Masami Ito

Masami Ito is a staff writer who has been covering national politics since 2006. She joined The Japan Times in 2001, and she also keeps an eye on issues related to the death penalty, asylum-seekers and international parental kidnapping.

For Masami Ito's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Feb 28, 2013

Assemblyman’s rebuke of moms seeking day care draws outrage

Mothers should remember that the responsibility of raising children lies first with each household before making “shameless” demands for more nursery schools, a Suginami Ward Assembly member wrote Feb. 21 in his blog, drawing hundreds of angry comments. Yutaro Tanaka, a member of the ...

The long arm of the antipiracy law

Feb 28, 2013

The long arm of the antipiracy law

Captured half a world away, off the coast of Oman in the Indian Ocean, four Somalis are sent to Tokyo to stand trial for piracy after a failed attempt to hijack an oil tanker. Three have already been convicted by the Tokyo District Court.

Feb 23, 2013

Metro government’s Senkaku donations gathering dust

The ¥1.48 billion that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government collected in donations to buy and maintain the Senkakus is just lying idle, waiting to be used, after the central government nipped in to snag the disputed islets in September. Money began pouring from last April ...

Suicide prompts wife to sue Tepco

Feb 22, 2013

Suicide prompts wife to sue Tepco

The last words that a Fukushima dairy farmer said to his wife in the Philippines over the phone on the morning of June 10, 2011, was to make sure that she and their children ate well, stayed healthy and didn’t return to Japan. Later ...

Wiped out city waits for Tokyo to wake up

Feb 8, 2013

Wiped out city waits for Tokyo to wake up

It has been almost two years since much of Tohoku’s coastline was wiped out by tsunami on March 11. Gone are many of the destroyed buildings and vehicles that served as reminders of the horror and tragedy caused by the monster earthquake in the ...

Jan 29, 2013

12-year term urged in Somalis’ piracy trial

Prosecutors on Monday demanded 12-year prison terms for two Somalis being tried on charges of boarding and attempting to hijack a Bahama-registered oil tanker operated by a Japanese company in the Indian Ocean in 2011. This is the first case being prosecuted under the ...

Naming slain captives raises privacy issues

Jan 25, 2013

Naming slain captives raises privacy issues

The victims’ right to privacy was pitted against the public’s right to know as the media pressed for the names of the Algerian hostage crisis victims to be disclosed while the government and JGC Corp. remained tight-lipped, but Tokyo finally caved Friday, revealing the ...