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JAPAN / LIGHTING THE OLYMPIC FLAME
Sep 23, 2013

Games planners target airport access

Upgrading Tokyo's dense infrastructure for the 2020 Games may be tricky, but a new subway line and an expansion for Haneda airport are on the drawing board.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 22, 2013

Vetting firms 'rush' through security clearances

When Ileana Privetera started working for the contractor USIS, the firm that vetted National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, it sounded like the perfect job. A mother, she would have flexible hours for her family, and she would be helping the country...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2013

Politicians hardly ever mention America's poor

American Republican and Democratic politicians have one thing in common: They hardly mention the poor.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 21, 2013

Upgrading from four wheels to two or three

Careening through the winding streets of Chennai, India, in the back of black and yellow auto-rickshaws, I am always amazed by the drivers' audacity — or perhaps a better term would be "death wish." These are the subcontinent's equivalent of New York's exuberant cabbies, but these drivers are much...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 21, 2013

Presenting the up, down and dark sides of 'Gorinnomics'

The weekly magazines' and tabloids' reaction to the selection of Tokyo to host the 2020 Olympics reminds one of an oft-quoted remark by Oscar Wilde that goes, "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 17, 2013

Court interpreters' working conditions a threat to fairness

The introduction of the lay judge system four years ago has only added to the stress placed on court interpreters, as they grapple with ever-worsening working conditions that have left them fatigued, ill-prepared and more error-prone, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations warns.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INNOVATIVE CITY FORUM
Sep 17, 2013

Capital strikes gold with 2020 Olympics

Now that Tokyo has won the bid to host the 2020 Olympics, the capital may gain a top-three spot in the next Global Power City Index.
EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 2013

Keep tuition exemption

The government should increase taxes on wealthy families rather than exclude their children from the high school tuition exemption and support system.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 12, 2013

Death-row inmate, 73, sixth executed under Abe Cabinet

A convicted murderer is hanged for robbing and gunning down the owner of a restaurant in Yokohama's Chinatown in May 2004.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2013

The biggest Olympic beneficiaries? Tokyo Bay developers

Tokyo Bay area property prices stand to benefit the most in the lead-up to the 2020 Olympic Games, adding to the recovery in the capital's real estate values after 20 years of declines
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 9, 2013

Japan's April-June real GDP growth upgraded to annual 3.8%

An upward revision to Japan's gross domestic product gives the government yet another favorable signal for raising the sales tax next April.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 7, 2013

Don't worry: Team Abe is tackling the nuclear crisis at Fukushima

Even if the public remains overwhelmingly skeptical about nuclear safety in general, and anxious in particular about the impact of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on the environment, there is reassuring news that we can now rest easy.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 27, 2013

Can the ailing Emerald Isle roar back as the Celtic Tiger?

Much of Ireland has been riveted this summer by recordings of phone conversations from 2008 that revealed not only shocking levels of greed and bad breeding among some of the country's top bankers, but a deliberate effort to snooker the government into bailing out the country's banks by concealing the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Aug 26, 2013

Denials of defoliant at former U.S. base site in Okinawa fly in the face of science

The inescapable fact is that the U.S. military, on Kadena Air Base, disposed of materials in drums containing 2,4,5-T , a wartime defoliant, and TCDD, the most toxic component of the dioxin family, known to be associated with the manufacture of such herbicides.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 24, 2013

A look back at when Tokyo was awarded 1964 Olympics

It's been more than 50 years since Tokyo was awarded the 1964 Summer Olympics, and it was done before several landmark events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Aug 22, 2013

North Korean gulag survivors tell U.N. investigators of rights abuses

One by one they came, taking seats next to a United Nations flag and stating their names for the record. Some kept calm. Some wept. One, as he spoke, used his left hand to clamp his trembling right hand to the table.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 16, 2013

Alexei Navalny: firebrand bidding for Russia's soul

Last week, Alexei Navalny, the recently convicted Russian opposition blogger, lawyer and candidate for the post of mayor of Moscow, posted a provocative item on his site.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 13, 2013

Even without a Cold War, the D.C.-Moscow link is still up

At 7:15 on the morning of June 5, 1967, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reached for a handset, one connected to a secure telephone line to a military switchboard at the White House. He asked the operator to ring the Air Force sergeant on duty outside President Lyndon B. Johnson's bedroom.
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2013

Tax hike backers seize on positive GDP data

Real gross domestic product rose an annualized 2.6 percent in the three months to June, bolstering the Abe administration's claim its economic policies are succeeding.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 9, 2013

Declaring war on sugar-loaded 'healthy' drinks

The tin of 7UP rolls to a stop at my feet. I pick it up, scowling at the kid on a bike who'd tossed it and missed the litter bin. The can is green and shiny: "Put some play into your every day," it says. "Escape to a carefree world ... Don't grow up. 7UP." And underneath, in tiny print, the real info...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Aug 5, 2013

Ol' blue eyes isn't back: Tsurunen's tale offers lessons in microcosm for DPJ

Spare a thought for Marutei Tsurunen, Japan's first European-born naturalized immigrant parliamentarian, who was voted out in last month's House of Councilors election.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan