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August 24, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2008
First three-way summit
While Japan, China and South Korea are neighbors in East Asia, Japan's ties with these nations have not been smooth because of such factors as Japan's wartime behavior in the 1930s and '40s and territorial rows over the Senkaku islets with China, and the Takeshima islets with South Korea. In a welcome...
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2008
Trade talks run out of steam
Last month, world leaders met to plot a response to the global financial crisis. As part of their package of recommendations, they called for progress in trade talks to jump-start the faltering economy. Apparently, that was just empty rhetoric. Last week, Mr. Pascal Lamy, director general of the World...
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2008
Serious slump indicated
The results of a Bank of Japan survey released Monday show that business confidence among companies is rapidly worsening as Japanese companies feel the impact of the global economic slowdown. It seems that the Japanese economy is heading into a serious slump, which may last for a long time.
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2008
Afghanistan in trouble
The Taliban, which was ousted from power by U.S.-led coalition forces seven years ago, is stepping up its efforts to regain power in Afghanistan. Coupled with an increase in militant attacks in Pakistan and the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan symbolizes...
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2008
No time to waste in the Diet
The Diet last week enacted a law to continue the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean and another law to inject capital into regional financial institutions with second votes in the Lower House where the ruling bloc holds a two-third majority.
EDITORIALS
Dec 14, 2008
A WMD wakeup call
The world is imperiled by a new era of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). That is the conclusion of the Report of the U.S. Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, released this month. Its assessment of the dangers of a world awash in such...
EDITORIALS
Dec 13, 2008
Ending the use of cluster bombs
About 100 countries, including Japan, signed a treaty Dec. 3 in Oslo to ban cluster bombs. It goes into effect about six months after 30 countries have ratified it. Japan should start the ratification procedure as soon as possible.
EDITORIALS
Dec 13, 2008
Failure of latest round
The latest round of the six-party talks on the denuclearization of North Korea ended Thursday, after the parties failed to agree on a protocol spelling out ways to verify an inventory of North Korea's nuclear programs. The North's refusal to put verification commitments into writing caused the failure....
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2008
Responsibility for food safety
A panel of the Cabinet Office on Nov. 25 made public a report on a scandal involving the reselling of contaminated rice for human consumption, which had surfaced in September 2008. The report said officials of the farm ministry lacked a sense of responsibility for their role in ensuring the safety of...
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2008
Sony cutting back
Sony Corp. has announced a major restructuring plan. It will be cutting about 16,000 jobs worldwide — 8,000 regular jobs and another 8,000 irregular jobs — by the end of fiscal 2009 (March 31, 2010). The 8,000 regular jobs account for about 5 percent of Sony's 160,000-strong worldwide workforce in...
EDITORIALS
Dec 11, 2008
Retaining nursing-care workers
The government and the ruling bloc have decided to raise the payment for nursing-care services by 3 percent from April 2009. Since the inauguration of the nursing-care insurance system in fiscal 2000, the payment has been reviewed twice — once every three years — and reduced every time. The increase...
EDITORIALS
Dec 11, 2008
Education loan accountability
The Japan Students Services Organization (JASSO), a student loan provider under the wing of the education ministry, is suffering from a high delinquency rate on loan payments. Starting in fiscal 2010, it will tell all new borrowers that it will report long-term delinquent borrowers to an organization...
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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