Search - 2012

 
 
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 24, 2013

Lions' Kikuchi emerging as one of NPB's top pitchers

Yusei Kikuchi might be in the major leagues right now if he'd chosen differently.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2013

Is Rand Paul going mainstream, or is mainstream going Rand Paul?

Rand Paul seems to be crossing over to the mainstream — or maybe it's the other way around. When Kentucky's junior senator arrived in Washington just over two years ago, he seemed destined to inhabit the role of perpetual outlier. But now, he's in the mix on just about everything that is happening,...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 24, 2013

Top students shunning Japan

Making English the standard language at graduate schools in Japan won't be enough to attract more of the 'outstanding' students from abroad.
BUSINESS
Jun 24, 2013

Economy-crippling derivatives becoming popular with banks again

The exotic financial products that nearly crippled the economy in 2008 are roaring back at the nation's biggest banks, according to data released Friday that reform advocates worry come just as regulations to rein in risky trading are being weakened in Washington.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jun 23, 2013

ASIJ student McNeill helping to boost Tokyo 2020's bid

There are no definitive guidelines in place, no simple slogans summarizing how individuals and groups should support or oppose an Olympic bid. Of course, it's up to them.
WORLD
Jun 23, 2013

Questions on NSA spying raised in court

Four days before a sweeping government surveillance law was set to expire last year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Intelligence Committee, took to the Senate floor. She touted the 2008 law's value by listing some of the terrorist attacks it had helped thwart, including "a plot to bomb a downtown...
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 23, 2013

The 'barbarians' were coming — like it or not

'Sonnō jōi!": "Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013

Reflections on two cities

Having written over 10 guidebooks myself, I speak from experience when I say that working on these projects is a mixed blessing. Writing a first-time guide to a little-known part of the world, with the freedom to innovate with format and content, can be a rewarding task, but where there is a rigid template,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 23, 2013

Happiness: Abenomics falls short

What makes people happy? The global trend toward quantifying happiness certainly got a big boost from Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan kingdom that has championed and made a cottage industry out of the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH).
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 22, 2013

Robotics about to transform our notion of what is 'human'

Bertolt Meyer is used to being viewed as not fully human. Born with a stump where his left hand should have been, he spent his childhood wearing a hook connected to an elaborate pulley and harness. "To open the hook and grasp things I had to flex my shoulders like this," he says, striking a he-man pose....
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 22, 2013

Tower Records defiant in face of CD slump

Declining sales of CDs over the past decade may indicate a grim future for music shops, but Ikuo Minewaki believes there is still a place for brick and mortar retail outlets.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 22, 2013

Tourism goal within reach, JTA chief says

The rapid drop in the yen helped lure a record 3.17 million tourists to Japan from January to April, but achieving the government's goal of 10 million this year will require more work, Japan Tourism Agency Commissioner Norifumi Ide said.
WORLD
Jun 22, 2013

Fighting the poachers on Africa's thin green line

Esnart Paundi rarely smiled for the camera. One old photo shows her wearing her ranger's camouflage fatigues and a pensive expression as she crouches beside a mound of bushmeat and three despondent poachers, one handcuffed. In another she is in a black leather jacket at her sister's home, leaning against...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jun 21, 2013

Project prods jobless young to test strengths

Only two years after establishing a company in 2005, young entrepreneur Yujun Wakashin found himself in an unexpected predicament: his co-founder and employees ganged up on him, ousting him from his own firm.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 20, 2013

Are we all blinded by our sense of beauty?

Sophie Calle is an enigma. She is an artist, writer, photographer and filmmaker yet doesn't work exclusively in any of these areas. She has become famous for her work in photography but her objects and later films have drawn equal attention — work that carries with it the curiosity of a detective who...
EDITORIALS
Jun 19, 2013

Growth strategy misses

The 'Abenomics' growth strategy just adopted looks like a wish list of budgets with project names that will be coveted by individual government ministries.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2013

Iran's presidential election augurs better future

Hassan Rowhani's election as Iran's new president augurs well for that country and for a world tired of the senseless rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 19, 2013

Tepco minutes reveal staff exodus concerns

Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives spent dozens of meetings fretting about the utility's future as hundreds of younger employees quit over salary cuts after the Fukushima No. 1 reactor meltdowns, according to minutes obtained by Bloomberg News.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 19, 2013

Marubeni to set up floating wind turbine off Fukushima in world first

A group led by Marubeni Corp. is setting up a floating wind turbine off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture, aiming to commercialize the unproven technology and create an industry in the region ravaged by the 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear calamities.
SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Jun 19, 2013

Washington skipper a cool customer

When a man is in the eye of the hurricane, he is sometimes blissfully unaware of the turbulence all around him.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 18, 2013

'Big data' — a digital sea of personal info ripe for the taking?

Shop at Amazon.com and one automatically receives recommendations on books and other items based on previous queries and purchases. Similarly, checking a Facebook entry causes ads for local products and services to pop up.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 18, 2013

Democracy, interrupted: How local voices were silenced in Tokyo's first referendum

On Sunday, May 26, something quite remarkable happened in Kodaira city, western Tokyo: Over 50,000 citizens voted in Tokyo's very first local referendum (jūmin tōhyō) on the issue of whether a 50-year-old plan to construct a road should be reviewed or not.
WORLD
Jun 18, 2013

Deadly coronavirus dates to 2011: study

The new coronavirus that has killed 33 people since September may have emerged almost a year earlier than the first known case and circulated unnoticed for that time, a study has shown.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake