Search - 2012

 
 
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 3, 2010

Showrooms get i-MiEV, first cheap electric car

Japan's first mass-market electric car arrived in showrooms Thursday as the futuristic technology becomes more affordable amid a burgeoning price war.
EDITORIALS
Apr 2, 2010

New START on arms control

It is tempting to dismiss the latest arms control treaty between the United States and Russia as more flash than bang. After all, it leaves thousands of weapons in each country's arsenal, eliminates weapons that both governments would have likely cut anyway and there is no guarantee that either legislature...
BUSINESS
Mar 27, 2010

Deflation hits 12th month

Consumer prices fell for a 12th month in February, adding pressure on the central bank to eradicate deflation that is hampering the economic recovery.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2010

Nationality is no way to select IMF leader

BERKELEY, Calif. — The International Monetary Fund, many say, has had a good crisis. As recently as three years ago, many observers thought that the Fund had outlived its usefulness and should be closed down. Since then, it has intervened in Hungary, Latvia, Iceland and Ukraine, among other crisis-stricken...
EDITORIALS
Mar 21, 2010

Trouble in the workers' paradise

The reported execution of a ranking North Korean economic official is a reminder of the high personal price that can be paid for policy failures in that country. The official may be a scapegoat, but the sentence is a sign of the Pyongyang leadership's concern about the toll that a botched currency reform...
LIFE / WEEK 3
Mar 21, 2010

Moves afoot to make Japanese holidays a pleasure not a pain

It's a seasonal phenomenon in Japan: lines of cars 40-km long and more clogging expressways; super- jammed shinkansen terminals and airports; and hot-spring resorts besieged by visitors crammed cheek to cheek in the steaming baths, imo-arai-style (literally, "washing potatoes in a bucket").
BUSINESS
Mar 20, 2010

Global retailers may 'welcome' shift to thrift: McKinsey

Consumers' newfound propensity to shop for discounts and shun luxury goods marks a sea change that may boost foreign retailers in Japan, according to McKinsey & Co.
JAPAN / GOVERNMENT DEBT CRISIS
Mar 19, 2010

Bubble prophet fears new disaster

Prominent economist Yukio Noguchi is one of the few who correctly predicted the collapse of Japan's bubble economy in 1987, warning the preceding euphoria was based on a major distortion in land prices.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2010

Wishful thinking fuels Kremlin's temptation

PARIS — What is the significance of France's recent sale of four powerful Mistral-class landing assault ships to Russia? Was it business as usual or an irresponsible move contributing to a dangerous shift in the balance of power in the Baltic and Black Seas?
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 17, 2010

Kan to BOJ: work with us to curb deflation

Finance Minister Naoto Kan repeated a plea for the Bank of Japan to work with the government on reversing a decline in prices that threatens the economic recovery.
EDITORIALS
Mar 14, 2010

Back to the fast-breeder path

The Nuclear Safety Commission on Feb. 22 gave the go-ahead to starting the test run of the prototype fast-breeder reactor (FBR) Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. If the prefectural and municipal governments give their consent, the test run should begin by the end of March at the earliest.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2010

IMF flunks good governance

HONG KONG — On Feb. 26, International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn put forward a bold-sketch map for what he called "an IMF for the 21st century," but in the very same week he and two key members of the fund, China and Japan, flunked the most important test for the future...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2010

Iran's 'mullahnomics' is failing

ISTANBUL — As the standoff between Iran's government and opposition continues, one factor that may determine the outcome, but which is rarely discussed, is the rickety state of the Iranian economy. Will its sclerotic performance ultimately turn out to be what tips the balance?

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