Search - 2015

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 6, 2015

Amputee women in Japan proudly step forward

Japan isn't the easiest place to live for people with disabilities. Buildings and transportation aren't always accessible; people are apt to regard disabilities as shameful; and a societal tendency to turn away from anything unpleasant makes it difficult to effect change. Nevertheless change is possible,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 5, 2015

New threats, new costs as Japanese companies face up to new tactics from cyberattackers

A spate of high-profile cybercrimes and data leaks in recent months has left companies wondering if they will be next. They worry about the safety of their computer networks as hackers devise new ways to penetrate traditional defenses.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 30, 2015

Inflation slows more than forecast in December

Japan's inflation rate slowed more than forecast in December, adding to central bank chief Haruhiko Kuroda's challenges in reflating the world's third-biggest economy.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 27, 2015

An opportunity for East Asia in plunging oil prices

Plunging oil prices present a significant opportunity for most of the region's developing countries to strengthen the competitiveness of their economies and take advantage of the ongoing global recovery.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 27, 2015

Japan's hydrogen energy hype

The clean image of hydrogen-based energy and its economic viability for Japan are much exaggerated.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 26, 2015

Diet session opens with focus on security as hostage crisis continues

The Diet opens with expectations for the Abe administration to focus on security legislation in his quest to get the Japanese military more 'proactively' involved overseas.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 26, 2015

Tokyo's hydrogen mission starts now

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is setting up a ¥40 billion fund to promote the use of hydrogen energy and promote Japan's ecological technologies ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games.
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2015

NHK must maintain independence

NHK has announced a three-year budget plan that includes strengthening its overseas services. But has Japan's national broadcaster figured out yet whether it exists as a news organziation or as a propaganda arm of the government?
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 21, 2015

Abe targets Finance Ministry

Angered by its resistance to some of his policy measures, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears bent on curbing the power of the Finance Ministry.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 21, 2015

Toyota crowned world's biggest automaker for third year

Toyota Motor Corp. warded off Volkswagen AG to remain the world's top-selling automaker for a third consecutive year, driven by record U.S. deliveries of its SUVs, according to the 2014 tally announced by the company Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 21, 2015

Avignon chief sees culture and politics sharing the stage

"The Avignon Festival is not only about shows and theater, but also about thinking, searching and seeking to understand the world and its politics — and offering an opportunity for three weeks' intellectual life experience every year," Olivier Py, the event's artistic director, declared with passion...
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2015

Government earmarks funds to deal with caregiver shortage

A crisis in nursing care is brewing. The government estimates that the nation will be short of 300,000 professional caregivers by 2025, when postwar baby boomers will be 75 or older and many will need regular care.
Japan Times
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2015
Jan 21, 2015

Adaptation vital in changing world

Kiyoshi Kurokawa, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and former chairman of the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, says the world is currently experiencing the most dramatic shift since the Industrial Revolution in the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2015
Jan 21, 2015

Japanese architects making mark on Swiss design landscape

As part of the events commemorating 150 years of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan, an exhibition titled "JP-CH 2014: Building in Context" was held in Tokyo last October featuring five recent projects in Switzerland by four eminent Japanese architects.
Japan Times
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2015
Jan 21, 2015

Spreading culture through cuisine

"One of the easiest and most effective ways to understand a culture is through its food," said Yoshiko Nishihama, owner of Zurich's Nishi Shop, a store specializing in Japanese imports and an affiliated company of Japan Restaurant Bimi in Zurich. "That's why, as representatives of Japan, we take our...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jan 19, 2015

Japan to co-host Premier 12 baseball world tourney

Japan was the first-ever champion of the World Baseball Classic, lifting the championship trophy on foreign soil in 2006. If Samurai Japan repeats the feat at the inaugural Premier 12, the Japanese will get to do all their celebrating at home.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 18, 2015

Putin's focus on military buildup deepens Russia's budget problems

President Vladimir Putin's insistence on huge defense spending makes it hard to see how a government plan to make deep budget cuts will see Russia through a deepening economic crisis.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 16, 2015

Charlie Hebdo horror revives fears in Israel

The Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and the hostage scene in the kosher market — the image of frightened European Jews hiding in a freezer — were for many Israelis a haunting reminder of Jews hiding from Nazis.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 16, 2015

Nagoya museums on quest to track visitors' nationalities

The industrial tourism business in Nagoya will have a new mission in fiscal 2015. Museums and activity centers will begin tracking visitors' nationalities in order to target them better.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Jan 14, 2015

Budget was no easy feat amid ¥1.5 trillion tax revenue shortfall

The Abe administration faced a daunting task to make up for a revenue shortfall from a delay in the consumption tax hike, and amid a snowballing social security bill, analysts say.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 13, 2015

Lantis looks to woo a dedicated fan base with anisong tour

Fans breach the language barrier at overseas expos of Japanese pop culture as soon as the music starts. Legions of non-Japanese, most of whose knowledge of the language is limited to basic greetings and exclamations, burst into karaoke-style singalongs, mimicking dance moves and waving glow sticks. This...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
Jan 13, 2015

A treat so cute you'll want to eat it up

The new year is barely two weeks old, so there's still time to earn good vibes for 2015.
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2015

Administration readies record ¥96 trillion budget

The government will propose a record budget for the 2015 fiscal year of more than ¥96 trillion but cut borrowing for the third year in a row.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2015

Europe's unending crisis

The European economic crisis refuses to go gently into the night because of the danger that Greece and its creditors can't agree and because of meager economic growth in the eurozone.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2015

Xi a keen student of U.S. power

Xi Jinping is being called China's first U.S.-style president because of how he has cultivated a distinctly presidential approach abroad, overseen loans and trade deals with strategic partners and used the 'bully pulpit' at home to advocate a clear policy direction.
EDITORIALS
Jan 11, 2015

Private sector must do its part

On the campaign trail last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he saw signs of a 'virtuous economic cycle' emerging, in which improved corporate earnings would create more jobs, leading to higher wages and increased consumption. Can his policies make that happen?
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 10, 2015

Modern technology aids whale research

In my last column of 2014, "Twelve ways to spend 2015 with nature," I mentioned the possibility of taking a whale-watching trip to the Ogasawara Islands. Ignore the international media hype about the country's pelagic whaling industry — it's a dying custom; instead, focus on the fact that Japan has...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2015

Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox

Today's crisis in Islamic society dates from its loss of unity in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Foreigners will never achieve peace and unity for them.

Longform

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