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August 27, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Apr 24, 2001

Mr. Lee comes with baggage

Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui is now on a "private" visit to Japan with a visa the Japanese government issued after days of vacillation -- and with strings attached: Mr. Lee should stay in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, where he will get a medical checkup, and should not conduct any political...

EDITORIALS

Apr 23, 2001

Minimum restraint in the Middle East

Violence flared again in the Middle East last week, with a tit-for-tat confrontation in Gaza that briefly threatened to escalate into a wider war. Although the incident ended with condemnation of Israel, both at home and abroad, for what was widely viewed as a military and diplomatic fiasco, the lesson...

EDITORIALS

Apr 22, 2001

Poetry and the people

When the poet Chaucer saw that it was April, one year in the late 1300s, he wrote cheerily about its sweet showers piercing the drought of March to the root. When T.S. Eliot saw that it was April, some five and a half centuries later, he wrote bleakly about it being the cruelest month, "breeding lilacs...

EDITORIALS

Apr 21, 2001

A reassuring signal from the Fed

One question uppermost in the minds of political and business leaders the world over probably is whether the slowing U.S. economy will pick up in the second half of this year. The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday provided its answer by cutting key interest rates for the fourth time since January. The...

EDITORIALS

Apr 20, 2001

Use agriculture safeguards sparingly

Japan is set to impose emergency restrictions on three Chinese agricultural products, imports of which have risen markedly in recent years: leeks, shiitake mushrooms and rushes for tatami matting. It is the first time Japan has decided to invoke "safeguards," temporary import curbs recognized by the...

EDITORIALS

Apr 19, 2001

Beyond the textbook controversy

A junior high-school history textbook edited by a nationalist group continues to stir controversy and provoke anger, especially in South Korea. The textbook in question, written by the Japanese Society for Textbook Reform, which calls existing history textbooks "masochistic," recently cleared censorship...

EDITORIALS

Apr 18, 2001

Mr. Mori's year in review

A new prime minister of Japan will take office later this month, following the election of a new Liberal Democratic Party president next Tuesday. It does not matter that Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has not yet publicly announced his resignation. His exit has been a foregone conclusion for some time....

EDITORIALS

Apr 17, 2001

Spoiling for a fight in Iran

A wave of arrests signals a conservative crackdown as Iran prepares for national elections scheduled for June 8. President Mohammad Khatami is being squeezed between the need to defend reform and the fear of provoking a backlash by hardliners. It is a delicate position, but one Mr. Khatami knows well:...

EDITORIALS

Apr 16, 2001

Sanctioning death in the Netherlands

Once again, the Netherlands has braved the storm. Last week, the country's Senate, the upper house of Parliament, passed a bill legalizing euthanasia. When Queen Beatrix signs the law, which was passed by the lower house last November, the Netherlands will be the first country to permit mercy killing....

EDITORIALS

Apr 15, 2001

Prepare now for demographic changes

The rapid aging of Japan's population, combined with a steady decline in the birthrate, makes it certain that the productive-age population will begin to fall sharply in the not-so-distant future. As a result, the entire population will also start shrinking, making it necessary to redesign the economic...

EDITORIALS

Apr 14, 2001

The great Tiger Woods debate

Semantics and politics make a familiar pair. Every other day, it seems, something crops up in the mine-strewn worlds of domestic or international politics that makes us stop and think about the meaning of words. One day it's a foreign president's legalistic musings about the meaning of "is," the next,...

EDITORIALS

Apr 13, 2001

Diplomacy does the trick

The United States and China have resolved their crisis. Diplomats crafted a statement that allowed both sides to save face and permitted the 24 members of the U.S. spy plane to go home. The peaceful resolution of the standoff is a victory for diplomacy. Just as important, however, both governments now...

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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