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August 23, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Jun 21, 2008
Sea of cooperation
Japan and China have reached an agreement on gas development projects in the East China Sea. By shelving differences over the demarcation of exclusive economic zones (EEZs), the two countries achieved a compromise that will contribute to more stable and deeper bilateral ties.
EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2008
Death of a serial killer
Tsutomu Miyazaki, the death-row inmate convicted of killing four girls from 1988 to 1989, was executed Tuesday, as were two other men. The number of death-row inmates hanged on the orders of Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama has now reached 13, topping the post-1993 record of 10 ordered hanged by Justice...
EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2008
A North Korean about-face
North Korea has promised to begin a "reinvestigation" of the fate of Japanese nationals abducted by its agents and to hand over the four remaining members of the nine leftists who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet to Pyongyang in 1970 along with two wives of the leftists.
EDITORIALS
Jun 19, 2008
Big boost for cross-strait ties
The Taiwan Strait continues to shrink. Last week, China and Taiwan agreed on regular nonstop charter flights between the two sides of the strait, a move that would boost tourism, help the sputtering Taiwanese economy, and provide the impetus for even more ambitious links between them. This progress is...
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2008
Black Friday for the EU
Ireland has rejected the European Union reform treaty.
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2008
Earthquake sends reminder
The earthquake that hit inland areas of the Tohoku region Saturday morning serves as a strong reminder that Japan's central and local governments, and its individual citizens must take earthquake precautionary measures in earnest. If a quake with the power of the Saturday temblor had hit a populous area...
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2008
Media can't bow to expectations
The Supreme Court last week ruled that even if people who have become the subject of coverage by a broadcaster come to have expectations concerning a broadcast program, such expectations, in principle, are not subject to legal protection.
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2008
Vying to be the Olympic host
Tokyo, Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro have been chosen final candidates for the 2016 Olympic Games. Japan's capital city has received the top rating in the International Olympic Committee's preliminary selection round, but this only marks the start of a long race. The climax comes Oct. 2, 2009, when...
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2008
'Ni hao' to a new face
Justice Ministry records reveal that Chinese have become the largest group of foreigners residing in Japan, edging out Koreans who had been in the top spot since records were taken in 1959. Chinese residents in Japan now number 600,000, double their 1997 number. With Brazilians and Filipinos, the next...
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2008
Australia-Japan partnership
In their first meeting last week, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sidestepped a sensitive issue that could harm bilateral relations. Instead, in their joint statement, they confirmed the two countries' "commitment to strengthening further the comprehensive strategic,...
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2008
From fantasy to nightmare
The nightmare in Akihabara last week, when a knife-wielding man drove a truck into a Sunday crowd, leaped out and started stabbing people at random, has continued to shock the country. As the victims' families grieve, the injured recuperate and witnesses struggle to recover, the attack has become even...
EDITORIALS
Jun 14, 2008
Prepare for the worst
An expert panel of the government's Central Disaster Prevention Council recently projected that a major earthquake in the Kinki and Chubu region occurring at noon in winter would cause economic damage of ¥74 trillion and ¥33 trillion, respectively. Such an earthquake would shred heavily used traffic...
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.
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.
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.
Demystifying the manufacturing success of China
China’s massive scale, strong education system and competitive local governance have enabled it to reach the technological frontier and dominate high-tech manufacturing despite its low per capita gross domestic product.
Infectious diseases to watch for in Japan this summer amid surge of cases
An illustration of a colony of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough. As of Aug. 10, there were 64,467 cases reported this year, according to the latest data from the Japan Institute for Health Security.
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
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.

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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