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August 26, 2025
 

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CARTOONS / DAHL'S JAPAN
Sep 30, 2010
Leashed Yen
EDITORIALS
Sep 30, 2010
Economic policies that instill hope
As Prime Minister Naoto Kan's new Cabinet goes into full swing, it is important for the government to adopt and carry out effective economic policies speedily. With economic policy, not only substance but also psychological factors are important.
COMMENTARY
Sep 29, 2010
The pope and the atheists
By Gwynne Dyer
LONDON — The best defense is a good offense. A less worldly pope, making a state visit to Britain as the revelations about Catholic priests and bishops abusing the children in their care spread across Europe, might have been reduced to shame and silence. But Benedict XVI knows about the uses of power...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2010
Seven more years of hard economic times?
By Robert J. Shiller
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Much of the talk emerging from the August 2010 Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, attended by many of the world's central bankers and economists, has been about a paper presented there that gave a dire long-run assessment of the future of the world's economies.
COMMENTARY
Sep 29, 2010
Japan vs. China: What makes societies succeed?
By Gregory Clark
A namesake — a U.S. economics professor also called Gregory Clark — has caused waves with a theory that says the 18th century U.K. Industrial Revolution was due to heredity creating superior genes.
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2010
Excellent sumo, smaller crowds
After the Japan Sumo Association was rattled by scandals earlier this year, yokozuna Hakuho performed with outstanding speed, skills and stability at the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament, showing that he is a great force in the JSA's efforts to get back people's trust in the traditional sport. He finished...
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2010
Rising unnatural death toll
The number of people suspected of having met unnatural deaths is on the rise, as the police dealt with some 160,000 "suspicious corpses" in 2009 — about 1.4 times more than 10 years before. But the nation suffers from a chronic shortage of experts who can examine such bodies.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2010
Local politics cries out for partisan competition
By Ken Victor Leonard Hijino
OSAKA — With its constant factional infighting and Cabinet shuffles, Japanese national politics is a disheartening affair for the concerned voter. Last year's historic elections, however, demonstrated that voters can oust unpopular governments, and that party competition and accountability is emerging...
COMMENTARY
Sep 28, 2010
Venetians raise blinds against nuclear plan
By Gautaman Bhaskaran
VENICE — It seemed incredible when drama rolled off the screen and onto the streets at Venice during its recent film festival. People played loud music, beat drums, blew trumpets and clashed cymbals to protest the government's decision to locate a nuclear reactor just 20 kilometers away from this ancient...
EDITORIALS
Sep 28, 2010
Millennium progress lagging
Ten years ago, world leaders set out an ambitious program to fight poverty and related social problems around the globe. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were to be reached by 2015. Many of those same world leaders met Sept. 20-22 at the United Nations to assess progress toward those targets....
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2010
Fiscally, Obama has had a rough summer
By Michael Boskin
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Has the Obama administration learned anything from the string of fiscal setbacks it has suffered this summer?
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 27, 2010
Metamorphosis in Britain reveals empathizing pope
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — Pope Benedict XVI is the antithesis of a pop star, elderly, shy, set in his ways, even finding it hard to hold a note. Yet in the United Kingdom the week before last, he received massive pop-starlike adulation, with successive crowds of 120,000 lining the streets of Edinburgh merely to...
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.
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.
Philippines quietly deepening ‘unofficial’ defense ties with Taiwan
Filipino soldiers take part in a flag-raising ceremony on Mavulis Island during a visit by the Philippines' Armed Forces chief of staff, in Batanes, the Philippines, in June 2023. Batanes, a group of idyllic islands at the country’s northernmost tip, sits about 160 kilometers from Taiwan.
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.

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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