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August 24, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Aug 28, 2007
Learning from a summer of disasters
With an airplane exploding, bridges collapsing, and a nuclear plant shutting down, it has been a summer of disasters. Around the globe since May, no continent has been left untouched — whether by fire, flood, tornado, airplane crash or a collapsing mine. Disasters, clearly, do not take summer vacations....
EDITORIALS
Aug 27, 2007
Rethinking power-supply strategy
The impact of the magnitude-6.8 earthquake July 16 off Niigata Prefecture on Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant was clearly felt Aug. 22 when TEPCO, on short notice, requested that 23 large-lot industrial customers cut back on their use of electricity that afternoon.
EDITORIALS
Aug 27, 2007
Hesitation on interest rates
Since it ended its zero-interest-rate policy in July 2006, the Bank of Japan has sought to normalize interest rates up to a level that matches the nation's economic recovery. Recent increases in land prices also have given the BOJ cause to think that an interest-rate rise is necessary. But the central...
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2007
Eyes on the prize with India
Japan and India have very good reasons to forge closer ties. They are both democracies and share fundamental values. With proper attention, their economic relationship, which has been stunted, can grow to their mutual benefit. They share security concerns: stability in Central Asia and the Mideast, access...
EDITORIALS
Aug 25, 2007
Thailand approves a constitution
Last Sunday, Thai voters approved a new constitution. The expected result clears the way for national elections later this year. But the military-installed government should not exaggerate the meaning of this vote. It is a vote for a constitution, not a particular government. The election that should...
EDITORIALS
Aug 24, 2007
New effort to boost tourism
The government has decided on a basic plan to promote the tourist industry as one of Japan's main policy measures for the 21st century. The basic plan sets goals in 25 areas, including three main ones — increasing domestic tours by Japanese, attracting more tourists from abroad, and increasing the...
EDITORIALS
Aug 24, 2007
Positive trend in traffic safety
In 2007, Japan may be blessed with the lowest number of traffic-accident deaths in 54 years. In the first half of this year, 2,655 traffic deaths took place, a decrease of about 9 percent from the year before and the lowest figure on record since 1954. Through 2006, the number of annual deaths in traffic...
EDITORIALS
Aug 23, 2007
Seconds shy of a disaster
A Boeing 737-800 passenger plane of Taiwan's China Airlines exploded and burst into flames after it parked at Okinawa's Naha airport Monday morning. Miraculously all 157 passengers and eight crew members escaped unhurt moments before the airline burst into a fireball.
EDITORIALS
Aug 22, 2007
Confusion at the Defense Ministry
The confusion in the Defense Ministry that accompanied the selection of the ministry's new administrative vice minister appears to have been settled. But the unfortunate episode revealed a lack of prudence on the part of Defense Minister Yuriko Koike and a lack of leadership on the part of Prime Minister...
EDITORIALS
Aug 22, 2007
Surviving summer's heat waves
The hot weather last week certainly made some people wonder whether the Japanese archipelago is experiencing the effects of global warming. On Aug. 16, the city of Kumagaya in Saitama Prefecture and the city of Tajimi in Gifu Prefecture registered the highest temperature — 40.9 C — in the history...
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2007
Restraints on spending
The Cabinet has approved a ¥47.3 trillion ceiling on core policy-related outlays in the fiscal 2008 budget. For the first time since he came to power in September 2006, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has drawn up the basic framework for a budget. Although the spending ceiling is ¥300 billion higher than...
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2007
Auspicious start to mediation
More than a year has passed since a mediation process was introduced in district courts to settle labor disputes, especially between individual workers and companies. The system, which went into force in April 2006, utilizes the experience of people such as corporate personnel affairs experts and labor...
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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