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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 4, 2012

In the realms of true love and devotion, few could fault Akiko Koyama

On Feb. 21, 1996, Akiko Koyama, the actress wife of renowned film director Nagisa Oshima, received a phone call at her home in Kugenuma Kaigan, Kanagawa Prefecture. It was from an official at the Japanese Embassy in London.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2012

JFE-IHI ship merger aims for ¥500 billion in sales

JFE Holdings Inc. and IHI Corp. will seek to increase sales of their combined shipbuilding units by about 30 percent in five years to fend off competition from South Korean and Chinese rivals.
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2012

Better stalking measures needed

Two murders in Nagasaki Prefecture in December 2011 show that the police are ineffective in preventing stalking-related crime. Police nationwide need to improve their methods for deterring stalkers, including how and when to share information with different police units. They should not forget that a...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LABOR PAINS
Feb 28, 2012

Oversleeping radio anchor set tough precedent for firing staff

A radio news anchor oversleeps a live broadcast twice, forcing the radio station to cancel the broadcast. Should he be fired?
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2012

Tradeoff in nuclear power

Trade and industry minister Yukio Edano was quoted by a major vernacular paper earlier this year as saying that the government is contemplating changing the policy of promoting nuclear power generation as a national project in which operations are entrusted to private sector electric power companies....
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2012

At the end of a loved one's life, why is it so hard to let go?

I know where this phone call is going. I'm on the hospital wards, and a physician in the emergency room downstairs is talking to me about an elderly patient who needs to be admitted to the hospital. The patient is new to me, but the story is familiar: He has several chronic conditions — heart failure,...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 19, 2012

Surfing the silent waves

As a young documentary filmmaker, Ayako Imamura had been wrestling with feelings of emptiness. Deaf since birth, the 32-year-old Nagoya native has shot about 30 short films documenting the lives of deaf people in Japan since 2000. But at one point in her career, she realized that her creative energy...
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2012

Sad state of global employment

The employment situation is worsening around the world, according to a report by the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO). The report highlighted the disastrous effects of the global downturn on workers. Unemployment remains high around the world.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 15, 2012

Nets squandered chance to draft Kobe

Kobe Bryant's annual Garden variety visit last Friday triggered me to re-examine the draft of 1996. Many people have gone straight from high school to Hollywood and become overnight sensations . . . after countless years of dejection and rejection. Kobe actually morphed into a Lakers' legend almost on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 10, 2012

NNTT hopes Generation 2.0 hears 'Silence'

The late classical composer Teizo Matsumura, American film director Martin Scorsese, and playwright/director Keiko Miyata may seem an unlikely trio, but they share a reverence for "Silence," the 1966 novel by Shusaku Endo.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2012

What an Obama or Romney win means

Successful political candidates try to implement the proposals on which they ran. In the United States, President Barack Obama and the Democrats, controlling the House of Representatives and (a filibuster-proof) Senate, had the power to do virtually anything they wanted in 2009 — and so they did.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 7, 2012

Sony, Panasonic keep sliding as Samsung soars

Japan's biggest makers of phones, TVs and microchips say they'll lose about $17 billion this year, about three-quarters of what Samsung Electronics Co. will spend on research to lengthen the lead over its competitors.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2012

Fujifilm braces for Olympus takeover snub

Fujifilm Holdings Corp. may get snubbed by cross-town rival Olympus Corp. in its attempt to move further away from the photographic film business that dragged down industry pioneer Eastman Kodak Co.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2012

Like Stringer, Hirai's priority: Revive Sony TVs

Incoming Sony Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai's biggest challenge will be to solve a puzzle that bedeviled Howard Stringer for eight years: how to make money selling televisions.
COMMENTARY
Feb 2, 2012

Eventually not a drop of groundwater to drink?

The world is in the midst of a boom in groundwater use. The rate of extraction from aquifers more than doubled in the 40 years to 2000. It has continued to soar since then.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2012

Hirai Sony's new CEO; Stringer out

Sony Corp. has named Kazuo Hirai as president and CEO, replacing Howard Stringer, amid a projection for a fourth consecutive year of losses.
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2012

Delicate wage negotiations

The annual wage negotiations for 2012 take place in a difficult situation marked by the effects of the March 11 disasters, the floods in Thailand, prolonged deflation and the strong yen. Labor and management must search for a wage level that is not only reasonable but also will eventually contribute...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 31, 2012

Culture ensnares Czech Japanophile

Petr Holy, who over the past two decades has spent a considerable amount of his time learning the Japanese language and culture, is now in return trying to spread the culture of his home country, the Czech Republic, throughout Japan.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 30, 2012

Japanese films offer some memorable one-liners

Famous movie lines have a way of insinuating themselves into popular culture and language, until even those who know a film only by hearsay quote from it, if only because everyone else does.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / Longform
Jan 29, 2012

Fukushima casts a shadow over India's industrial boom

The ongoing nuclear disaster in Fukushima has quashed once ambitious plans for the construction of new reactors in Japan. The government does, however, remain committed to promoting exports of nuclear reactors and technology as it sees huge potential in overseas markets.
EDITORIALS
Jan 29, 2012

Smoking deaths

The health ministry is drawing up a plan to halve the smoking rate in Japan from 23.4 percent in 2009 to 10 percent. Unfortunately, the plan is tucked into a long-range health promotion plan from 2013 to 2022.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2012

¥10 trillion M&A fund goes untapped

The biggest year for overseas buyouts by Japan's companies since at least 2000 was financed without a single yen coming from a massive program Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda set up to spur such deals.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 24, 2012

Nadeshiko Japan eyes London Olympic gold

Japan's overtime defeat of the United States in the 2011 women's World Cup soccer finals inspired a nation suffering from the March 11 disaster and ensuing nuclear crisis. This year will see the club dubbed Nadeshiko Japan attempt to repeat their success at the Summer Olympics in London. Following are...
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2012

Bring the world closer to Japan

Once the Cold War was over, globalism was widely expected to expand but has since lost its momentum due to the credit crunch stemming from the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the ensuing economic recession around the world. As a result, the World Trade Organization gave up in December on concluding...

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat