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August 27, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Jun 11, 2002

Loya Jirga gets down to business

A fghanistan takes a crucial step toward building a viable future this week with the convening of a grand assembly of tribal elders. The Loya Jirga will pick a government that will rule the country until general elections are held. While the conclave has been long anticipated, and is critical to the...

EDITORIALS

Jun 10, 2002

Scientific analysis should come first

The government's decision to host an international project to build the next-generation thermonuclear experimental reactor in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, lacks a critical element: public understanding. The decision, prompted by a group of Liberal Democratic Party legislators promoting nuclear fusion...

EDITORIALS

Jun 9, 2002

Out with the nitty-gritty

Remember the controversy ignited three years ago when a white Washington bureaucrat was fired after using the word "niggardly" in a meeting? Black employees said it sounded so much like the racial slur "nigger" that it didn't matter a jot that the two words were etymologically unrelated. Incredibly,...

EDITORIALS

Jun 8, 2002

Time to talk defense

The Asia-Pacific region is home to some of the world's hottest flash points, yet security discussions remain woefully ad hoc. There is no regular dialogue forum for regional defense officials, and when leaders do get together, security issues rank second to economic issues. That may change after last...

EDITORIALS

Jun 6, 2002

Ratification is just a first step

With Tuesday's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, Japan has taken a first step toward tackling the problem of global warming, which threatens modern civilization. Coming four and a half years after the protocol was approved at an international conference in Kyoto in 1997, the ratification is in line...

EDITORIALS

Jun 5, 2002

Thinking the unthinkable

The fact that responsible individuals and governments are talking about the casualties that would be created by a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan is a powerful indication of how close the prospect of war between the two countries truly is. Both the Indian and Pakistani governments deny that...

EDITORIALS

Jun 4, 2002

Hollow debate on Diet extension

Discussions and bargaining on an extension of the current session of the Diet, which is scheduled to end on June 19, are heating up. Speculation about the extension of a Diet session that is tied up with the existing political situation is not unusual in itself, but discussions that reflect a leadership...

EDITORIALS

Jun 3, 2002

Mr. Arafat's failures

Real peace between Palestinians and Israelis will be preceded by two conditions: an Israeli withdrawal from most, if not all, of the occupied territories and genuine democracy in the Palestinian Authority. Attention has usually focused on the first factor, but it has become increasingly evident that...

EDITORIALS

Jun 2, 2002

More than a few rotten apples

It appears that the Diet is not very serious about promoting clean politics, despite the fact that a spate of corruption scandals has forced a number of legislators to resign. The Diet, to be sure, has played a part in unraveling the scandals, but it has done very little to address its real challenge:...

EDITORIALS

Jun 1, 2002

In defense of privacy

The Defense Agency is at the center of a privacy scandal. An information officer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force is said to have prepared a sensitive list of personal data, with defamatory footnotes, about people who had requested information from the agency under the Freedom of Information Law. The...

EDITORIALS

May 31, 2002

At last, the World Cup

Maybe it is because it rolls around just once every four years. Maybe it is because it is played by more people, in more countries, than any other sport. Maybe it is because it promises, and usually delivers, moments of magnificent drama --all the more stirring for the long stretches of tedium before...

EDITORIALS

May 30, 2002

The only way to clear debt burden

Stock prices for Japan's top banks have been rising lately despite the huge deficits they have suffered in the business year that ended March 31. Increases in loan losses are good news in the sense that they reflect progress in bad-debt write-offs. In the same year, the nation's seven banking groups...

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

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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