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August 24, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Oct 23, 2008
Boom and bust in oil
If there is anything resembling a silver lining to the economic turmoil that has ensnared the world, it is the prospect of falling energy prices. The price of crude oil has fallen by more than 50 percent since setting a record high this past summer. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),...
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2008
Fiscal health check
The internal affairs ministry has disclosed the financial health of the nation's local governments gauged by four indicators based on a 2007 law to prevent bankruptcy of local governments. All 47 prefectural governments have passed the test based on their fiscal 2007 account settlements. But the cities...
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2008
Needs of the Afghan people
The Lower House Tuesday passed a bill to extend by one year the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean — a sign of Japan's commitment to international efforts to contain terrorism. The opposition-controlled Upper House will vote down the bill. But the Lower House is expected...
EDITORIALS
Oct 21, 2008
Mandate to cope with crisis
The Diet has passed a ¥1.808 trillion supplementary budget for fiscal 2008 with the support of not only the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito but also of the Democratic Party of Japan and two other opposition groups. Japan, however, is about to face difficult times, as the financial crisis...
EDITORIALS
Oct 21, 2008
Law hinders press freedoms
A revision of the Code of Criminal Procedure enacted in 2004 prohibits lawyers and defendants from showing or handing copies of evidence they have received from the prosecution to third parties. It also prohibits posting such copies on the Internet. When the revision bill was submitted to the Diet, the...
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2008
Reviewing medical treatment
The trial of an obstetrician of a Fukushima prefectural hospital, where a 29-year-old woman died of blood loss during a Caesarean operation in December 2004, serves as a reminder that doctors' efforts to save lives sometimes lead to death. As the level of medical treatment advances and becomes more complex,...
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2008
Something wrong with the MSDF
A series of notorious events raise questions about the credibility of the Maritime Self-Defense Force. The latest is the death of a petty officer 3rd class following a martial-art-style "training fight" at the MSDF's First Service School in Etajima, Hiroshima Prefecture. The training fight very likely...
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2008
Tainted frozen green beans
A housewife in Hachioji, Tokyo, fell sick when she ate green beans that were imported from China and then sold at her local supermarket. Two more people in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, also came down with similar symptoms after eating green beans from packages with the same lot number as those in the Hachioji...
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2008
Winning in Afghanistan
Seven years after coalition forces invaded Afghanistan and drove the Taliban from power, the war slogs on. The initial euphoria from the "victory" has dissipated. Officials are increasingly concerned about the Taliban's resurgence and the durability of the government of President Hamid Karzai. The North...
EDITORIALS
Oct 17, 2008
The high road or no road
Annual newspaper week started on Oct. 15. The Japan Newspapers Publishers and Editor Association marked the start of the week with a two-day convention in Sapporo. The week is designed to promote more popular interest in newspapers and renew newspapers' determination to properly perform the public functions...
EDITORIALS
Oct 17, 2008
Stepping up to the bench
Oct. 15 was the deadline for municipal election management commissions to submit lists of citizens who might serve as lay judges in district courts under a new system that starts next May. Six lay judges will sit with three professional judges in trials dealing with serious crimes such as murder, arson...
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2008
Swashbuckling in Somalia
'We just want the money." That is the honest sentiment of the pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with weapons off the coast of Somalia. Were it so simple. What was intended to be the mere "ransoming" of a ship has become an international standoff between oceangoing bandits and the world's...
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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