Kiroku Hanai - The Japan Times

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Kiroku Hanai

For Kiroku Hanai's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY

Mar 22, 2004

Cracking police shell games

Police in Hokkaido, Shizuoka and Fukuoka prefectures have allegedly misused taxpayers' money. A number of active and retired officers have disclosed that money appropriated for phony business trips and investigative activities was diverted to slush funds.

COMMENTARY

Feb 23, 2004

Revise the antimonopoly law

Experts agree that Japan must strengthen its Antimonopoly Act, push deregulation to promote economic reform, reactivate its sluggish economy and protect consumer interests.

COMMENTARY

Jan 26, 2004

Avoid the road to isolation

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi once again showed insensitivity to the feelings of fellow Asians by going to Yasukuni Shrine on New Year's Day to honor Japan's war dead. Convicted Class-A war criminals are among those whose memories are enshrined there.

COMMENTARY

Dec 22, 2003

Time to revise unequal SOFA

A group of lawmakers of the governing Liberal Democratic Party is campaigning for the drastic revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. The group, headed by Lower House member Toshio Kojima, has come up with a proposal for revising SOFA in cooperation with a council of governors of 14 prefectures, including Okinawa and Kanagawa, where U.S. military installations exist.

COMMENTARY

Nov 24, 2003

Stub out the smoking habit

The Tokyo District Court has rejected a damage suit filed against Japan Tobacco Inc. and the national government by seven former smokers who said they developed cancer and other health troubles from long years of smoking. The suit, filed by victims of lung cancer, cancer of the larynx and emphysema, charged that JT failed to inform consumers of the health risks of smoking and the state failed to take effective measures to restrict smoking. The suit, which also demanded damages and a restrictions on cigarette sales, was the most important among 17 tobacco-related damage suits filed in Japan since 1980.

COMMENTARY

Oct 27, 2003

Resuscitating Japanese labor

Following a protracted economic slowdown, the labor movement in Japan is in the doldrums. The unionization rate has fallen to about 20 percent due to stepped-up corporate restructuring and widespread worker distrust of unions. The nation's top labor federation, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo, has lost 1 million members since its founding 14 years ago.

COMMENTARY

Sep 22, 2003

Decentralization will finish road to democracy in Japan

Some independent or reformist prefectural governors have come out with their own plans to revitalize local politics and economies. Their ultimate goal is to end the centralization of administrative power that dates back to the Meiji Restoration and establish real local autonomy. To achieve the goal, fiscal systems equivalent to the national fiscal system and financed by local taxes must be established, governors say.

COMMENTARY

Aug 26, 2003

Fujimori case testing Japan

The Japanese government is facing mounting pressure from the Peruvian government for the extradition of former President Alberto Fujimori, who has been in exile in Japan since November 2000. Last March, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for the disgraced former leader and late last month, the Peruvian government submitted a formal request to the Japanese government for his extradition. So far Tokyo has refused to hand Fujimori over to Lima on the grounds that he holds Japanese citizenship.

COMMENTARY

Jul 28, 2003

More transparency needed in investigations of suspects

Little progress is reported in Japan-U.S. talks on legal proceedings in the alleged rape of an Okinawan woman by a U.S. serviceman. A hitch has developed over the demand by U.S. authorities for greater protection of the suspect's rights.

COMMENTARY

Jun 23, 2003

Diet group takes uneasy steps toward abolishing death penalty

Among major industrial countries, only Japan and the United States retain capital punishment. In Japan, however, there is a growing abolition movement. The Diet Members' League for Abolition of the Death Penalty, a suprapartisan group headed by Shizuka Kamei of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, has drafted legislation to replace capital punishment with life imprisonment and to establish panels in both Houses of the Diet to study the death penalty.

COMMENTARY

May 26, 2003

High cost of the farm lobby

The outlook for the World Trade Organization's new round of trade negotiations is uncertain after member nations failed to agree on farm-trade "modality" before the March 31 deadline. The U.S.-European split over the Iraq war has slowed the momentum for talks. The initial goal of reaching a comprehensive agreement by January 2005 is now in doubt.

COMMENTARY

Apr 28, 2003

Fair, transparent foreign aid

Last September the Japanese government was stunned by a lawsuit filed with the Tokyo District Court by 3,861 residents of Indonesia's Sumatra Island. The plaintiffs said their life had been disrupted by a dam for hydroelectric power and flood control built with Japan's official development assistance. Each resident sought 5 million yen in damages.

COMMENTARY

Mar 25, 2003

Weak tobacco pact reflects Japan's lukewarm attitude

The member-nations of the World Health Organization have recently approved a draft Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), putting an end to four years of negotiations. The draft is expected to be adopted at the general meeting of the WHO in May, and will take effect after 40 countries have ratified it.

COMMENTARY

Feb 24, 2003

Reform of the fourth estate

I was stunned by recent media reports that Takuhiko Tsuruta, president of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper, had become a whistle-blowing target. At a company shareholders meeting, a proposal demanding Tsuruta's dismissal from the board was presented by an editor and shareholder of the newspaper. Tsuruta survived the motion.

COMMENTARY

Jan 27, 2003

The war dead deserve better

I was stunned by news reports that Junichiro Koizumi recently made his third visit as prime minister to Yasukuni Shrine. After his two previous visits drew strong protests from China and South Korea, and after he struggled to justify the visits, officials in both countries must be amazed and angered.

COMMENTARY

Dec 23, 2002

Contrived crisis in education

Educational reform is becoming a political issue in Japan. At the center of the controversy is the Education Basic Law, which took effect in 1947 when the Constitution was established. Earlier this year the Central Council for Education, an advisory panel to the education minister, published an interim report calling for a revision of the law.

COMMENTARY

Nov 25, 2002

Flawed civil service proposal

To carry out the first major reform of the national civil service system in 50 years, the government plans to introduce legislation in the Diet next year to revise the national public service law. Under present plans, the new law would be implemented beginning in fiscal 2006. A task force of the Cabinet secretariat in charge of administrative reform is compiling the legislation based on an outline of civil-service reform adopted by the Cabinet late last year.

COMMENTARY

Oct 28, 2002

Reformists persist in Iran

Late last month I made my first visit in 22 years to Iran, where I had covered the Islamic revolution under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini as a Japanese newspaper correspondent. Some conspicuous changes in the country attracted my attention.

COMMENTARY

Sep 24, 2002

Building corporate integrity

A spate of corporate scandals have rocked Japan this year. Snow Brand Foods Co. and Nippon Ham Co. mislabeled beef, abusing the government's buyback program that was set up to bail out the beef industry following the outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan. Trading giant Mitsui & Co. was implicated in a payoff scandal involving a Mongolian project funded by Japanese official development assistance. And Tokyo Electric Power Co. falsified inspection reports for its nuclear reactors.

COMMENTARY

Aug 27, 2002

Build alternative to Yasukuni

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine in April inflamed Beijing, casting a chill on Japan-China relations. The row forced Koizumi to cancel a visit to Beijing he had planned for this fall to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the normalization of Japan-China diplomatic relations. The two nations are no longer in a celebratory mood.

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