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BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2014

Detroit bankruptcy prods other cities to target pensions

Local officials in at least 10 states are trying to cut pensions of municipal workers, or eliminate defined-benefit plans, pointing to Detroit as a symbol of the peril of growing retirement costs.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Mar 2, 2014

Thinking outside the usual white box

Imagine being a meter tall and dashing around the donut-shaped roof of your school. Or picture studying math while taking in the rich smell of timber in one of a variety of wooden houses connected by a single three-story atrium, or attending a zero-carbon wooden school in the forest.
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2014

Storing Fukushima's radioactive waste

The plan to build interim facilities to store contaminated soil and other radioactive waste from the cleanup work in Fukushima Prefecture finally appears to be moving forward now that authorities have singled out two local areas for storage sites.
Japan Times
JAPAN / AT A GLANCE
Mar 2, 2014

Top kitchenware, plastic sushi lure cooks, tourists alike to Kappabashi

If you want to open a restaurant, the Kappabashi district in Tokyo's Taito Ward is the place to go because it has everything you need, and more.
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2014

Underwater gold rush spurs fears of ocean calamity

This is the last frontier: the ocean floor, 4,000 meters beneath the waters of the central Pacific, where mining companies are now exploring for the rich deposits of ores needed to keep industry humming and smartphones switched on.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 2, 2014

Crimean port turns out for Russians

When a convoy of Russian military vehicles unloaded dozens of armed troops into this sleepy Crimean port town Saturday, residents thronged around them honking car horns, snapping pictures and waving Russian flags.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 1, 2014

Trite TV drama about children's home misses a chance to edify and entertain

Groups including the National Council for Children's Group Homes and Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto have accused NTV of 'violating human rights' and displaying 'prejudice against the children as well as the staff who are working in these childcare institutions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Mar 1, 2014

Japan finds bitcoins can bite back, too

Tokyo has once again become the center of a world-wobbling virtual financial crisis. Let me emphasize the word virtual. That's because the world's best-known and perhaps largest exchange of the virtual currency known as bitcoin — Mt. Gox, located in Tokyo's Shibuya district — appeared to have all...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 1, 2014

Japan's reactionaries waging culture war

The contemporary culture wars that have erupted over Japanese identity and history are undermining the country's national interests and damaging its reputation.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 1, 2014

Tokyo International Literary Festival brings authors and readers together

Authors, editors, publishers and translators gather with book fans this week to celebrate the second Tokyo International Literary Festival, which features 10 days of readings and workshops alongside more than two dozen events at venues ranging from coffee shops to embassies.
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 1, 2014

J. League seeks to widen scope in Asia

As two decades have now elapsed since its inception, the J. League is entering a new era.
BUSINESS / Economy / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 1, 2014

Economic figures reveal more than you see

The Cabinet Office's Economic and Social Research Institute on Jan. 17 released the finalized figures on the country's economy's stocks (the net value of accumulated assets at a balance date) and flows (net transactions, including income and expenditure, during an accounting period) that were recorded...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets / FOCUS
Mar 1, 2014

Bitcoin believers unfazed by losses in Mt. Gox collapse

Like other bitcoin evangelists, Ken Shishido is ready to write off the money he lost in the bankruptcy of Tokyo-based virtual currency exchange Mt. Gox as the price of revolutionizing global finance.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 1, 2014

Women doctors profiled and advances in medical tech revealed; CM of the week: Nissan

It's a big week for physicians on television. First there's the two-hour special "Uman Dokuta, Mitchaku" ("Close Coverage of Women Doctors"; TV Tokyo, Mon., 7:54 p.m.), which reports on the activities of various female doctors working throughout the country. Japan has 300,000 doctors, 20 percent of which...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2014

Cameron, Merkel have irreconcilable differences

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made it clear, in a friendly way, that she and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron have incompatible views about the future of the European Union.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2014

Russia's Crimean shore?

Today's Crimea, the traditional playground of czars and Soviet comissars, does not want independence from Ukraine; it wants continued dependence on Russia.
WORLD
Feb 28, 2014

Bitcoin-wise Ukraine protesters tap digital money's global reach

Ukrainian activists are turning to bitcoins to fund a three-month protest in Kiev's Independence Square that helped oust President Viktor Yanukovych amid violence that left at least 82 people dead.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2014

Bullying-linked crimes up 57% in '13

The number of juvenile crimes caused by school bullying rose 57.7 percent to 410 cases last year, up from 260 cases a year earlier, according a report by the National Police Agency.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 28, 2014

Foreign nursing students get second chance

A private hospital group in Nagoya is supporting youths from Indonesia who went through three-year training stints in Japan to become licensed nurses but who had no choice but to return to their home country after failing to pass the state certification exam here.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 28, 2014

Abe looks to instill politics in education

Conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is cranking out policies to strengthen the political grip on education, turning the postwar notion on its head that instruction of the nation's young people should be free of political influence.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Feb 28, 2014

Another nail in the coffin of amateur sumo

Sumo currently exists in two forms around the world. Most famous, of course, is the Tokyo-based professional sport led by yokozuna Hakuho, et al. However, the amateur version, often termed “amasumo” in abbreviated form, is of interest to many in nations that lack direct access to Japanese broadcasts....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 27, 2014

Murayama raps Abe over sex slaves

Ex-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama blasts Shinu00adzo Abe for considering revising the 1993 Kono statement, the first official acknowledgment that the Imperial Japanese Army forced women into sexual servitude at wartime brothels.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Feb 27, 2014

Hotels' helping hands, Cheers for cherries, Rooms to view the blooms

Kobe hotels offer a helping hand
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2014

Steps toward politicized education

The Abe administration plans to submit bills in this Diet session that would reduce the autonomy of a local board of education and make it easier for the education ministry to challenge a board of education's decision on, say, textbook selection.
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2014

Postponing toll-free expressways

A new government bill pushes back the deadline for eliminating expressways tolls from 2050 to 2065 — because of the need to borrow more money to repair and renovate aging bridges and tunnels.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014

'Oh Boy'

They say that the EU in its current state of capitalism is a mirror of America in the 1990s. (Remember what that was like? It wasn't all bad, really.) This certainly applies to the Berlin-set micro universe of "Oh Boy," whose very title smells like teen spirit — but it's actually set in the present...

Longform

The building of new high-rise residential buildings has some alarmed that they could empty and fall into disrepair as Japan's population shrinks.
The high cost of letting Japan's condos crumble