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August 23, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Mar 19, 2008
Litmus test for Mr. Hu
Around the time when anti-Chinese protests took place in Tibet's regional capital Lhasa last week, Mr. Hu Jintao, who calls for establishment of a harmonious society in China, was re-elected president of the country at a session of the National People's Congress in Beijing. How he will handle Tibetan...
EDITORIALS
Mar 19, 2008
Sacrifices for rehabilitation
One year has passed since the effectively bankrupt city of Yubari in Hokkaido began a special fiscal rehabilitation process under the internal affairs ministry's supervision. It must repay ¥35.3 billion debts by the end of fiscal 2024. In the first year, it repaid about ¥1.5 billion as required. But...
EDITORIALS
Mar 18, 2008
Privacy vs. Juki Net
The Supreme Court earlier this month declared as constitutional the nationwide Juki Net residency registry network, ruling against residents who had filed four separate lawsuits. Citing the possible danger of information leakage and use of information for illegitimate purposes, residents from Osaka,...
EDITORIALS
Mar 18, 2008
Time to boost domestic demand
The dollar plunged last week to the ¥95 level for the first time in 12 years and six months. The U.S. currency at one point moved to record lows against the euro. Its weakness results from a fear among market players that the U.S. economy is heading toward a recession. The subprime mortgage crisis in...
EDITORIALS
Mar 17, 2008
Punishing bureaucratic neglect
The Supreme Court earlier this month upheld a suspended prison sentence for a former health ministry official who had been found guilty of failing to prevent the sale and use of HIV-contaminated blood products that resulted in the death of a patient suffering from impaired liver function. It concluded...
EDITORIALS
Mar 17, 2008
Deadlock in 'gyoza' probe
The investigation into food-poisoning incidents caused by insecticide-tainted "gyoza" dumplings imported from China is deadlocked because Japan and China have completely different views as to where the insecticide contaminated the gyoza. China opposes Japan's view that the possibility of the contamination...
EDITORIALS
Mar 16, 2008
Underwhelming pay raises
Most leading carmakers, electronics manufacturers, shipbuilders and steelmakers have concluded this year's spring wage talks. Although they offered wage raises for the third straight year on improved earnings, the raises remain at last year's levels, failing to meet union demands for the most part. The...
EDITORIALS
Mar 16, 2008
Renewable energy surges forward
Renewable energy is developing rapidly in terms of investment and energy production. The Renewable Energy 2007 Global Status Report made public in late February is food for thought for energy policymakers, citizens, and power and other companies. Renewable electricity generation capacity reached an estimated...
EDITORIALS
Mar 15, 2008
Mr. Abdullah is battered
Malaysia's ruling coalition was stunned in elections last weekend. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his National Front (Barisan Nasional) lost the two-thirds majority in Parliament that they have held for nearly four decades. As the government tries to regroup, Malaysia appears headed toward...
EDITORIALS
Mar 14, 2008
Disarray over BOJ appointment
The opposition-controlled Upper House has turned down the government proposal that Mr. Toshiro Muto, deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, become the next chief of the central bank. Since his nomination must be endorsed by both chambers of the Diet, the government will have to restart the nomination...
EDITORIALS
Mar 14, 2008
Second mission for astronaut
Japanese astronaut Mr. Takao Doi, together with six other crew members, was launched into space Tuesday aboard NASA's space shuttle Endeavour from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This is the 53-year-old astronaut's second space mission, the first being in November-December 1997. We wish him success.
EDITORIALS
Mar 13, 2008
Andes go to the brink and back
Tensions are on the rise in the Andes. Efforts by the Colombian government to battle leftist rebels have brought relations among it, Ecuador and Venezuela to the brink of war. Cooler heads appear to have prevailed, but problems have only been managed, not eliminated. The real problem is the enduring...
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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