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August 24, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2011
Coping with power shortages
The government has set down a policy outline for overcoming the power shortage this summer, which will be inevitable due to the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Under the outline, the government will invoke a relevant law, but there will be no planned rolling...
EDITORIALS
Apr 17, 2011
Foreign students since the disaster
Of the many consequences of the Tohoku crisis, one of the most disappointing is the fear so many foreigners now have about coming to Japan. Half a million hotel reservations have been canceled, according to the Japan Tourism Agency. In addition to those losses, the number of foreign students planning...
EDITORIALS
Apr 17, 2011
Convenience in Tohoku
One of the few signs of things returning to normal in Tohoku is the reopening of convenience stores. In the six prefectures making up Tohoku, and in Ibaraki Prefecture, a third of the 3,700 stores closed after the quake-tsunami due to power, water and infrastructure failures.
EDITORIALS
Apr 16, 2011
North Korea's 'chronic crisis'
North Korea is facing food shortages. International aid agencies report that the situation is dire, with millions facing the prospect of starvation in coming months without help. Even if those estimates are exaggerated, there is no escaping the fact that North korea cannot feed its own people.
EDITORIALS
Apr 15, 2011
No way to run a government
A shutdown of the United States government has been averted. At the last minute,negotiators from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives struck a deal with their Democratic Party counterparts from the Senate. The final compromise cuts $38.5 billion from the 2010 budget. While that sounds like...
EDITORIALS
Apr 14, 2011
Almost as bad as Chernobyl
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Nuclear Safety Commission on Tuesday provisionally raised the severity level of the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant from level 5 to the maximum 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale — the same level...
EDITORIALS
Apr 14, 2011
Prosecutor sentenced
The Osaka District Court on Tuesday sentenced a former prosecutor to 18 months' imprisonment for tampering with evidence in a case against a former welfare ministry official charged with ordering a subordinate to fabricate a document making an unqualified organization eligible for the postal discount...
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2011
Message for traditional parties
The Democratic Party of Japan was routed in the first round of unified local elections on Sunday — following its defeat in the July 2010 Upper House election. The DPJ failed to win governorships in Tokyo, Mie — which is DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada's stronghold — and Hokkaido, which is former...
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2011
Value of the public sector
Along with police officers, firefighters and members of the Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. armed forces, municipal workers are playing a vital role in helping and supporting people who have lost their property or family members in the March 11 massive earthquake and tsunami.
EDITORIALS / NOTES ON A SCORECARD
Apr 12, 2011
Reconstruction after the disaster
A month has passed since the massive quake and tsunami on March 11 devastated the pacific coastal area of the Tohoku region. Some 13,000 people perished and about 14,500 people are missing. Some 148,000 evacuees remain at temporary shelters. It is unlikely that the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co's...
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 2011
Medical care in the shelters
With so many victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami still residing at temporary shelters, it has become all the more important to make sure that ill evacuees receive proper medical care and that the spread of communicable disease is prevented. Medicines and medical treatment apparatuses in the...
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 2011
Insufficient evidence of reform
A 15-member advisory panel to Justice Minister Satsuki Eda on March 31 prepared a set of proposals for reform of the prosecution system. Unfortunately, the panel, which includes four lawyers, two former judges, two former public prosecutors and two academics, failed to come up with strong-enough measures...
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.
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.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan

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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