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COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 15, 2015

Growth-stunting technology

Though information and communications technology has made remarkable strides since 1991, it appears to have stunted Japan's economic growth rate.
Japan Times
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Feb 15, 2015

Mainstream Japanese society slowly working to accommodate sexual minorities

When she was in her teens, Yumiko Higuchi was suicidal.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 28, 2015

Making your U.S. tax filing from Japan that little bit less ... taxing

Calvin Tong, an American taxation expert and long-term Japan resident, explains recent changes in U.S. taxation laws that have left many Americans here confused.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2015

Big banks are chomping at the bit to resume riskier trading activities

The bigger U.S. banks are chomping at the bit to resume riskier trading activities including derivatives speculation, which allows banks to take on excessive risk.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2015

Looser credit policies for China's better cities

The best way to sustain China's economic transition and prevent a hard landing is to implement looser monetary and credit policies that enable the most productive cities, companies and industries to generate new added value.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jan 22, 2015

Social media pressure Cambodian leaders

The CCTV footage is blurry but graphic. A gunman stands over a cringing victim, firing bullet after bullet into his body until the Phnom Penh street is spattered with blood.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 29, 2014

Consumer stimulus is not the same as welfare, though the purpose is the same

There may still be time to apply for the government's one-time welfare handout.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 25, 2014

How Japan's economy put itself out to pasture

Simply put, Japan is a bankrupt nation, even as gross domestic product outgrows that of the U.S. economy on a per capita basis.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2014

Amid reform talk, hopes grow for short-term home rental market

Japan seems to have the right mix for developing a vibrant short-term home rental market: a rapidly growing tourism industry, a cheap currency and — unlike many countries — 8 million vacant homes.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 11, 2014

Hong Kong protesters told to clear streets or risk arrest

Hong Kong's acting chief executive on Tuesday called on pro-democracy protesters to clear sites they have occupied for more than six weeks and warned holdouts they could face arrest, a move that could swell protest numbers.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Oct 24, 2014

Nico Nico moves into Ikebukuro

Since launching in 2006, online video-sharing service Nico Nico (originally Nico Nico Douga) has become one of Japan's central hubs for aspiring artists and entertainers to share their talents with users across the country. They've fostered a millions-strong community capable of influencing mainstream...
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2014

Oil-price dip is no panacea

Falling oil prices — to below $80 a barrel a few weeks ago — indicate that concern over faltering demand because of weakness in the global economy trumps the usual market reponse to turmoil in the Middle East.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 27, 2014

Farewell to Taiwanese cinema, but not to love

If Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang threw a dinner party, it's easy to guess who would be invited. Tsai has staunchly and consistently worked with the same small cluster of actors from his 1992 debut film "Rebels of the Neon God" through to "Stray Dogs," which will open in Tokyo on Sept. 6, under the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2014

The age of intelligent robots

When a chatbot can convince judges at Britain's Royal Society that it is a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy with limited English skills, it may be time to worry about a computer taking your job.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 14, 2014

Happy endings: foreigners working in Japan's film industry

Film is supposed to be a universal language, but the film business in any given country is usually run by the locals for the locals. The one great exception is Hollywood, which has been making films for the world since the silent days and is open to talent, preferably English speaking, from around the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2014

Calculating the ethical cost of high-priced art

If artists, art critics and art buyers really had any interest in reducing the widening gap between the rich and the poor, they would spend time in developing countries, where spending a few thousand dollars on the works of indigenous artists can make a real difference to the wellbeing of whole villages.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 28, 2014

Money trail leads to Putin's circle

Outside a Moscow stadium one night in 2006, deputy central banker Andrei Kozlov was walking to his car after playing soccer when two men opened fire, pumping bullets into his head and neck and also killing his driver.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

India's status quo is riskier

The political party that proudly led India into independence has been reduced to a self-serving coterie of sycophants, courtiers and court jesters. Is the status quo more risky than the 'Modi alternative' in the current election?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 14, 2014

Next six weeks crucial as Putin tries not to lose Ukraine

Vladimir Putin looks likely to go down in history as the Russian leader who won back Crimea, but he is fighting to avoid also being remembered as the man who let Ukraine escape from Moscow's sphere of influence.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 16, 2014

Hit Hokkaido's slopes for tasty seasonal fare

Kutchan, near Niseko, is probably the only town in Japan where convenience stores stock pinto beans and Vegemite. In fact, Hokkaido's ski paradise, internationally known for its powder snow, is steadily forging a new reputation, one bite at a time.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 16, 2014

Cultist downplays guilt as trial opens

Makoto Hirata, one of the last Aum Shinrikyo cultists yet to be tried, on Thursday played down his involvement in the 1995 kidnapping of a Tokyo notary, telling the Tokyo District Court in his first trial session that he only drove the getaway car and had no inkling of what was to unfold.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jan 6, 2014

Retirement homes come of age in booming market

In order to address its rapidly aging society, the Japanese government has enacted a variety of measures since the start of the millennium, mostly related to the health care system. A more pressing matter is housing, since so many elderly people will be living on their own compared to the past when extended...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 4, 2014

Cash, sex, the mob? Weeklies seek clues in gyōza king's killing

Just when it was starting to look like 2013 would end with minimal gun violence in Japan, two socially prominent individuals were shot dead in the space of two days.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 28, 2013

Names of 2013 we're unlikely to forget

Social media continues to undermine the influence of the more traditional kind exemplified by television and print publications, so my choices of most notable public phenomena of 2013 are qualified by the notion that maybe people aren't paying as much attention to them as I might think.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 28, 2013

There's a cloud above our silver generation

Travel back with me, reader, 60 years in time. It's 1953. Two booms are in full swing: one economic, the other reproductive; the first fueled largely by the Korean War, the second, in part, by the first. Among the 2 million babies born in Japan that year — nearly twice as many as were born this year...
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 12, 2013

Top pension fund urged to buy airport concessions

New Kansai International Airport Co. is seeking to attract the state-run retirement fund to a sale of two airport concessions that could raise as much as ¥1.2 trillion.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2013

India's wealthy must open gates and fight chaos

Even well-to-do Indians, whose disengagement has made the erosion of public institutions possible, can no longer escape the extortion and lawlessness that the less lucky have always faced.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INNOVATIVE CITY FORUM
Sep 17, 2013

Creating healthier ecosystems in future cities by rethinking urban areas from scratch

The mass production of affordable automobiles is perhaps one of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?