Search - 2020

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2010

Hope for climate-change agenda after Kyoto

CANCUN, Mexico — The official communique from the Cancun climate-change conference cannot disguise the fact that there will be no successor to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires at the end of 2012. Japan, among others, has withdrawn its support for efforts simply to extend the Kyoto treaty. This sounds...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 12, 2010

Can Nissan start weaning the auto industry off petroleum?

On Dec. 3, BBC News reported that the prices of petroleum on both sides of the Atlantic hit their highest levels since the financial crisis, with Goldman Sachs forecasting an increase to $100 per barrel in 2011.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 29, 2010

More work needed to fix global financial system

Despite the default risks being raised by the sovereign debt crisis, European unification as a political project will remain intact, and the euro will continue to make sense as a single regional currency in an era when financial markets and global trade are interconnected, a senior European economist...
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2010

Kyoto doubts prompt Japan to hedge carbon-trading bet

Japan, the world's fifth-biggest producer of greenhouse gases, is building a new emissions market as the widest carbon-trading spreads in four months signal that the 1997 Kyoto climate agreement will be scrapped.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2010

APEC leaders in free-trade push

YOKOHAMA — Leaders from the 21 Pacific Rim economies kicked off a two-day meeting here Saturday to push free trade as a precursor to regional economic integration sometime in the next decade.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2010

Foreign media search for signs of future stance on TPP

YOKOHAMA — Foreign journalists who gathered Saturday in Yokohama to cover the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit are closely watching for indications of Japan's future stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, with the government having deferred a decision amid strong opposition...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2010

TPP could expedite farm reforms

The agriculture industry is in the spotlight as a result of the government's interest in a U.S.-backed trans-Pacific free-trade agreement that could scrap high tariffs on heavily protected products such as rice.
BUSINESS
Nov 13, 2010

Uniting APEC too tall an order for Kan?

Prime Minister Naoto Kan faces the huge task of forging consensus among the 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and paving the way for a regionwide free-trade zone as chair of the summit that kicks off Saturday in Yokohama.
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2010

Japan's push for open trade

The 2010 APEC forum meetings started in Yokohama on Monday and an APEC leaders summit will take place on Saturday and Sunday. As host and chair, Japan faces the task of leading the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members to agree on steps to push for further liberalization of trade and investment....
Reader Mail
Nov 4, 2010

Wishing Japan still had chutzpah

Regarding the Oct. 28 article "Ministries mixed on merits of joining Pacific FTA": Times have changed. I can remember coming to Japan over 20 years ago and hearing the Japanese defend the rice farmer as essential to "our culture." Now he is about to be sacrificed to the interests of global corporations...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2010

U.S. voters set to jump from frying pan to the fire

HONG KONG — Is the United States heading for disaster when the country goes to the polls Tuesday to elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2010

Voice of youth made itself heard at COP10, targets India

NAGOYA — While the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity finally wound to an end Saturday morning, a group of international students said their work toward COP11, slated for 2012 in India, was only just beginning.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2010

COP10 goes extra mile for a deal

NAGOYA — As thunder rumbled in the distance and a typhoon neared Nagoya, delegates to COP10 raced Friday to conclude new agreements on preserving biodiversity over the next decade and on access to genetic resources and how to distribute the money they make.
COMMENTARY
Oct 30, 2010

A diet for Britain's defense

One of the first acts of the British coalition government was the establishment of a National Security Council. Its primary task was to prepare a new strategic defense and security review. This was published on the day before the government announced its austerity program.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2010

Biodiversity protection step closer

NAGOYA — Negotiators at COP10 were close to agreement Thursday evening on key issues regarding access to genetic resources and post-2010 biodiversity protection targets, but fundamental points remained unresolved.
JAPAN
Oct 28, 2010

Ministries mixed on merits of joining Pacific FTA

Joining a U.S.-backed trans-Pacific free-trade agreement would push up Japan's real gross domestic product by ¥2.4 trillion to ¥3.2 trillion, or 0.48 to 0.65 percentage point, according to an estimate by the Cabinet Office released Wednesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 28, 2010

Japan's biodiversity pledge: $2 billion

NAGOYA — As Japan pledged $2 billion Wednesday to preserve biodiversity in the developing world, negotiators at COP10 reported progress toward concluding an international agreement on access to genetic resources and establishing biodiversity preservation targets over the next decade.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 28, 2010

APEC needs to find growth amid new global landscape

Asia-Pacific economies need to identify a new paradigm for post-crisis growth and Japan, as the chair of APEC this year, is required to set a new direction for the regional economic forum under the changing global circumstances, officials and experts said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Oct 27, 2010

Brace for the race to put bases on the moon

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) has just released the full data on last year's mission to find out whether there are usable amounts of water on the moon, and the news is good. There is plenty of frozen water on the moon, plus frozen gases like methane, oxygen and hydrogen that would...
COMMENTARY
Oct 27, 2010

A British lesson for Japan?

The program of cuts to be made in the British budget over the years to the next election due in 2015 was outlined by Finance Minister George Osborne to Parliament on Oct. 20. The program envisages the elimination of the structural deficit by 2015 and the axing of just under half a million jobs in the...

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