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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2011

Sales tax must be doubled: Yanagisawa

The consumption tax needs to be more than doubled to shore up the government's finances, given soaring debt and welfare costs, according to a member of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's tax and social security panel.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2011

FCCJ retools to remain relevant

With the Internet pressing down on traditional media and interest in news from Japan apparently in decline, many foreign journalists say reporting with a Tokyo dateline is increasingly becoming a challenge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2011

Saving the individual in times of conflict

The Japanese Western-style painter Saburo Aso (1913-2000) came of age as an artist during Japan's crescendo of militarism that began with the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and came to an ignominious end in 1945. But he refused to be drawn into the officially promoted propaganda painting of the time. The...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 25, 2011

Family restaurants falling from flavor

Family-style restaurants are feeling the squeeze as diners increasingly opt for meals more on the cheap, such as under-¥300 "gyudon" bowls of beef on rice and "bento" boxed lunches below ¥500.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Jan 21, 2011

Thirst growing overseas for nihonshu

Last year more nihonshu than ever was shipped overseas. From Seoul to San Francisco, tipplers are saying kampai to sake.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 21, 2011

New National Theatre, Tokyo, hopes 'Yuzuru' will help Japanese opera soar

Imitation may be a form of flattery, but it is also an important first step for creative genesis. The 1952 premiere of "Yuzuru" by Ikuma Dan — half imitation of Western operatic traditions and half Japanese creative innovation — marked a milestone in the development of opera in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 21, 2011

'Gantz'

Films about murder games of various sorts have become a popular Japanese-movie subgenre, beginning with the ultra-violent Kinji Fukasaku hit "Battle Royale" (2000) and continuing with the even more successful "Death Note" trio of films (2006-2008) — though the "game" in the latter was more of a battle...
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2011

China 'reasonably' pre-empting N.Z. justice

HONG KONG — Last October, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, official Chinese spokesmen waxed indignant. A spokesperson for the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court, which had sentenced Liu to 11 years in prison on a...
COMMENTARY
Jan 17, 2011

Experts worth listening to

Each of the government's ministries and agencies has its own deliberative council. Before the fiscal 2001 ministerial reorganization — on April 27, 2000 — the government adopted the basic plan for abolishing and integrating these councils and the like. (The expression "and the like" was added because...
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2011

Political biases trash lauded Ph.D. research

SEATTLE — Deepak Tripathi's most recent book, "Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism" (Potomac Books) raises several issues, both within and outside of its content. It is based on research for a doctoral dissertation that did not qualify.
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jan 16, 2011

New Year song, Japan withdraws from naval talks, ski enthusiasts, Challenger explosion

100 YEARS AGOSunday, Jan. 1, 1911
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 15, 2011

Authentic slice of Japan preserved in South Florida

The first two weeks of the new year are over, and Tom Gregersen, 61, is putting away the kine and usu, the traditional wooden mallets and mortars used in the mochitsuki (rice-cake pounding) event held as part of the O-shogatsu Festival at The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 14, 2011

'Yoyochu: Sex to Yoyogi Tadashi no Sekai (Yoyochu in the Land of the Rising Sex)'

Japan's sex industry is huge, diverse and different. One oddity, at least to Western eyes, is the pinku eiga (pink film), a genre of soft porn made according to certain rules (the most important being the inclusion of a simulated sex scene every 10 minutes or so) and shown in specialized theaters. Pink...
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2011

Crisis shows African Union's limits

LONDON — "It's not a bluff," said an adviser to Alassane Ouattara, the real winner in November's presidential election in Ivory Coast, who is now besieged in a hotel in Abidjan, the capital, under United Nations protection. "The (African Union) soldiers are coming much faster than anyone thinks." But...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2011

EU's instability mechanism

MUNICH — By 2010, Europe was to be "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge- based society in the world." This was the proclamation in 2000 by the European Commission in the "Lisbon Agenda." Now, a decade after that bold pledge, it is official: Europe is the world's growth laggard rather than its...
BUSINESS
Jan 5, 2011

Banks look to invest in debt sales

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's plan to plug the budget gap with record debt sales this year will get some help from banks needing a place to park deposits that are outstripping loans by the widest margin on record.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2010

Japan's cloudy prospects for higher fertility

WASHINGTON — Japan's efforts to raise fertility through changes to the child allowance present a fragile and troubling vision for the future.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2010

India asserting its interests vis-a-vis China

LONDON — India hosted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao earlier this month in an attempt to stabilize Sino-Indian ties, which have undergone great turbulence the past two years.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 25, 2010

Happily lost in the 'empire of signs'

Signs and symbols play an ever-growing role in our increasingly complex society. In this respect, Japan — the "empire of signs," as French semiologist Roland Barthes called it back in 1970 — strikes and confounds the foreign visitor with a vast array of alphabets, shapes and designs.
EDITORIALS
Dec 24, 2010

Support for assault victims

The National Police Agency's crime statistics for 2009 show that 8,090 cases of rape and indecent sexual assault were reported to police that year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 21, 2010

Dreams for life, not just for Christmas

The noise echoing down the dimly lit street in suburban Tokyo suggested it was no ordinary Sunday for the kids at St. Francis Children's Home. The usually subdued atmosphere in the alleyways around Kugahara Station in Ota Ward was punctured by shouts and laughter as the children worked themselves up...

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