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BUSINESS
Mar 4, 2014

Base salaries up for first time in 22 months in January

Salaries increased for the first time in nearly two years in January as companies boosted pay for part-timers, aiding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's effort to end 15 years of deflation.
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2014

Abe between rock and hard place after Putin nabs Crimea

Russia's deployment of troops on the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine put Japan in a difficult position Monday, as Tokyo, which has tried to build closer ties with Moscow, joined its Group of Seven counterparts to issue a statement strongly condemning Russia.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2014

China fights dragon of credit-allocation reform

China needs to reforming the credit-allocation mechanism to provide more capital to well-performing projects and enforce hard budget constraints on poor-performing borrowers.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2014

Tips for electing a leader with common sense

One way voters perhaps can eliminate a presidential candidate from consideration is to look at his or her watch. If it costs more than $500, they should find someone else to vote for, someone whose interests extend beyond personal enrichment.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Mar 3, 2014

Yen's fading clout threat to BOJ inflation goal

The rising cost of overseas travel and imported goods such as Apple computers is spurring concern in Japan's bond market that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's success in fueling inflation will be short-lived.
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.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 2, 2014

Abe courting equality or estrangement in quest

In Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's view, Japan needs to regain, wherever possible, the right of independent decision-making if it is to manage successfully the challenge posed to it by China. He seeks a policy of voluntary cooperation with the U.S.
Japan Times
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.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 1, 2014

Yanukovych son's biz empire probed

On a street in ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's political stronghold, Donetsk, stands the imposing headquarters of the Mako Group, a Ukrainian conglomerate spanning banking to construction.
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...
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.
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

'Ai no Uzu (Love's Whirlpool)'

Sex and love — can the twain ever meet? In the world of fūzoku, a euphemism for Japan's enormous sex industry, that question is usually answered in the negative.
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League / 2014 J. LEAGUE PREVIEW
Feb 27, 2014

Gamba looking for payback

The following is the first of a two-part preview for the upcoming J. League season. Team-by-team previews of the nine lowest-ranked teams competing in the first division are listed.
LIFE / Digital
Feb 27, 2014

Don't be taken in by Amazon's friendly face

When corporate types gather to schmooze at expensive watering holes they talk about competition as an unalloyed public good. It's seen in Darwinian terms: companies engaged in a ceaseless battle for survival, with only the fittest emerging triumphant. But generally the discussion is couched in agreeably...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Feb 26, 2014

It's their plan for your money, so assume deception

An expat approaching a financial adviser with money to invest could be considered akin to the proverbial duck innocently waddling up to a nabe party with a bundle of leeks slung over his shoulder.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2014

Future looks dull from Washington

Absent an event that upends the country, Washington seems likely to be a lot less important over the next few years than it was over the past few years.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2014

Pope warns of hazards in browsing 'God's gift'

Pope Francis rightly warns that although the variety of opinions being aired over the Web can be seen as helpful, it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information that only confirm their own ideas.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 24, 2014

'Abenomics' no help to breweries

While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies help manufacturers such as Toyota Motor Corp. rack up record profits, challenges to his reforms are showing up in a more mundane spot: the outlook for beer.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Feb 23, 2014

Final season for 'Toru Hashimoto Show'?

Is the Osaka political drama revolving around “third force” failure Toru Hashimoto entering its final season?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 23, 2014

Ukraine at crossroads as Moscow's man in Kiev exits

Seen from the point of view of President Vladimir Putin, Russia's foreign policy of late had been enjoying something of a purple patch.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 23, 2014

Plans don't make the grade

Don't count on the education ministry's plan to hire more foreign teachers and students to have much effect on its goal of getting at least 10 Japanese universities to place among the world's top 100.
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2014

Huge stakes on the line in crisis-center Thailand

The stakes in the outcome of the Thai Crisis are huge and extend well beyond the country itself. One has to wonder whether President Barack Obama, and the world for that matter, are taking it seriously enough.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 22, 2014

Yanukovych faces pressure from powerful oligarch backers

Marooned among empty seats in the Ukrainian parliament, Vadim Novinsky broke with the ruling Party of Regions and voted in favor of a bill condemning the violence that has left dozens dead in Kiev during a week of bloodshed.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 21, 2014

Notary's son confronts cultist in court, asks why Aum abducted him

Minoru Kariya, whose father was believed tortured to death by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995, asks ex-cult fugitive Makoto Hirata why his father had to die and whether the defendant is prepared to atone for the role he played in his death.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 21, 2014

Nippon Ishin to stay out of mayor poll

Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) will officially stay out of the March 23 Osaka mayoral snap election, which its co-leader, Mayor Toru Hashimoto, forced earlier this month after he resigned to protest opposition in the municipal assembly toward merging Osaka's municipal and prefectural governments...

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