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August 24, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Oct 15, 2008
Japan as a tourist destination
Japan's newly formed Tourism Agency, whose formation was announced Oct. 1, will have a lot of work to do. Even with the variety of appealing and fascinating sites nationwide, establishing a tourist infrastructure is no easy task. Most other countries in Asia have long since built a network for tourism,...
EDITORIALS
Oct 15, 2008
Off the list and counting
The United States has removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after the North agreed on terms for verifying its nuclear programs. The U.S. made the decision in order to advance the stalled six-party talks on the North's denuclearization. The decision is a concession on the part...
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2008
'People's Democrats' in name
The political situation in Thailand continues to deteriorate. After forcing the resignation of one prime minister, the opposition has stepped up its fight to unseat the government in Bangkok and take power. This has resulted in the worst violence in nearly two decades, which has left at least one person...
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2008
Urgent and exceptional action
An action plan agreed Friday in Washington by finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven major economies states that they will "take decisive action and use all available tools to support systemically important financial institutions and prevent their failure." The plan calls...
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2008
Refugees in Japan
This year the number of applicants for refugee status in Japan has increased to its highest level ever — nearly 1,000 people — according to the Japan Association for Refugees. This indicates an improving system and an expanding view of how to handle refugees coming to Japan. Last summer the government...
EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2008
A secret kind of control
The Defense Ministry on Oct. 2 dismissed a 50-year-old colonel of the Air Self-Defense Force for allegedly passing a "defense secret" to a Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reporter more than three years ago. The information was about a Chinese submarine that had surfaced in the South China Sea and was adrift....
EDITORIALS
Oct 10, 2008
Credit to scientific pioneers
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' announcement that a Japan-born American and two Japanese will receive the Nobel Prize in physics for 2008 is certainly uplifting news following the recent days of gloom over the impact of the credit crisis that has spread from the United States and the apparent...
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 2008
NPT at a crossroads
The U.S. Congress has approved a nuclear deal between the United States and India that will allow the U.S. to export nuclear fuel, reactors and technologies for peaceful energy use to India. The agreement, which went into effect Wednesday when signed by President George W. Bush, is virtual recognition...
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 2008
Danger to the real economy
The financial crisis that originated in the United States shows no sign of abating despite congressional passage last week of a $700 billion financial rescue package. There is a danger that it could further damage the real economy.
EDITORIALS
Oct 8, 2008
Public wariness hampers police
The National Police Agency's 2008 police white paper shows that investigators are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain information from witnesses, suspects and others during criminal investigations. Behind this is increasing public indifference to others, growing distrust of the police, and a...
EDITORIALS
Oct 8, 2008
Beyond the Kyoto Protocol
One of former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's notable achievements was when, as the chair of the Group of Eight summit this summer, he managed to get the G8 nations to broadly agree on efforts to fight global warming. Although the government has changed, Japan must strive with other countries to overcome...
EDITORIALS
Oct 7, 2008
Pressures on health system
The introduction in April of the health insurance system for people age 75 or over is exerting so much financial pressure on health insurance societies that some of them have dissolved themselves. As the graying of the population progresses, the government must reconstruct and set the nation's medical...
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.
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.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan

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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