For Eric Johnston's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
With the publication of a suicide note by a former Finance Ministry official and subsequent lawsuit by his widow, the Moritomo Gakuen scandal has returned to haunt Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But with Abe saying the issue has been settled and Japan finding itself ...
With the Diet focused on responding to the worsening spread of COVID-19, the timeline for the central government to approve the nation’s first casino resorts has been thrown into doubt. Plans still officially call for proposals to be submitted by interested local governments between January ...
Earlier this month, Kansai Electric Power Co. concluded that scores of its employees had received cash and gifts worth hundreds of millions of yen from an influential politician in a Fukui Prefecture town where the utility operates a nuclear power plant. The revelations by ...
With over 340 cases of novel coronavirus in six Kansai area prefectures as of Friday, local leaders want all residents who have just returned from overseas to self-quarantine. But despite Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike and the governors of surrounding Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Yamanashi prefectures ...
Doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo's sarin gas attack on Tokyo subway trains shocked Japan and the world, raising concerns over nonstate organizations obtaining weapons of mass destruction.
Osaka city approved a plan Wednesday that will make it the first major city in Japan to offer free school lunches to all students at municipal elementary and junior high schools, as part of its economic measures to ease the burden on parents in ...
The 1970 Osaka Expo laid down a bold statement about Japan's future. Fifty years later, has the country been able to live up to its promises?
A mild winter in many parts of Japan means the cherry blossoms are expected to arrive earlier than usual. By the time we hit April — the start of the fiscal year, the school term, and when new employees begin their first day ...
While the national government drive forward legal revisions to allow the declaration of a national emergency over the COVID-19 virus as early as this week, local governments are growing increasingly concerned about the spread of the novel coronavirus in so-called clusters. Experts say that small, ...
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government aims to pass by week's end controversial revisions to a 2012 law governing national actions to be taken in the event of new types of influenza. The changes, which the administration aims to pass with as much opposition approval as ...
