as a “real sweetie,” Chibikoro is slow to engage with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 25, 2020

Lee Ufan: The same but different

Lee Ufan’s new paintings look very different depending on where you are standing. From a distance, when you can take in several of the large canvases at the same time, abstract shapes seem to emphatically announce themselves as existing; however, they are also pointedly ambiguous as to what they are....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 25, 2020

As COVID-19 cripples live music, hopeful promoters look ahead

This year’s edition of the Japan Nite event at the South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was going to be special. It would have marked the event’s 25th anniversary of showcasing Japanese artists to fans in Austin, Texas, with a North American tour to follow.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Mar 25, 2020

When a cartoon crocodile dies, give us time to mourn

While people on social media have largely been preoccupied with the pandemic, the most buzzed-about happening online in Japan involves a crocodile — don’t roll your eyes just yet — which, at some point, transformed into a commentary on the follies of capitalism and its drive for continuous growth....
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 25, 2020

New Zealand declares national emergency to tackle coronavirus

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday declared a state of national emergency as the country prepared to go into a complete lockdown at midnight to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
OLYMPICS
Mar 24, 2020

It's official: Tokyo Olympics delayed until 2021 due to coronavirus

In a stunning but foreshadowed move, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced late Tuesday night that Japan had reached an agreement with International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games to be postponed until next summer at the latest as the coronavirus pandemic...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 24, 2020

Don't squander the chance to shine as a COVID-19 outlier

Despite Japan's ability to keep COVID-19's spread in check, few countries have looked to the Abe administration as an example to follow.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2020

Public health and political dogma

Both national and international approaches have to be pursued with balance, vision and wisdom if the COVID-19 pandemic is to be comprehensively defeated.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2020

The ethics of shopping in a pandemic

We have to make choices about what to take, leave and ask others to get for us.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2020

China wants to rule the waves; here's how the U.S. can stop it

It will take the right kind of 355-ship U.S. Navy to blunt Beijing's goals in the South China Sea and beyond.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2020

Averting economic disaster is the easy part

It may be too late to avert a public health crisis, but policymakers can still implement the fiscal and monetary measures needed to prevent an economic catastrophe.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / NEWS IN NIHONGO
Mar 24, 2020

Entrance fee to Mount Fuji to become mandatory

An expert committee that advises the “Mount Fuji World Cultural Heritage Council” working group comprised of prefectures such as Yamanashi and Shizuoka, had confirmed a discussion as of (Feb.) 18th for an entrance fee for Mount Fuji.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / MORNING ENGLISH
Mar 24, 2020

Let's discuss the mask shortage

The reselling of face masks for profit will become a crime punishable by a one-year prison term or a u00a51 million ($9,800) fine — or both — as demand surged amid the growing coronavirus epidemic, the government said Tuesday.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 24, 2020

Grim guidelines prioritize health workers as hospitals swell

ICU beds and ventilators shouldn't be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Health-care workers should get priority. Patients with a better chance of recovery should get access to limited life-saving equipment, over those who are more sick.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Mar 24, 2020

Pointing out the family with 'ni ataru'

Mari-chan wa Nana no obasan ni ataru. (Mari is Nana’s aunt.)
JAPAN / FOCUS
Mar 24, 2020

Japan pushes male public servants to take longer paternity leave

The government will encourage its eligible male personnel to use child-rearing leave for at least a month in principle, starting in fiscal 2020.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 24, 2020

Spat between China diplomats signals internal split over how to handle Trump

An unusual public spat between two top Chinese diplomats points to an internal split in Beijing over how to handle rising tensions with a combative U.S. president.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 24, 2020

Can’t find tissues? Get some towels, it’s moving time

It’s a bad time to run out of toilet paper and tissues. March is a month of big life changes in Japan such as 入学 (nyūgaku, entering university), 入社 (nyūsha, entering a company) and 転勤 (tenkin, company transfers), and those will often require your moving to a new apartment. A 空っぽな...

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