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August 25, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Sep 20, 2000

Changes in crime -- and punishment

Profound changes in the way Japan dispenses criminal justice are either forthcoming or under consideration. Many people are ready to accept changes, even to welcome some of them, given the rising tide of serious crimes by minors and an apparent breakdown in police discipline. Calls to ensure the rights...

EDITORIALS

Sep 19, 2000

A welcome slowdown

The biggest concern among economists in the last year has been the prospect of a "hard landing" for the high-flying U.S. economy. They feared that either because of a crisis or by design, the United States would stall and knock the wind out of the global economy. That danger seems to be abating: The...

EDITORIALS

Sep 18, 2000

Kinder, gentler animal farms

It's funny how McDonald's -- the much-reviled little hamburger stand that grew -- has become the world's handiest barometer of social change. It is the standard-bearer, or more often the whipping boy, for economic and cultural globalization, with progress or regress thereto measured in degrees of "McDonaldization."...

EDITORIALS

Sep 17, 2000

What about the foreign residents?

Japan now has a record 1.55 million registered foreign residents, representing 1.23 percent of the population. These entirely legal residents are still being given short shrift in government planning, such as disaster-prevention and relief measures. It is two weeks since the nation as a whole -- nearly...

EDITORIALS

Sep 16, 2000

An equal value for every vote

In every democratic state, equality of voting rights is taken for granted, in principle, if not always in practice. There is no question that every vote should have the same value, or at least a nearly equal value, regardless of who casts it or where it is cast. In Japan's case, however, there are wide...

EDITORIALS

Sep 15, 2000

The Olympic love-hate affair

The quadrennial soap opera that is the Summer Olympics gets under way again today in Sydney, inspiring the usual mixed response of blahs and hurrahs. Nobody disputes that the Summer Games have become the world's biggest recurrent spectacle, costing more than some countries' GDP and cornier than Kansas....

EDITORIALS

Sep 14, 2000

What did Russia want?

The arrest last Friday of a Maritime Self-Defense Force officer on suspicion of spying for Russia raises the puzzling question: How is it that Moscow needed, or seemed to need, military secrets from Japan in the post-Cold War period, particularly at a time when relations between the two nations are improving?...

EDITORIALS

Sep 13, 2000

Copyright law for a new age

The rapid spread of computer networks is creating a flood of digitalized information in a broad range of fields, including publishing, music, broadcast, movies and plays. This is leading to the rampant piracy of writers' copyrights and musicians' performing rights. Legal action is urgently needed to...

EDITORIALS

Sep 12, 2000

Third oil shock still on the horizon

Oil prices have been climbing inexorably. Last week, a barrel of crude fetched $34.90, a level not seen since the Persian Gulf War. Consumer outrage has been growing. Something had to be done, and on Sunday the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries responded, agreeing to raise oil production...

EDITORIALS

Sep 12, 2000

'A hazardous occupation'

During his visit to the United States last week for the United Nations Millennium Summit, Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with media leaders and reportedly asked them to help soften his country's image. There is an easy way to do that. The Chinese government can stop harassing, arresting and imprisoning...

EDITORIALS

Sep 10, 2000

Old friends are the best

Reports from the United States tell us that some Americans are having their faith restored in a popular postwar Japanese export. The subject of their revived affection is not a car or a motorcycle, not a camera or an audiovisual device, not a laptop personal computer or other advanced information-technology...

EDITORIALS

Sep 9, 2000

Dreaming of a better world

It is tempting to dismiss this week's Millennium Summit at the United Nations as pure hype. After all, it declared its aim was the eradication of poverty and war in the 21st century. Good luck. Yet, if the U.N. and its members do not hold such ambitions, then there is very little hope for our world 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

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