Tag - national-2

 
 

NATIONAL 2

Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 11, 2011
Local governments crack down on health insurance scofflaws
As the tax base gets poorer fewer people pay their national health insurance premiums, and local governments are doing something about it.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011
Japan in a European club?
Hitherto unknown and self-styled "loach" Yoshihiko Noda must learn to swim in an ocean of problems as Japan's new prime minister of the year. He has more than a plateful of domestic issues, but he should also realize, as his predecessors forgot, that Japan needs to re-engage the world if it is to find a way out of its depressing economic and political predicaments.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2011
Debt deal reveals empty toolbox
When President Barack Obama signed into law the bill increasing the debt ceiling to $16.7 trillion, Americans might have breathed a sigh of relief that the danger of default is over — for now (and probably until spring 2013).
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jun 29, 2011
The hidden economics of diabetes
Japanese doctors can make a lot of money from the diabetes epidemic.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 21, 2011
Future of Japanese pension system as cloudy as ever
Rather than overhaul the pension system, the welfare ministry continues to tweak a failed system.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 15, 2011
More independent women taking out insurance
The number of women buying life insurance is on the rise. Should we be surprised?
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 5, 2010
Price of mercy can be dear when it comes to transplants
Government policies regarding health insurance coverage of organ transplants aren't exactly making the procedure any easier.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 29, 2010
What's the real cost of quitting?
Smokers who kick the habit are healthy for the economy ... or are they?
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 10, 2010
Standing up for the right to sit down in public
A quick story about me, public seating and Japan: It's 1994. I've been in Tokyo less than a week and this is my first time in Shinjuku. Lunchtime comes and my student thriftiness and Australian love of the outdoors beget a plan: I'll grab something at a department-store food counter and eat it on a seat or a bench somewhere. The first part goes off without a hitch. The second ends in disaster. For half an hour I wander about looking for somewhere to sit, eventually settling for a bench in a bus stop in the very middle of the west Shinjuku bus terminal. Each time a bus comes, commuters shuffle past, glancing piteously in my direction. Red-faced and with a mouthful of tonkatsu sandwich, I wave them ahead. Better to pretend I'm just waiting for a different bus, I think, rather than explain I'm just there for the seat.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 24, 2010
No need to feel sorry for the Incubator babies
Will the fail of the Incubator Bank have a chilling effect on 'high risk-high return' investments? Care to make a wager?
EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2010
Adapting to the Digital Age
The pervasive influence of digital media was highlighted on June 7 by the announcement of recommendations for changes in the authorized list of kanji for everyday use. A government advisory panel has proposed adding 196 kanji and removing five for a total of 2,136 characters.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Mar 27, 2010
Before Obamacare: Japan's national healthcare system saves some for private insurers
Even though Japan enjoys the benefits of national health care, private insurers are doing a booming business.
Reader Mail
Nov 15, 2009
Christian principles abandoned
Democratic Party of Japan secretary general Ichiro Ozawa's comments about Christianity are based on a common impression of those who neither know nor understand the essence of Christianity. The West is "stuck in a dead end" precisely because it does not live according to the Christian principles upon which it was founded. Look at Europe now, progressive but caving in to moral decadence. I admire the Japanese people for the human virtues they live so well. If these virtues were based on a solid and authentic spiritual foundation like Christianity, I believe Japan would be a far more powerful nation. ramon antonio
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 6, 2009
Finance lessons still not learned one year on
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Next month marks the one year anniversary of the collapse of the venerable American investment bank, Lehman Brothers. The fall of Lehman marked the onset of a global recession and financial crisis the likes of which the world has not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. After one year, trillions of dollars in public money, and much soul-searching in the world's policy community, have we learned the right lessons? I fear not.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 14, 2009
Scholars worldwide react to planned National Center for Media Arts
Proponents of the National Center for Media Arts argue that it will help foreign researchers examining Japan's popular culture. The Japan Times asked prominent scholars from overseas their thoughts on the proposed facility.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2008
Toning down the convenience
In an attempt to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some local governments are planning to ask convenience stores to rethink their round-the-clock operations. If fully implemented, fewer business hours would have a great impact on people's lifestyles. As a first step, though, it would be necessary to consider various factors in nationwide public discussions on convenience stores.
Japan Times
Features
Jul 13, 2008
Top creators call for museums to save nation's modern heritage
What do industrial design, architecture, manga, anime, video games and traditional craft techniques have in common? Well, apart from each having spawned some of Japan's most popular cultural exports, the similarity is this: Japan has no national museums dedicated to their preservation, display and study.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 1, 2008
Arata Isozaki: Astonishing by design
If the entire Japanese architectural fraternity was one big royal family, then Arata Isozaki would be a king approaching the end of a long and glorious reign.
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2008
Deafness to survivors' stories
Regarding Misao Nakayama's Dec. 29 letter, "Korean workers not used as slaves": What term would Nakayama prefer to use than "slave" to avoid having the truth told once again? How many Koreans have told Nakayama that they were "happy" to work for the Japanese government (during World War II)?
COMMENTARY
Aug 29, 2007
Don't toy around with Sino-U.S. relations
LOS ANGELES — An effective foreign policy requires proportionate thinking. Hysteria and demagoguery can win a few elections, but they can lose wars and economic battles of enormous consequence. In the United States, foreign policy is particularly complex: Even if the president and the executive branch get things right, the effort will be eviscerated if overly ambitious politicians in the legislative branch make a brutal hash of coherent policy.

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree