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August 27, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
May 28, 2012
Overruling doubt to indict: underbelly of Japan's reform
The April 26 acquittal in Tokyo District Court of former Democratic Party of Japan chief Ichiro Ozawa signified total "defeat" for public prosecutors in view of the strong possibility, as a journalist on judicial matters said, that the prosecutors had maneuvered a "prosecution inquest committee," an...
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2012
China, too, faces challenge of an aging society
By Cesar Chelala
Parallel to its economic development, China is facing the challenge of a rapidly aging population. This is happening at a time when urbanization and industrialization is quickly increasing in the country. It is a trend that has weakened traditional family support networks, particularly for the elderly....
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2012
Why do economies stop growing?
By Michael Spence
Over the years, advanced and developing countries have experimented, sometimes deliberately and frequently inadvertently, with a variety of approaches to growth. Unfortunately, many of these strategies have turned out to have built-in limitations or decelerators — what one might call elements of unsustainability....
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 28, 2012
Unmachinable, unreformable, but necessary
By Hiroaki Sato
One recent topic for The Wall Street Journal's front-page space set aside for stories other than the daily shenanigans of business, politics and wars was the community in Florida created for retired letter carriers. ("In Florida, These Retirees Deliver a First-Class Protest," March 27.)
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2012
The politics of victimhood
By Ramesh Thakur
When a group of gay activists engaged in an angry confrontation with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who was having dinner with a major columnist in a Melbourne restaurant, the journalist noted how those demanding tolerance of diversity had shown an ugly face of extreme intolerance uncharacteristic of...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 27, 2012
Nuclear power profiteers seem keen to risk getting blood on their hands
By Roger Pulvers
Areport this year by the Independent Investigation Committee on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, a group set up in September 2011 by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, condemned what it called Japan's "absolute safety myth." The Japanese government, in collusion with the media and the regional electric-power...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2012
Sierra Leone: finding forgiveness in unlikely places
By Samuel Konkofa Koroma
Last month a court in The Hague found former Liberian president Charles Taylor guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in fueling a 10-year, bloody conflict in Sierra Leone. The verdict capped a trial that itself had dragged on for years and had been punctuated by moments...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2012
Beijing's North Korea policy only emboldens Pyongyang
By Brad Glosserman
Discussions in Beijing about North Korea are always frustrating. It's not so much due to the sharp divergence in U.S. and Chinese thinking about how to deal with Pyongyang; the two sides differ on many issues. No, the real problem, from our perspective, is the illogic of the Chinese position. Indeed,...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2012
Turkey tacks new foreign policy course
By Abdullah Gul
Turkey has recently been at the forefront of international economic and political debates. On the one hand, despite the economic crisis engulfing neighboring Europe, Turkey remains the world's second-fastest growing economy, after China. On the other hand, there is almost no issue on the global agenda...
COMMENTARY
May 23, 2012
The worldwide triumph of English
By Gwynne Dyer
The second president of the United States, John Adams, predicted in 1780 that "English will be the most respectable language in the world and the most universally read and spoken in the next century, if not before the end of this one." It is destined "in the next and succeeding centuries to be more generally...
COMMENTARY / World
May 23, 2012
Chen case highlights Beijing's misrule of law
By Amy Gadsden and Michael A. Fitts
A last-minute deal between the United States and China may afford human-rights lawyer and activist Chen Guangcheng the opportunity to enroll in law school in New York. But, even if a way out of the diplomatic debacle is at hand, much about the case remains troubling. In particular, despite more than...
COMMENTARY
May 22, 2012
Lorca would have cheered Obama's decision
By Cesar Chelala
You will never know how much I love you
Tokyo releases AI-generated video of Mount Fuji erupting
A screenshot from an AI-generated video showing what could happen to Tokyo if Mount Fuji erupted
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan aims to tighten rules for business manager visas from October
The number of foreign residents with business management residency status had reached a record 41,615 as of the end of 2024.
Japanese prefectures break with labor ministry on minimum wage
The ministry of labor has suggested a 6% minimum wage increase, but most prefectures reporting so far are opting to go slightly higher.
Japan ranked one of the most peaceful places in Asia as global tensions rise
Visitors look at paper cranes hung at Peace Park in Nagasaki on Aug. 8, a day ahead of the 80th anniversary of the World War II atomic bombing of the city.
Japanese prefectures break with labor ministry on minimum wage
The ministry of labor has suggested a 6% minimum wage increase, but most prefectures reporting so far are opting to go slightly higher.
Philippines quietly deepening ‘unofficial’ defense ties with Taiwan
Filipino soldiers take part in a flag-raising ceremony on Mavulis Island during a visit by the Philippines' Armed Forces chief of staff, in Batanes, the Philippines, in June 2023. Batanes, a group of idyllic islands at the country’s northernmost tip, sits about 160 kilometers from Taiwan.
Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?
Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.
Germany's first sakemaker offers a bold brew of ideas
Reigen, Germany's first sake brewery, makes a diverse, nontraditional range of sake that includes fruit-flavored sips and wine barrel-aged renditions.
Alicia Keys closed Summer Sonic, but J-pop owned it
Summer Sonic’s 2025 lineup demonstrated its strength, showcasing the latest in J-pop, including “new kawaii” act Fruits Zipper.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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