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August 24, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Dec 10, 2008
Precipitous drop in popularity
A Cabinet is said to have entered "dangerous waters" if its public approval rating sinks below 30 percent. Only 2 1/2 months after Mr. Taro Aso came into power, the approval rating for his Cabinet has fallen to 25.5 percent, a drop of 15.4 percentage points from November, according to a Kyodo News poll....
EDITORIALS
Dec 10, 2008
Health net for children
A September survey by the health and welfare ministry has found that about 32,900 children throughout the country were not covered by health insurance because their parents had failed to pay premiums to the National Health Insurance system (Kokumin Kenko Hoken). Irregularly employed workers, unemployed...
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 2008
Budget in disarray
The government has adopted a basic policy for the fiscal 2009 budget compilation. It will maintain budget caps introduced in 2006 by the Koizumi administration, which include a 3-percent annual cut in public-works spending and a ¥220 billion reduction each year in the natural growth of social security...
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 2008
Betrayal of public trust
An investigative committee on Nov. 28 handed welfare minister Yoichi Masuzoe a report stating that workers at local offices of the Social Insurance Agency systematically falsified pension records of company employees. Falsification consisted of (1) recording employee salaries as lower than their actual...
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 2008
Remember Pearl Harbor
Just 67 years ago, Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor in Oahu and sank four battleships and other vessels of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, killing some 2,400 Americans. This attack and the landing — one hour earlier — of Imperial Japanese Army units on Malay Peninsula expanded Japan's...
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 2008
Temps weather the storm
It is becoming increasingly clear that the economy is sinking deeper. Domestic sales of new vehicles in November plunged 27.3 percent from a year earlier. The U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research found that the U.S. recession had started in December 2007. As the U.S. and European economies are unlikely...
EDITORIALS
Dec 7, 2008
World AIDS Day
Dec. 1 marked the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. While there may be more to celebrate now than two decades ago, 25 million people have died of AIDS since then. UNAIDS/WHO estimates 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, while Africa alone has 11 million AIDS orphans. During 2007,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 6, 2008
Prepping a new climate deal
A two-week meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP14, is now under way in Poznan, Poland, with some 10,000 delegates and environmentalists from some 190 countries attending. The participants are supposed to discuss international efforts...
EDITORIALS
Dec 5, 2008
Political theater of the absurd
It is tempting to call Thai politics a comedy, but to be more accurate, it has descended into farce — if not tragedy. The machinations that have paralyzed the country has undermined a once thriving and vibrant democracy. The Bangkok elites' determination to disregard the will of the Thai majority shows...
EDITORIALS
Dec 4, 2008
Stellar U.S. security team
Whatever doubts may have existed about U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy should be put to rest since he announced his national security team. The group is notable for its experience and levelheadedness. Perhaps most significant is the self-confidence the selections reveal: Mr. Obama...
EDITORIALS
Dec 3, 2008
Proposals for pension reform
The Social Security Council, an advisory body for the health and welfare minister, has issued an interim report on reform of the nation's pension system, on the assumption that pensions, in principle, will be paid out of social insurance funds. The main pillars of the eight-point report are proposals...
EDITORIALS
Dec 3, 2008
New Supreme Court justice
The Supreme Court's new chief justice took office Nov. 25. Mr. Hironobu Takesaki, who had served as head of the Tokyo High Court since February 2007, was promoted to the highest post of Japan's judiciary over the heads of 14 justices of the Supreme Court. This is the first time in 48 years that chief...
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
Women-only communities flourish in China
Chen Yani (right), nicknamed "Keke," eats lunch with friends and guests in a female co-living space she founded called "Keke's Imaginative Space" in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on July 14.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Man arrested over deadly stabbing of woman in Kobe
Masashi Tanimoto, 35, the suspect in the deadly stabbing a 24-year-old woman, is taken into custody in Kobe on Friday night.
Japanese city proposes two-hour daily limit for smartphone use
The Toyoake Municipal Government in Aichi Prefecture is planning to enact an ordinance to urge all smartphone users in the city to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school.
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.
Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.

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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