Search - international-reports

 
 
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Apr 3, 2012

'Silver democracy' could undermine Tohoku's reconstruction

Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda,
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Apr 3, 2012

Keene should engage brain before fueling 'flyjin,' foreign crime myths

Congratulations to Donald Keene, who was granted Japanese citizenship last month with great media fanfare. At 89 years young and after a lifetime contributing to world scholarship on Japan, he truly deserves it.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2012

Nuclear safety studies torpedoed

Of all the shocking revelations over the past year about nuclear power plants in Japan, the recent revelation that the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency canceled safety studies in 2006 is one of the most exasperating. The agency responsible for nuclear safety should have expanded the studies,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2012

Nation marks first anniversary of disasters

Japan on Sunday marked a year since the massive earthquake and tsunami rocked Tohoku and its Pacific coastline on March 11, 2011, leaving nearly 20,000 people confirmed dead or missing.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 11, 2012

The power of bad news

Weekly Playboy magazine discerns among young people a rising interest in Buddhism. This is surprising, given Japan's well-known "religion allergy" — or not, given that troubled times often inspire spiritual quests.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2012

Revenge of the Japanese mandarins

Ever since the huge earthquake that hit Japan's Tohoku-Pacific coast on March 11, 2011, the country's mass media have obsessively focused on the magnitude of the physical damage and the loss of life. Repeated broadcasts of traumatic video images of the great tsunami and the damaged reactors at the Fukushima...
COMMENTARY
Mar 6, 2012

Hamas' perilous maneuvers

Despite all of Hamas' assurances to the contrary, a defining struggle is taking place within the Palestinian Islamic movement. The outcome of this struggle — which is still confined to polite political disagreements and occasional intellectual tussle — is likely to change Hamas' outlook, if not fundamentally...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2012

Transcripts sketch out NRC's 3/11 confusion

Transcripts of phone conversations immediately after the March disasters, released Tuesday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reveal the early sense of urgency and confusion about the crisis unfolding at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2012

A 'stewpid' time to raise VAT

The International Monetary Fund has joined Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and leading politicians and bureaucrats in laying down a remorseless softening up barrage of facts, figures, argument and just plain determination that the country's consumption tax should rise as quickly as possible.
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2012

Joining the Hague convention

The Legislative Council of the Justice Ministry earlier this month submitted an outline of domestic bills related to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction to Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa. The government plans to submit a bill to approve Japan's joining the convention...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 19, 2012

Retooling Hawks need newcomers to contribute

You might think Fukuoka Softbank Hawks manager Koji Akiyama is worried about the coming season and successfully defending his 2011 Japan Series championship. After all, he's lost three of his best pitchers and his All-Star shortstop from 2011.
COMMENTARY
Feb 7, 2012

Capital pain: pay, bonuses

The recent international jamboree at Davos provided ample opportunity for the "great and the good," as well as the not so great and not so good, to enjoy gourmet meals and doubtless lashings of champagne ultimately at the expense of tax-payers. The participants also had time to exchange views on current...
COMMENTARY
Jan 30, 2012

Economic crisis exacting tolls on public health

The deteriorating global economic outlook is increasing worries among health experts on the effects that the economic crises will have on people's health.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 30, 2012

Aggression born of American 'exceptionalism'

I thought American exceptionalism was debunked and dying. I was wrong.
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2012

Europe's potion is now its poison with China inheriting the benefits

Today's lecture is on the sorry state of that dismal science called economics.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 22, 2012

Changing self and systems for a leaner and greener Japan

Year in, year out, it never ceases to amaze me what a difference a day makes.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2012

Takeda to pare workforce 9% to revive profit

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. plans to eliminate about 9 percent of its workforce over the next four years to integrate Nycomed, the Swiss company it's counting on to reverse declining profits.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 15, 2012

Call of the powder: sublime snow in Japan

There is nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of hurtling down a steep, untracked slope of knee-deep powder. It is an uncomplicated pleasure, pure and exhilarating; carving turns into the untouched snow and sending up white plumes in your wake.
BUSINESS
Jan 11, 2012

Intervention fails as yen is poised to strengthen

There was no better currency than the yen last year and strategists forecast more gains this year, even as Japan promises to intervene again in foreign exchange markets and expands the world's biggest debt burden.
COMMENTARY
Jan 5, 2012

Why Obama will (won't) win re-election in 2012

Could 2012 turn conventional wisdom on its head? Here's the conventional wisdom: U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election is vulnerable to the weak economy and high joblessness. Here's what might happen: The economy gradually improves, and although unemployment stays high (exceeding 8 percent), what...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2011

Rebuilding the ruins of post-Gadhafi Libya

With the creation of a new government, Libya's leaders should finally be able to focus on organizing the transition from the authoritarian state that they inherited to the more pluralistic one they envisage. But are they really able and willing to achieve that goal?
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 25, 2011

Time for Japan to realize it really is the canary in the mine

This Christmas Day column is a book review, but it is also a wish and a prayer.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2011

'Prepare for the unexpected': Noda

Immediately after the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was announced, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Monday told his administration to "take all possible measures to prepare for the unexpected."
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 18, 2011

Lone holdout's first nuclear winter looms in Tohoku

As bitter winds blow around cesium and other radioactive particles spewed from the nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's reactors, Naoto Matsumura lights a cigarette, which he considers relatively good for his health.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 17, 2011

Redknapp wants two refs per match

It has been another bad week for referees. Chris Foy (Stoke vs. Tottenham) and Mark Clattenburg (Chelsea vs. Manchester City) became the latest to be blamed for the defeats of Spurs and City by, unsurprisingly, the losing managers.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Dec 13, 2011

One-fifth of kids deprived of contact with one parent

Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Minister of Justice Hideo Hiraoka, Minister for Foreign Affairs Koichiro Gemba, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare Yoko Komiyama, and the government of Japan,
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Dec 13, 2011

One-fifth of kids deprived of contact with one parent

Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Minister of Justice Hideo Hiraoka, Minister for Foreign Affairs Koichiro Gemba, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare Yoko Komiyama, and the government of Japan,
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 26, 2011

Villas-Boas walking tightrope

Andre Villas-Boas is on "a knife edge" and "the noose is tightening," according to reports after Chelsea lost 2-1 to Bayer Leverkusen, leaving their Champions League qualification hopes in the balance.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 20, 2011

The B-class-food boom reveals true Japanese cuisine

Two weeks ago, an advisory panel to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries recommended it apply to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for recognition of Japanese cuisine as an intangible cultural asset. The panel made its suggestion after UNESCO granted...

Longform

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