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August 27, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Feb 21, 2002

Mr. Milosevic in the dock

The war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, which began this month in The Hague, is the most important such case in history. For the first time since those crimes were codified in international law, a former leader is being tried for atrocities committed while he was in power....

EDITORIALS

Feb 20, 2002

So little to celebrate

Last Saturday, North Korea celebrated the 60th birthday of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, which marked the beginning of four months of festivities. It is hard to imagine what the country is celebrating, apart from survival: The economy is in a mess and shows no sign of improving, and the North Korean government...

EDITORIALS

Feb 19, 2002

Economic revival vital to alliance

Tuesday's summit meeting in Tokyo between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush helped further strengthen personal rapport and mutual understanding between the two leaders. Mr. Koizumi reconfirmed that the U.S. president is a strong supporter of his structural reforms. Similarly,...

EDITORIALS

Feb 18, 2002

The danger of a triple sell-off

Financial markets continue to send warning signals about Japan's economy. The most worrying is the possibility of a "triple fall" in shares, securities and yen rates. Investors here and abroad, increasingly nervous about the risk of holding Japanese assets, are selling off their holdings.

EDITORIALS

Feb 17, 2002

Open food-supply system needed

Five months have passed since the first case of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) was confirmed in Japan. The use of meat and bone meal, which is suspected to have transmitted the disease, has been banned, and testing for all cows has been introduced. But Japanese livestock farmers,...

EDITORIALS

Feb 16, 2002

Only way to restore confidence

The Foreign Ministry, its public image badly tarnished by scandals, has launched a comprehensive effort to put its house in order. A reform package unveiled by Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi on Tuesday, less than two weeks after she took up the post, conveys a sense of urgency. It is aptly titled...

EDITORIALS

Feb 15, 2002

Health-care reform before higher costs

Acting under the initiative of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the government and the ruling parties have agreed that salaried workers should pay 30 percent of their medical expenses, or 10 percent more than they do now, beginning in April 2003. But the agreement came at a heavy price: a bruising political...

EDITORIALS

Feb 14, 2002

Too clever by half?

The limits of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's strategy to isolate, undermine and eliminate Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat were plainly evident last week. Although recent events have given Israel the upper hand in the struggle against Palestinians and Islamic extremists -- the two...

EDITORIALS

Feb 13, 2002

Reading between the lines

According to the financial mandarins of the Group of Seven, the global economy has turned the corner. Despite recession in Japan and the United States, the world's leading economies, and the shock created by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the international outlook has improved. The statement released...

EDITORIALS

Feb 11, 2002

Space business still awaiting liftoff

The second H-2A rocket, which is touted as the leading player in Japan's space development at the beginning of the 21st century, was successfully launched last Monday, deploying one of the two probes it was carrying into orbit. Following the successful launching of the first H-2A rocket in August 2001,...

EDITORIALS

Feb 10, 2002

The lion king of Kabul

He was the most famous lion in the world," says the hand-painted metal sign hanging on an empty cage amid the ruins of Kabul's Zoo. His name was Marjan, and though the sign makes a bold claim on his behalf, it doesn't exaggerate.

EDITORIALS

Feb 9, 2002

Lackluster debate hinders reform

Japan faces an urgent need to make a sweeping transition comparable in magnitude to the periods that followed the Meiji Restoration and the end of World War II. But judging from the plenary debates conducted in both Houses of the Diet this week, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's program of national...

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

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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