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August 27, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Jun 23, 2002

What's 'Onion' in Chinese

You have to feel a little sorry for those fellows over at the Beijing Evening News. Here they are a global laughingstock, and they still don't get why. But was it altogether their fault? Those of us who have tried and failed to comprehend humor, let alone satire, in a foreign language are privately thinking,...

EDITORIALS

Jun 22, 2002

Diet apathetic on political ethics

The regular Diet session, which was extended on Wednesday for 42 days through July 31, appears headed for further turmoil. The arrest of Lower House member Muneo Suzuki on the same day, immediately following a unanimous vote accepting a court request for an arrest warrant, has removed a big thorn in...

EDITORIALS

Jun 21, 2002

Mr. Chirac gets a second chance

The resurgence of the French right is complete. Conservatives won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections held last weekend; coming on the heels of President Jacques Chirac's re-election in early May, the right now has a chance to rule unconstrained. The victory is tainted, however, by massive...

EDITORIALS

Jun 20, 2002

Mr. Suzuki's arrest

Lower House member Muneo Suzuki was arrested Wednesday on charges of receiving 5 million yen in cash from a Hokkaido lumber company in August 1998 when he was the deputy chief Cabinet secretary. According to investigators, Mr. Suzuki is charged with accepting a bribe in return for working on Forestry...

EDITORIALS

Jun 19, 2002

More revenue for local governments

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is seeking tax reform to revive economic vitality, but he wants to limit tax cuts to the extent that they do not exacerbate the budget crisis. In other words, he is opposed to stimulating the economy at the expense of fiscal discipline. So no major tax cuts are planned...

EDITORIALS

Jun 18, 2002

Sad end to the ABM Treaty

The United States officially withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty last week. Exactly six months to the day after it announced that it would take that fateful step -- the period stipulated in the ABM Treaty -- the administration of President George W. Bush turned its back on the strategic doctrine...

EDITORIALS

Jun 17, 2002

Key to corporate survival

Recent revelations about the mislabeling of foods and the use of illegal food additives by Japanese companies suggest a collapse of corporate ethics. The latest incident -- mislabeling of chicken by Zen-Noh Chicken Foods, an affiliate of the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations...

EDITORIALS

Jun 16, 2002

Thank God it's Monday

'A good name is better than precious ointment," according to the Bible. These days, that can mean more than just a good reputation, especially in business. It can mean a snappy title, too: something that will both stick in people's minds and make them smile.

EDITORIALS

Jun 15, 2002

Stop modern-day slavery

Human slavery is a difficult idea to comprehend. Treating another person as a piece of property is so fundamentally alien to every philosophical and legal tenet of our age that most people assume that slavery is a purely historical phenomenon. They are wrong. Slavery is very much alive. It continues...

EDITORIALS

Jun 14, 2002

A snooping agency

An in-house investigation by the Defense Agency has confirmed that the agency kept tabs on people who had requested information from it under the Freedom-of-Information Law. According to a fact-finding report released Tuesday, background lists were maintained by the agency's internal bureaus and all...

EDITORIALS

Jun 13, 2002

Water, water everywhere?

Water covers about two-thirds of the Earth's surface, but precious little can be used by human beings. Only 2.5 percent -- a veritable drop -- of the world's water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is frozen in the ice caps and glaciers. Of the remaining third, 20 percent is located in remote places,...

EDITORIALS

Jun 12, 2002

Unsure sign of recovery

The latest government report on Japan's gross domestic product -- that the economy in the first quarter of this year expanded 1.4 percent from the previous quarter, or at an annual rate of 5.7 percent -- has met with some skepticism. The general feeling appears to be that it is too good to be true. In...

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

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

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