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August 26, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Nov 18, 2010
Looking less like a secret
The Metropolitan Police Department and public prosecutors decided Monday not to arrest a Japan Coast Guard member who has allegedly confessed to having leaked video footage onto YouTube of the Sept. 7 collisions between a Chinese trawler and two JCG patrol ships off the Senkaku Islands of Okinawa Prefecture....
CARTOONS / DAHL'S JAPAN
Nov 18, 2010
Scarecrow & TPP
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2010
A new great game in Asia
By Brahma Chellaney
U.S. President Barack Obama's 10-day Asian tour and the consecutive summit meetings of the East Asian Summit (EAS), the Group of 20 and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) helped put the spotlight on Asia's security challenges at a time when tensions between an increasingly ambitious China and...
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2010
China's big stick: trade reprisals
By Michael Richardson
China's ascent as a trading power and its push for control of disputed islands and seas in East Asia are confronting the region with a new challenge: how to cope with Chinese moves that make recognition of its sovereignty claims a condition for access to its huge market and strategic resources.
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2010
Release of Suu Kyi is no 'Mandela moment'
By Gwynne Dyer
People love historical analogies, so it's easy to think of Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest Nov. 13 as Burma's "Mandela moment." When Nelson Mandela was freed from 27 years of imprisonment in 1990, it marked the start of a process that saw the negotiated end of the apartheid regime and genuinely...
EDITORIALS
Nov 17, 2010
Uphill on trade policy, diplomacy
As its relations with China and Russia are deteriorating over territorial issues and its domestic opinion is sharply divided on further opening of its markets, Japan hosted and chaired the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit on Saturday and Sunday in the port city of Yokohama — the first...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2010
Kan ducks the rice problem
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — Has Prime Minister Naoto Kan finally woken up to the fact that the world is changing rapidly and Japan risks being left behind? In recent days he has spoken of a fresh fleet of "black ships" off the coast of Japan, and has noted nostalgically that he comes from Choshu (now Yamaguchi Prefecture)...
COMMENTARY
Nov 17, 2010
Unrepentant Bush still backs use of torture
By Cesar Chelala
In his recently published memoirs called "Decision Points," and in interviews publicizing those memoirs, former U.S. President George W. Bush makes it clear his stand on what many consider a basic human rights violation: the use of waterboarding as a torture technique. With characteristic insouciance,...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2010
Fixing the U.S. economy
By Michael Spence
NEW YORK — For many, if not most, Americans, the crisis that befell them in 2008 — leading to slow growth, rising unemployment and high anxiety among voters — appeared to spring from nowhere. Certainly, the vast majority of economists, investment analysts, financial firms and regulators failed...
COMMENTARY
Nov 16, 2010
Japan's narrowing lead
By Takamitsu Sawa
For quite some time now the mass media has been reporting pessimistic views of Japan's future. March 1991 marked the end of an economic bubble and the start of economic stagnation. From then until 2009, Japan's economy grew by an average 0.8 percent per year, an extremely low figure compared with other...
EDITORIALS
Nov 16, 2010
Federation furthers devolution
The assemblies of seven prefectures in and around the Kinki region have approved a plan to form a federation for the purpose of cooperating on certain administrative matters. Home affairs minister Yoshihiro Katayama is expected to approve the establishment of the federation in about a month in accordance...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2010
Consumers should demand diamond clarity
By Peter Singer
PRINCETON, New Jersey — Diamonds have an image of purity and light. They are given as a pledge of love and worn as a symbol of commitment. Yet diamonds have led to gruesome murders, rapes and amputations.
Character-crazed Japan has little appetite for Labubu
A pop-up advertisement for the newly opened Chiikawa Park in Tokyo's Ikebukuro neighborhood demonstrates how the country is chockful of cute characters — to the detriment of trends like Labubu.
Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?
Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.
JICA to designate four Japanese cities as 'hometowns' for African nations
The Japanese flag (left) with the flag of the African Union
Man arrested in Kobe stabbing had been staying at hotel near victim’s home
Masashi Tanimoto arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the fatal stabbing of a woman in Kobe, is sent to prosecutors on Sunday.
Japanese prefectures break with labor ministry on minimum wage
The ministry of labor has suggested a 6% minimum wage increase, but most prefectures reporting so far are opting to go slightly higher.
Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?
Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.
Germany's first sakemaker offers a bold brew of ideas
Reigen, Germany's first sake brewery, makes a diverse, nontraditional range of sake that includes fruit-flavored sips and wine barrel-aged renditions.
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.

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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