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EDITORIALS

Dec 30, 2004

Mr. Yushchenko's work begins

Opposition party candidate Viktor Yushchenko has won Ukraine's presidency. At least, that's what a count of nearly 100 percent of the ballots shows following last weekend's rerun of the November runoff election. It is still unclear, though, whether Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych will accept the results....

EDITORIALS

Dec 29, 2004

Catastrophe without warning

The massive onshore surges of seawater from tsunamis triggered by the mega-earthquake that struck off northwestern Indonesia on Sunday have caused heavy damage across southern Asia. They are a deadly reminder of how vulnerable humanity is to the destructive forces of nature.

EDITORIALS

Dec 28, 2004

Another step in bureaucratic reform

Bureaucratic reform is part and parcel of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's structural reform agenda. As he puts it aptly, the basic idea is to "let the private sector do what it can do." Bureaucratic reform is also about decentralization: "letting local governments do what they can do."

EDITORIALS

Dec 27, 2004

Lessons from a year of disasters

Preparers of government white papers usually try hard not to offend anyone by giving only the average scores for survey results and, in the case of prefectural statistics, summing them up in flat tables. The 2004 white paper on fire and disaster management, however, carries a bar graph so that readers...

EDITORIALS

Dec 26, 2004

A summer date with Harry Potter

To the delight of her young readers, her publishers and booksellers everywhere, British author J.K. Rowling last week announced that she had delivered to the printers the manuscript of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," Book 6 in her phenomenally popular fantasy series. It should have come as...

EDITORIALS

Dec 26, 2004

A Christmas admonition

Last Sunday Pope John Paul II said something that, while directed to Roman Catholics, perhaps deserved a wider audience. Speaking in the runup to the Christmas season, the pope expressed regret at the suffocation of the holiday by what he called "material things" and called for a simpler, more community-minded...

EDITORIALS

Dec 25, 2004

The year of the blog

Whether you're sick to death of the word "blog" or have no idea what it means, you are equally abreast of the times, linguistically speaking. Merriam-Webster, the U.S. dictionary publisher, recently declared it the most looked-up term on its Internet site this year, not counting profanities and perennial...

EDITORIALS

Dec 24, 2004

Gear shift on constitutional change

The Liberal Democratic Party recently came under public criticism for "going to extremes" in its bid to update the Constitution, Japan's first democratic charter that took effect in 1947. The criticism has prompted the party to alter its plans for constitutional reform. The party appears to have recognized...

EDITORIALS

Dec 23, 2004

Ukraine's poisonous politics

How far will the old order in Ukraine go to safeguard its privileges? News that opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned suggests that it is desperate indeed. Three months after the alleged poisoning, questions continue to mount about how Mr. Yushchenko ingested what should have...

EDITORIALS

Dec 22, 2004

DPJ lacks drive to take power

Many Japanese want the Democratic Party of Japan to take power in the next general election in the hope that a DPJ victory will usher in a two-party system that puts Japanese politics on a sounder footing. The party's latest annual convention, however, must have left people wondering whether the DPJ...

EDITORIALS

Dec 21, 2004

EU opens the door to Turkey

For more than four decades, European leaders have held out to Turkey the prospect of membership in their club. The odds that Turkey would join Europe shortened considerably last week, when officials from the European Union and Ankara agreed to commence discussions on Turkish membership next October....

EDITORIALS

Dec 20, 2004

Seeing eye to eye with a neighbor

Grass-root ties between Japan and South Korea look better than at any time since the end of World War II. Mutual understanding and friendship have deepened visibly over the past few years, as demonstrated by the successful cohosting of the 2002 World Cup and the surge of Japanese interest in South Korean...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.

A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan

By Hanako Lowry

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

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