Search - international-reports

 
 
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 21, 2013

Saving Japan: promoting women's role in the workforce would help

Christine Lagarde, director of the International Monetary Fund, believes women can save Japan. Some would argue they already are, taking on as they do all sorts of responsibilities ranging from mother, wife and caregiver for elderly relatives to employee, volunteer and household finance minister.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Apr 19, 2013

U.S. immigration proposal 'onerous'

Amid the initial elation from immigration advocates over a new proposal to overhaul U.S. border control laws was a sense of unease over the 844-page bill's core provision: a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally.
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2013

Ome marathoners offer support to fellow runners bombed in Boston

Organizers of Tokyo's Ome Marathon expressed their condolences to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, stressing they intend to work "hand in hand" with the race's host to help overcome the tragedy.
JAPAN / Media
Apr 14, 2013

Vice magazine hits TV with journo-tourism for hipsters

Vice is a brash Brooklyn-based magazine and international media company, but mostly it's a brand of thinking and marketing that has extended itself over the past decade to a popular website and YouTube channel. With bureaus around the world, Vice makes as much news as it reports: A recent foray involved...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2013

Lessons from the Iraq War are there for the heeding

Do Obama policymakers really know the economic consequences of beginning military operations in Iran or supplying weapons to Syria's opposition
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2013

Abe wants TOEFL to be key exam

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not satisfied with revising monetary policy — he also appears bent on reviving another failing field: the public's ability to speak English.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 24, 2013

Gruesome death stalks the front lines of conservation

It is one of the most poignant photos I've taken during this CITES. We are in Khao Yai (literally, "Big Mountain"), Thailand's first and grandest national park. Peaks and plunges. Huge trees. Waterfalls. And there are elephants and even a few tigers out there. Also rangers and poachers and a largely...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2013

Chinese rights genie at work

While criticism of China's human rights record clearly has merit, it is important not to lose sight of the genuine democratic change happening there.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2013

China using Senkakus dispute to test Japan, U.S.

Beijing faces an awkward propaganda problem in the South China Sea, as its sovereignty claims are not against an original imperial or colonial power.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 3, 2013

Trying to get things done in the wake of 3/11

Two years have passed since the magnitude-9 Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, the devastating tsunami it triggered and the disgraceful and deadly fiasco at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that followed.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

An uphill battle to reduce U.S. nuclear arsenal

President Barack Obama will have a harder time getting some Senate Republicans to agree to new reductions in nuclear arsenals than he will Moscow.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 10, 2013

Murakami ideal man for new U.N. goodwill ambassador role

Kudos to Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese player in the major leagues, on his recent appointment as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. "Mashi" is highly qualified to take the leadership role in supporting charities and, having been acquainted with him for...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 10, 2013

Future leaders stress 'politics of the daily'

In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar's current president, Thein Sein, will both turn 70, so a great deal depends on future leaders. On a recent visit I caught up with two promising aspirants who focus on the "politics of the daily."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013

The movie exposing the lies at the heart of U.S. capitalism

In one sense, "Inequality for All" is absolutely the film of the moment. We are living through tumultuous times. The economy has tanked. Austerity has cut a swath through our lives.
WORLD
Feb 1, 2013

Iran to install hundreds of new centrifuges

Iran has told U.N. nuclear officials that it plans to add potentially hundreds of next-generation centrifuge machines to its main uranium enrichment plant, a move that could dramatically boost its ability to produce the fuel used in nuclear power plants and — potentially — nuclear bombs.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 26, 2013

Paying a record tuna price is simply good advertising

“Even considering that Ooma tuna is a prestige brand, its tuna might normally sell for about u00a54,000 to u00a55,000 per kilogram,” a seafood trader tells Nikkan Gendai (Jan. 8).
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 21, 2013

Lethal threat to bats spreads south in U.S.

In the dead of winter, bats should be in a deep sleep. But at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, they are out and about, flying erratically in many cases, acting crazy. Out of nowhere, they have launched their mouse-size bodies at unsuspecting visitors, forcing people to shoo them off with fishing...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 21, 2013

U.S. set to close another source of cash for Iran

Ever since European seaports closed their gates to Iranian oil tankers last summer, Iran has looked to the East to keep its economy afloat. Countries such as China, India and South Korea — some of them critics of Western sanctions — have offered Iran a lifeline of reliable markets and much-needed...
LIFE
Jan 14, 2013

Tour guide exams another example of national licensing frenzy

Colin P.A. Jones wondered if he was alone in laughing out loud at a question about impaired thinking in the national nursing exam ("Stop thinking — the exam is about to start," Zeit Gist, Dec. 18).
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2013

Foreign nurse success story has message for Japan: Open up

The success story of Dewi Rachmawati may hold the key to coping with Japan's declining population and quickly aging society. The struggles the Indonesian nurse has endured during her four years living in the country are what the government must rapidly remedy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 22, 2012

Santa-san is coming to town — it's going to be different this year

Christmas is going to be different this year. Oh, you haven't heard? Read on.
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2012

Avoiding disaster in Doha

Our planet continues to warm. A recent series of reports anticipates a 4-degree (Celsius) rise in global temperatures by 2100 — twice the target that nations adopted in 2010 as the maximum allowable range for avoiding dangerous changes that will include the loss of coastal communities, the spread of...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2012

Stop foot-dragging on China's threat: Maher

With the Liberal Democratic Party widely predicted to come out on top in Sunday's election, Kevin Maher, a former senior U.S. State Department official, said an LDP-led government must act quickly to demonstrate Japan's readiness to effectively respond to the threat posed by an increasingly bellicose...
Dec 1, 2012

Hamas out to undermine Israel with media blitz

What makes better headlines? Is it numbing figures such as the 8,000 Palestinian rockets fired at Israel since it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the 42.5 percent of Israeli children living near the Gaza border who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder? Or is it high-resolution images...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 20, 2012

Ishiharas — family ties with a twist

The Ishiharas trail the Hatoyamas 2-0 in prime ministers. But when it comes to the variety, prominence and celebrity of each individual member, not many families in Japan today can compete with the Ishihara bunch.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?