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BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 30, 2013

JT to cut 1,600 jobs, close four plants

Japan Tobacco Inc. is cutting 1,600 jobs and closing four domestic factories as part of its plan to boost competitiveness at home and profitability.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2013

Yet another generation imprisoned in Russia

Disaster struck the New York home of a physics teacher and former Soviet dissident after his son, a Greenpeace activist, was jailed a month ago jailed in Murmansk, Russia.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 28, 2013

Smashing ideas on future design and technology

While contemporary art is still transfixed by its own reflection, veteran Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa has focused her cultural microscope on something quite different. "Bunny Smash Design to touch the world," the current group exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, is a hit-and-miss...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 26, 2013

Get Koizumi: Nuclear village goes on offensive

This is a first for Japan: A political figure who not only undergoes a change of mind in public, but tries to make a difference after giving up the political power to do so.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 26, 2013

'Scary as hell' ocean-research storm breaks

'The long-held barriers between nature and culture are breaking down. It's no longer us against 'nature.' Instead, it's we who decide what nature is and what it will be.'
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2013

Tax hike may induce firms to use more temp workers

In what could be an unintended consequence, the sales tax hike set for next April may tempt companies to replace their regular workers with "haken" temporary workers, some tax law experts say.
BUSINESS
Oct 25, 2013

Farmers to focus on fighting fat in face of tariff cuts

From rice for controlling blood glucose levels to soybeans that reduce fatty acids, the government is seeking new ways to make money from agriculture as pressure mounts to cut the tariffs that farmers rely on to make a living.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / HOTEL SPECIAL 2013
Oct 24, 2013

Oasis of peace in Tokyo

In the middle of the downtown Tokyo district of Ebisu, there is a green oasis where people can forget about the hustle and bustle of city life. The new garden at The Westin Tokyo in Yebisu Garden Place is called The Westin Garden and was opened this April to let guests enjoy a refreshing time in the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2013

Trading identity for compassion in the Middle East

Filmmaker Lorraine Lévy likes to tread lightly wherever she goes. Her aversion to intrusiveness affects the way she looks at the world, and defines her approach to filmmaking. It's certainly a significant part of "Le Fils de l'Autre (The Other Son)," Lévy's latest film (and arguably her most successful),...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Oct 23, 2013

Versatile Bozeman making impact for Toshiba Brave Thunders

For sure, there are countless basketball players who can compete at multiple positions. But it's hard to find someone that's as exceptionally versatile as Cedric Bozeman, who basically plays all positions but center.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 21, 2013

With ban on lead in hunters' bullets, California hopes to protect condors

By 1982, the number of California condors in the wild had dwindled to 22, an entire species nearly wiped out by, among other threats, lead poisoning from hunters' ammunition.
EDITORIALS
Oct 21, 2013

U.S. deal is made

It is reflective of the mindset in Washington that the budget sequester — a solution that was intended to be punishment for lawmakers' failure to compromise — is the new normal.
BUSINESS
Oct 21, 2013

Green funds aid clean energy effort

Two Japanese clean energy funds plan to raise about ¥1 billion from the public and urge regional financial institutions to provide loans for wind and solar projects to boost the local economy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 20, 2013

You may find mei mystifying

It's almost Halloween again, so before I set out my カボチャ提灯 (kabocha chōchin, jack-o'-lantern), I thought the time is right to take up the topic of 迷信 (meishin, superstition). The first character is 迷, meaning lost or puzzled, made by combining the phonetic 米 (alternatively read mai,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 19, 2013

Fukushima 2020: Will Japan be able to keep the nuclear situation under control?

Thirty seconds into what may ultimately be regarded as one of the defining speeches of his career, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe slowly raised his hands chest high, then spread them out sideways in a gesture of confidence.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 19, 2013

'GTAV' aggro-risks doubt

In the last week I've been drunk in a strip club, got shot at by gangsters and driven a sports car into the ocean — where, regretfully, my partner drowned. But that's nothing compared to a friend of mine who has robbed a convenience store at gunpoint and broken into a military air base — then stolen...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 19, 2013

Countryside campaigner for us all

In the mid-1970s, Souichi Yamashita, a farmer in northern Kyushu who also writes books about rural Japan, got to know a young man named Yutaka Une.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2013

Critics say Olympic stadium is too big

A famed Japanese architect's criticism of the futuristic-looking national stadium planned for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is being shared by an increasing number of people who say it's too big and doesn't match the surrounding environment.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2013

Making do without Obama

More attention has been given to U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to cancel his trip to Asia because of Beltway politics than to what the regional ministers did without him.
Reader Mail
Oct 16, 2013

Tough armchair conservationist

With his Oct. 10 missive, "Activists who act like terrorists," Grant Piper reveals himself to be a true hang 'em and flog 'em Tory. While he admits to caring "very much about environmental and wildlife conservation," he prefers, like most of us, to do his caring comfortably at home.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2013

Forum fetes Roppongi Hills decade

The Innovative City Forum is being held in Roppongi Hills in part to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the office and residential complex in central Tokyo.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 15, 2013

Abe opens Diet session focused on the economy

A 53-day extraordinary Diet session opens with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressing the need for deregulation.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 11, 2013

Camera Grandma's photos document Gifu village's demise

Izu Photo Museum in Nagaizumi, Shizuoka Prefecture, is exhibiting the work of late amateur photographer Tazuko Masuyama on the Tokuyama Dam in Gifu Prefecture, where a small village vanished under the waters of a reservoir decades ago.

Longform

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Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat