Search - study

 
 
EDITORIALS
May 13, 2012

Married women as abuse victims

A recent Cabinet Office survey has found that 32.9 percent of married women have experienced domestic abuse. This percentage has remained unchanged from the two previous surveys in 2005 and 2008, indicating that little help has been provided for the ongoing tragedy in one-third of Japanese households....
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2012

Five myths about America's conservative voters

We may be six months away from Election Day, but I've already racked up nearly 160,000 km this year crisscrossing the country and listening to voters in more than 20 states. Both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in full campaign mode, and opinions and analysis of their chances to win are flowing...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices
May 8, 2012

The top 10 Zeit Gist articles of the past decade, chosen by the readers

1. Battling a broken system, by RICHARD CORY One day in March, just minutes after my daughter and I returned home from celebrating her graduation from elementary school that morning, her mother, from whom I had filed for divorce in January after 17 years of marriage, lured my daughter out of the house,...
EDITORIALS
May 8, 2012

Ending reliance on nuclear power

The 912,000 kW No. 3 reactor at Hokkaido Electric Power Co.'s Tomari nuclear power plant came to a complete shutdown on early Sunday morning for regular inspection. No nuclear reactors are now operating in Japan — the first such situation in 42 years. Japan should use this as an opportunity to analyze...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 6, 2012

Richard Collasse: Sold on brand Japan

In Tokyo's high-end Ginza district, the Chanel Building stands out among the luxury fashion boutiques and global brands' emporiums thanks to its shining black-glass exterior.
EDITORIALS
May 6, 2012

Danger in the bath

An investigation into one of Japan's favorite pastimes — bathing — has found a startling statistic: 14,000 people a year die during bath time. That's nearly three times more deaths than from car accidents, 4,612 people.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 6, 2012

Japan's modern haiku master

IKIMONOFUEI: Poetic Composition on Living Things, by Kaneko Tohta. Red Moon Press, 2011, 91 pp., $12.00 (paperback) THE FUTURE OF HAIKU: An Interview with Kaneko Tohta. Red Moon Press 2011, 137 pp., $12.00 (paperback) These two handy pocket-size volumes are the first of four to be issued by the Red Moon...
JAPAN
May 1, 2012

Lady Gaga auctioning teacup to help Japanese artists after quake

Kyodo American pop star Lady Gaga on Monday put up for auction a teacup she used at a press conference last June in Tokyo, to raise funds to help young Japanese artists after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March last year, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2012

A crisis of capital flight as TARGET debt grows

For a while, it looked as if the European Central Bank's €1 trillion credit program to pump liquidity into Europe's banking system had calmed global financial markets. But now interest rates for Italian and Spanish government bonds are on the rise again, closing in on about 6 percent.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 29, 2012

Death sentences prove difficult for lay judges

However one feels about the death penalty, it's difficult to argue that its application in Japan isn't arbitrary. Last week, former Justice Minister Hideo Hiraoka publicly denounced his successor Toshio Ogawa's decision to have three death row inmates hanged on March 29, saying that the government needs...
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2012

Preparing elevators for the Big One

No one wants to get stuck in an elevator, but with the possibility looming of a major earthquake in the Kanto area, the government has at last begun to pay attention to the safety of elevators. The land and infrastructure ministry announced it is offering to cover one-third of renovation costs to help...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 28, 2012

Mashiko-based U.S. potter vows he'll not be defeated by 3/11 destruction

Harvey Young, a ceramic artist for over 40 years who has spent nearly three decades in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, knows a thing or two about shaping beauty out of chaos — and about the sudden misfires life can bring. Even his early love for pottery warped and melded with other interests until it...
Reader Mail
Apr 26, 2012

Wide range of views on afterlife

Regarding Dipak Basu's April 19 letter, "Buddhist explanation for flaws": The idea that telling parents that their child is not looking down on them from heaven is "cruel" is Basu's opinion, and he is entitled to it. However, others would argue that sometimes one has to be a little cruel to be kind and...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2012

Identifying the world's 'invisibles'

They have no twitter army, no righteous war being waged for their rescue. They are visible; they are out there on the streets. From ruthless lanes of Dhaka to dangerous dark alleys of Rio, tens of millions of children the world over are daily fighting hunger, violence and abuse just to survive and scratch...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Apr 23, 2012

Land grabs raise security issues

A foreign-capital property buying spree that has extended to areas in and around facilities of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the American armed forces could pose a threat to Japan's security.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 22, 2012

Chinese National Army and the Golden Triangle

The Secret Army: Chiang Kai-shek and the Drug Warlords of the Golden Triangle, by Richard M. Gibson with Wenhua Chen. Wiley, 2011, 384 pp., $32.95 (paperback) Anyone who has stared into the devitalized eyes of an opium addict will know how grave the legacy of the narcotics trade continues to be in the...
EDITORIALS
Apr 19, 2012

New worst-case scenario

A panel of the Cabinet Office announced late last month that if a megaquake occurs in the Nankai Trough, a tsunami higher than 20 meters may hit 23 municipalities in six prefectures stretching from Kanto to Shikoku on Japan's Pacific side. The prediction represents a worst-case scenario that happens...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Apr 17, 2012

Texan's magic transforms verandas

When you step out onto the veranda of Theodore Jennings' penthouse apartment in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, it almost feels like you're on vacation in some other location — be it New York or some European resort.
EDITORIALS
Apr 16, 2012

China's prodemocrats lose a giant

Fang Lizhi, one of China's best-known dissidents, has died. He passed away in the United States, where he had spent the last two decades of his life after being forced to flee China in the aftermath of the 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy activists. The movement for a democratic China has lost a leading...
COMMENTARY
Apr 11, 2012

Why Japan and U.S. should ban the death penalty

Japan's decision to hang three prisoners after nearly two years without executions has been severely criticized by Amnesty International, which calls it a "retrograde step." Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa authorized the executions of three men, stating that this was his "duty" as minister. "Justifying...
BUSINESS
Apr 11, 2012

BOJ board votes to keep interest rates near zero

The Bank of Japan Policy Board unanimously agreed Tuesday to maintain the current virtually zero interest rate policy while revealing details of a new lending arrangement in dollars worth the equivalent of ¥1 trillion.
COMMENTARY
Apr 11, 2012

What Mitt Romney needs in a vice president

Barack Obama's intellectual sociopathy — his often breezy and sometimes loutish indifference to truth — should no longer startle. It should, however, influence Mitt Romney's choice of a running mate.
COMMENTARY
Apr 10, 2012

World Bank could use a competitive advantage

From a turn of phrase by Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs in 2001, a grouping was born in 2009. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa) make up two-fifths of the world's population, one-fifth of world gross domestic product and one-seventh of world trade. Yet, they account for two-thirds of...

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