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August 30, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Sep 6, 2004

A trip to the Northern Territories

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Thursday viewed the Northern Territories aboard a Japan Coast Guard ship. It was a high-profile trip that appeared to demonstrate his determination to tackle the territorial issue with Russia. Many Japanese are wondering, though, whether it was a political grandstand...

EDITORIALS

Sep 5, 2004

A match for death

Death comes for us all, as the English martyr Sir Thomas More reminded his accusers in the play "A Man for All Seasons." The line echoed poignantly in the mind late last month when death finally came for Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross, the remarkable Swiss-born psychiatrist who had done as much as anyone to...

EDITORIALS

Sep 4, 2004

How long will Chechnya fester?

The results of last weekend's elections in Chechnya offer little hope for a solution. To no one's surprise, former Interior Minister Alkhanov won in a landslide and promised to bring peace to the shattered country. Chechen rebels countered that the new president, like his predecessor, was already marked...

EDITORIALS

Sep 3, 2004

Sparing banks without spoiling them

For all practical purposes, big banks in Japan have turned the corner in their efforts to clean up their bad loans. For small and medium-size banks, though, no light is yet visible at the end of the tunnel. With caps on deposit insurance due to be fully reinstated next April, smaller lenders have no...

EDITORIALS

Sep 2, 2004

DPJ must shed turf mentality

Mr. Katsuya Okada, president of the Democratic Party of Japan, secured a second term as head of the largest opposition party Monday, the deadline for filing candidacies for president. Since Mr. Okada is the only candidate, he will be formally re-elected without a vote on Sept. 13. That's to be expected,...

EDITORIALS

Sep 1, 2004

GOP throws a party in New York

The United States takes the next big step toward elections in November with the convening this week of the Republican National Convention in New York City. The GOP convention promises to be a spectacular: Republicans have always demonstrated an innate understanding of the pomp and pageantry required...

EDITORIALS

Aug 31, 2004

Medal bonanza was not a fluke

The performance of Japanese athletes at the Athens Olympics came as nothing less than spectacular for their compatriots.

EDITORIALS

Aug 30, 2004

An example for the real world

Peace is the central message of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The Olympic flame -- the symbol of that message -- will be extinguished late Sunday night (early Monday in Japan), about five months after it was lit in Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympics. In a world riven with hatred and violence,...

EDITORIALS

Aug 29, 2004

Rewriting history

The ancient kingdom of Koguryo, traditionally believed to have been founded in 37 B.C., ruled a vast region extending from Manchuria (northern provinces of China) to the Korean Peninsula until 668. Tumulus wall paintings in Nara, which was the capital of Japan in the 8th century, are said to reflect...

EDITORIALS

Aug 29, 2004

Another 'Americanization'

A merican consumers have been described as "quick to spend" while Japanese consumers have been "slow to spend." In fact, Americans tend to spend the extra money they get rather than save it. So a tax cut quickly boosts spending, often leading to an overheating of the economy. A culture of overconsumption...

EDITORIALS

Aug 28, 2004

Crucial challenge of Najaf

The situation in Iraq remains volatile as fighting continues in the holy city of Najaf. Shiite militia fighters loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been holed up in the Imam Ali mosque for three weeks now, putting up fierce resistance against U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces.

EDITORIALS

Aug 27, 2004

Flagging sense of partnership

Earlier this month, a U.S. military helicopter crashed and burst into flames on a university campus in Okinawa Prefecture. The accident has highlighted dilemmas faced by the island that hosts two-thirds of the U.S. troops stationed in Japan. At the same time, it has exposed some of the flaws in the Japan-U.S....

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

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