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May 19, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Apr 26, 2009
The promise of higher education
High school students from single-mother households are giving up on higher education, according to a recent poll by Ashinaga, an NPO providing financial support to children who have lost one or both of their parents. Rather than pursue their dreams of education, over 40 percent are going to work instead....
EDITORIALS
Apr 26, 2009
90 million Japanese wired
Internet users in Japan topped 90 million at the end of 2008, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reported earlier this month. That means three out of four Japanese are communicating, shopping, reading or hanging out on the Internet. With Japan's advanced broadband and fiber-optic connections,...
EDITORIALS
Apr 25, 2009
Time to debate, Mr. Ozawa
The Liberal Democratic Party has repeatedly asked Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, to participate in a one-on-one Diet debate with Prime Minister Taro Aso. But the DPJ has refused. If this situation continues, Mr. Ozawa and the DPJ will create the impression that they have chosen...
EDITORIALS
Apr 25, 2009
Tent villages highlight shortfalls
The establishment of a tent village in Tokyo's Hibiya Park during the New Year's holidays to help unemployed temporary workers is a sobering reflection of these hard times. In the tent village, nonprofit organization and labor union activists gave advice on a variety of matters ranging from finding employment...
EDITORIALS
Apr 24, 2009
Tokyo by-law threatens freedoms
Street performances are fun for many people and give character to streets and communities such as Tokyo's Shibuya, Harajuku, Akihabara and Kichijoji areas. But now such activities may be restricted or banned due to a revision of the Tokyo metropolitan by-law for "the building of safe and secure communities,"...
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 2009
Resignation not enough
Mr. Noboru Okubo and his eldest son have resigned respectively as chief director and vice director of the Kyoto-based Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation over irregularities related to its operations, including the accumulation of unusually large profits for a public-interest corporation and opaque...
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 2009
A complicated trial
The Third Petty Bench of the Supreme Court, in a 5-0 decision Tuesday, upheld lower court rulings that sentenced a Wakayama woman to death for killing four people and poisoning 63 others by lacing a curry stew with arsenic during a community summer festival in July 1998. This was a difficult and unusual...
EDITORIALS
Apr 22, 2009
A boost for consumer rights
A government agency to promote consumer rights, a pet idea of former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, is likely to be established this fall at the earliest. The Lower House's plenary session on Friday unanimously passed related bills, products of compromise between the ruling and opposition parties. The...
EDITORIALS
Apr 22, 2009
Fixing social safety nets
Prime Minister Taro Aso has established a panel to discuss social security and state finance from a middle- and long-range viewpoint. The panel, described as a "conference to build a society in which people will have a sense of economic security," has held its first meeting in which it confirmed that...
EDITORIALS
Apr 21, 2009
Shukan Shincho's responsibility
Shukan Shincho weekly magazine, in its Feb. 5 issue, carried the first of a four-part series of accounts by a man who claimed to be responsible for a May 3, 1987, attack on the Asahi Shimbun newspaper's Hanshin bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, that killed one reporter and injured another. But...
EDITORIALS
Apr 21, 2009
Ensure safety of nuclear power
The white papers issued by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) and the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission (JNSC) highlight the difficult situation faced by Japan's nuclear power industry. The JAEC's 2008 white paper says that facility utilization rates at Japan's nuclear power plants dropped to a...
EDITORIALS
Apr 20, 2009
Integrity needed in journalism
The Nara District Court on April 15 gave a suspended sentence to a Kyoto psychiatrist for leaking investigation records as well as the content of a psychiatric test concerning a then 16-year-old boy to a freelance journalist. The boy, who was eventually sent to a reformatory, had torched his house in...
Nissan to solicit early retirements while eyeing plant closures in Japan
Nissan's Oppama plant in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, may be closed as part of the struggling carmaker's streamlining efforts.
Australian firm produces heavy rare earth, in first outside China
The Lynas Rare Earths processing plant in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
Police arrest Chinese man in Saitama hit-and-run case
Police questioned a man who turned himself in as he closely resembled the driver recorded on the dashcam of another vehicle that happened to pass by the scene of a hit-and-run incident in Saitama Prefecture.
Wholesalers may be behind elevated retail rice prices
Wholesalers added ¥7,593 on average to their selling prices for stockpiled rice, far more than the ¥2,206 to ¥4,689 added for the 2022 rice.
Success of Chinese-made fighter jets against India raises alarm in Asia
Chinese J-10 fighter jets from the People's Liberation Army Air Force August 1st Aerobatics Team perform during a media demonstration at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, in November 2015.
In Nintendo’s backyard, foreign indie game devs are thriving
Kyoto's gaming landscape is dominated by Nintendo's headquarters, but a contingent of foreign-born indie developers is also working in the gaming giant's shadow.
Akazawa's dilemma: no tariff deal or a half-baked deal
Chief tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa and his delegation in the Oval Office of the White House in April. Since then, Japan's trade negotiations with the U.S. have produced no tangible results.
Nissan hoping to electrify home crowd as Formula E returns to Tokyo
Nissan's Oliver Rowland drives during qualifying for Miami E-Prix at Homestead Motor Speedway in Homestead, Florida, on April 12.
For his first feature film, director Ryuya Suzuki created a masterpiece
"Jinsei," which follows its protagonist over a century, probes themes of identity and societal issues with a dark comic touch. The director, however, says he created the story without knowing where it would lead.
Historian Rob Fitts discovers earliest ever reference to baseball in Japan
Japan's Shohei Ohtani carries the Japanese flag onto the field before the start of the World Baseball Classic final against the United States in Miami on March 21, 2023.

Podcast

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

Longform

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

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