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Japan Times
JAPAN / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Feb 22, 2015

Kyoto's tourism boom spells war for luxury hotel chains

Kyoto's recent record-setting tourism boom has sparked a mini-"hotel war," with some of the world's best-known luxury inn chains opening branches in the ancient capital, as its international popularity as a travel destination spreads even further.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2015

Democracy can wait in el-Sissi's Egypt

Egyptian leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi needs some excuse for destroying Egypt's democratic revolution, and the excuse is terrorism, the bigger the better.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 16, 2015

Putin, fearing Russia's subservience to China, casts wider net over Asia

Boxed in by the U.S. and its allies, faced with an uneasy relationship with China and needing new friends and income, Russia is popping up everywhere in Asia.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 15, 2015

Growth-stunting technology

Though information and communications technology has made remarkable strides since 1991, it appears to have stunted Japan's economic growth rate.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies / ANALYSIS
Feb 6, 2015

Revival in Sony shares credited to ascent of CFO Yoshida

Investors' newfound enthusiasm for bloated Sony owes much to ascendant CFO Kenichiro Yoshida's ability to cut jobs, exit money-losing businesses and rein in its outsized ambitions.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 5, 2015

Abe boosts Kuroda reflation effort with BOJ board nomination

The Abe administration has nominated a proponent of reflationary monetary policy for the central bank's board, buttressing Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda's effort to end a two-decade slump in the world's third-biggest economy.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2015

Ford CFO says Toyota gains $10 billion advantage on weak yen

Ford Motor Co.'s top financial executive said the weak yen hands Japanese automakers as much as $11,000 more profit per car and allowed Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest automaker, to earn an extra $10 billion in 2013. Ford wants the U.S. to intervene against what it sees as currency manipulation....
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 28, 2015

Japan-South Korea relations remain hostage to history

Japan and South Korea face a stark choice: to find ways to settle their disputes over history or stay locked in a frozen political relationship that plays into China's hands.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2015

Starting South Korea's new growth engines

With a new economic strategy that nurtures more diversified sources of growth, while reducing the country's excessive reliance on exports and large enterprises, South Korea can reinvigorate and sustain strong growth.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jan 24, 2015

Obama looking to leverage ties with Modi during India trip

Barack Obama will do something in India on Monday that an American president almost never does in public: He'll sit in one place, in a foreign country, for hours.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jan 23, 2015

Activist says Uganda documentary may aid LGBT cause

Japan has developed a more favorable view of sexual minorities in recent years, but activist Mameta Endo wants to raise awareness of the issue further by encouraging people to take in a documentary that captures the hatred, harassment, and risk of prison time such people face in Uganda.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2015

Aging Japanese prove rich pickings for investment fraud

A growing number of retirees in Japan are falling victim to fraud, underscoring one of the downsides of promoting personal investment in the world's most aged nation.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / NFL NOTEBOOK
Jan 21, 2015

Manning can thrive in Kubiak's system

My first impression when I heard the news that the Denver Broncos had hired Gary Kubiak to replace John Fox as the 15th head coach in team history was that Peyton Manning is one step closer to retirement.
COMMENTARY
Jan 20, 2015

The Swiss just made Japan's job more difficult

Bank of Japan head Haruhiko Kuroda's monetary 'bazooka' just got outgunned by the Swiss.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 20, 2015

LDP lawmaker says he wants inflation targets fixed in law

A lawmaker who has advised Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on economic policy said he will urge the government to enshrine its inflation-targeting agreements with the Bank of Japan in law as early as next year.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 16, 2015

Fukushima meltdowns pervade Korean debate on extending reactor life

South Korea's nuclear regulator may decide as soon as today whether to extend the operating license for the Wolsong No. 1 nuclear reactor, the first to come up for renewal since the 2011 Fukushima disaster in neighboring Japan.
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2015

Deplorable rejection of a retrial

A Nagoya court uses a depolorable rationale to reject the eighth request for retrial of an 88-year-old death row inmate convicted of fatally poisoning five women in 1961.
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2015

Strong-arming Okinawa's governor

A reported Abe administration plan to sharply trim spending on measures to spur Okinawa's economy in fiscal 2015 smacks of an attempt to coerce Okinawa's new governor into ending his resistance to construction of a new U.S. military facility in the prefecture.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Jan 12, 2015

Fighters' Saito braces for vital year

Yuki Saito is hard at work in Chiba, at Kamagaya Stadium, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters' ni-gun base, these days. He's busy preparing for the upcoming season, which might turn out to be a pivotal one for the star pitcher.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets
Jan 8, 2015

Record bearish stock bets reflect skepticism over Abenomics

Bearish bets on Japanese stocks have surged to a record level because foreign investors are increasingly skeptical that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will succeed in reviving the economy, according to financial services company Reorient Group Ltd.
EDITORIALS
Jan 4, 2015

Revitalizing rural parts of Japan

There seems to be a basic discrepancy between the Abe administration's direction in its employment policy and what its regional revitalization program is aiming for.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2015

Asia's bad to good for 2014

Find out who or what in Asia were honored for having the worst, bad, good and best year in 2014.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 4, 2015

In Africa, a record year for slayings of rhinos

South Africa lost a record number of rhinos in 2014 as big animals across Africa were relentlessly poached to meet rising demand for horn and ivory in newly affluent Asian countries or to provide meat to fighters in the bush.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jan 3, 2015

The biggest terrorism threat in Japan

Remember how the government said Japan needed a state secrets law to protect it from acts of terrorism?
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 2, 2015

Drug firms sway vets on antibiotics in food animals

In 2016, a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration policy will give veterinarians a key role in combating a surge in antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" that infect humans. For the first time, the agency will require veterinarians, not farmers, to decide whenever antibiotics used by people are given to animals....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 1, 2015

Hate, muzzle and poll: a top 10 of issues for 2014

A recap of the top 10 human-rights news events affecting non-Japanese (NJ) in Japan last year.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 27, 2014

Learning to love robots

With half the decade complete, we examine an industry that has significantly changed the way we think about ourselves.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Dec 22, 2014

Oxford chooses 'vape' as word of the year

The Oxford Dictionaries named 'vape' — meaning to inhale the vapor from an electronic cigarette instead of the smoke from a burning stick of tobacco — as its 2014 word of the year.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.