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EDITORIALS

Nov 5, 2012

Lessons of the Cuban missile crisis

Fifty years have passed since the Cuban missile crisis took place in 1962. A failure to diplomatically resolve the crisis, which lasted from Oct. 15-28, might have developed into a nuclear exchange that turned into a total nuclear war.

EDITORIALS

Nov 5, 2012

BOJ needs bolder approach

The Bank of Japan has taken an additional monetary easing measure, including expanding its asset-purchase fund by ¥11 trillion to a total of ¥91 trillion and keeping its key short-term interest rate at around zero to 0.1 percent. It will loan funds at an annual interest rate of 0.1 percent to financial...

EDITORIALS

Nov 4, 2012

Gaming addictions getting worse

Gaming addictions have increased in Japan, according to recent reports from counseling services and treatment centers. Counseling services have received hundreds of requests for consultations over the past year.

EDITORIALS

Nov 4, 2012

Stricter standards for nuclear sites

The Nuclear Regulatory Authority has broadened the definition of active geological faults that is used in the review of the safety of nuclear power plants. Until this point, faults that have shifted in the past 120,000 to 130,000 years have been regarded as active.

EDITORIALS

Nov 3, 2012

Has Mr. Berlusconi's luck run out?

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been found guilty of tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. Incredibly for a leader of a Group of Eight nation, this is not Mr. Berlusconi's first conviction — he has been found guilty in three other unrelated trials — nor might it be...

EDITORIALS

Nov 2, 2012

Justice for Mr. Mainali

In a Monday retrial of Mr. Govinda Prasad Mainali, a Nepalese man who had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the March 1997 robbery-murder of a 39-year-old Tokyo woman, the prosecution reversed its position and stated that he is innocent. The Tokyo High Court will acquit him on Nov. 7....

EDITORIALS

Nov 2, 2012

Urgent tasks for the Diet

Following Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's policy speech on Monday in the Lower House, a period of questions and answers started in the current extraordinary Diet session on Wednesday. Political parties should refrain from bickering and speedily act on two urgent issues — the passage of a bill to float...

EDITORIALS

Nov 1, 2012

Wealth and power in China

The New York Times has reported that the family of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao controls assets worth $2.7 billion. In response, access to The New York Times in China is now blocked and every mention of the story in the media and on microblogs is being censured. The story is a reminder of the problems...

EDITORIALS

Oct 31, 2012

Chipping away at Mr. Noda's rule

In a Lower House by-election on Sunday in the Kagoshima No. 3 constituency, a Liberal Democratic Party candidate, also supported by Komeito, defeated a candidate of the People's New Party — a coalition partner of the Democratic Party of Japan — who received full support from the DPJ. The DPJ's defeat...

EDITORIALS

Oct 31, 2012

Partisan politics hobble Diet

A 33-day extraordinary Diet session kicked off on Monday under unusual circumstances. The opposition in the Upper House refused to listen to a policy speech by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on the grounds that the chamber in the previous session passed a censure motion against him. Thus Mr. Noda gave...

EDITORIALS

Oct 30, 2012

Eleven long years of war

Eleven years have passed since America and its coalition allies launched Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban government in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, a little less than a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States that killed some 3,000 people.

EDITORIALS

Oct 30, 2012

Prenatal test raises ethical concerns

As part of their research, about a dozen medical institutions in Japan plan to start carrying out prenatal detection tests that can predict whether a fetus has Down syndrome or not with an accuracy of more than 99 percent. The method, developed in the United States, consists of testing a blood sample...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.

What comes after 100?

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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