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May 16, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2009
A wife by another name
Among the many changes that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan is recommending for Japan, one stands out as uniquely personal and important: letting couples choose the names they want to use after marriage. The legal requirement that spouses in Japan use the same surname has long since disappeared...
COMMENTARY
Oct 11, 2009
The right road for getting out of Afghanistan
By Gwynne Dyer
LONDON — President Barack Obama has just promised not to cut the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan or pull them out entirely as part of the current review of U.S. strategy there, but he has not promised to increase them. Could he privately be having second thoughts about the whole war?
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2009
ASEAN response to nuclear risks
By Mark Fitzpatrick
LONDON — As the nuclear renaissance comes to Southeast Asia, the countries of the region face an important turning point. Decisions taken today will help determine whether nuclear energy will play a positive role in their economic development, or whether a shadow of nuclear danger will accompany the...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 11, 2009
Musical hails a messenger killed for exposing Japan's dread trinity
By Roger Pulvers
When the Special Higher Police, the dreaded Tokko, returned his body to his mother and brother, it was hard to believe their official report that he had died of "a heart attack."
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2009
EU making the world safer
By Javier Solana
BRUSSELS — 2009 is a landmark year for the European Union's role in the world. It marks 10 years of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), during which the EU became a global provider of security, making a real difference to people's lives all over the world.
EDITORIALS
Oct 10, 2009
A victory for beautiful landscapes
The Hiroshima District Court on Oct. 1 ordered Hiroshima Gov. Yuzan Fujita not to issue a license sought by the prefectural and Fukuyama city governments to reclaim a portion of a bay in the scenic Tomonoura area for by-pass bridge construction. This is an epoch-making ruling. It has blocked a large...
EDITORIALS
Oct 10, 2009
Pyongyang should return to talks
In a meeting Oct. 5 with visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Pyongyang, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed his country's "readiness" to hold multilateral talks, including the six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear ambitions, "depending on the outcome" of bilateral talks with the United...
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 2009
Budget and economic reality
The government has suspended disbursement of some ¥2.5 trillion from the fiscal 2009 supplementary budget as it prepares to compile the fiscal 2010 budget. The government originally aimed to save ¥3 trillion, and use that money as part of some ¥7.1 trillion needed to implement election promises for...
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 2009
Iran opens door to inspections
In talks last week in Geneva, Iran agreed to fully cooperate with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog over its nuclear program. Progress in the talks with five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China — plus Germany represents a "constructive...
COMMENTARY
Oct 8, 2009
Bureaucracy gone mad
By Hugh Cortazzi
Two policewomen with children work part time. While one is on duty, the other looks after the children of both families. When education authorities learn of this arrangement, they forbid it, as neither policewoman has a certificate allowing her to act as a child minder. Unless they have one, they are...
EDITORIALS
Oct 8, 2009
Mixed-treatment conundrum
The government in principle bans combining medical treatments that are covered by public health insurance with treatments that are not. Patients usually pay 30 percent of medical fees for treatments covered by public insurance. But if they receive different treatments concurrently, they must pay the...
EDITORIALS
Oct 8, 2009
Depression and suicide
More than 30,000 suicides have been committed in Japan in each year since 1998. Although the number of suicides in 2008 dropped by 844, or 2.6 percent, from 2007 to 32,249, this year's trend is troubling. From January through August, 22,362 people took their own lives, a rise of 971 or 4.5 percent from...
Success of Chinese-made fighter jets against India raises alarm in Asia
Chinese J-10 fighter jets from the People's Liberation Army Air Force August 1st Aerobatics Team perform during a media demonstration at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, in November 2015.
Japan to recognize Taiwan as place of origin in family registration system
Masataka Yuhara, secretary-general of the Friends of Lee Teng Hui Association in Japan, which has been calling for "Taiwan" to be permitted as a place of origin in family registers.
Japanese retailers turn to California rice for cheaper alternative
U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass eats California rice at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday along with Mitsuko Tsuchiya, vice president of retailer Aeon.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Two crew feared dead after ASDF training jet crashes in Aichi
Self-Defense Forces personnel collect apparent parts of an Air Self-Defense Force T-4 training jet from a reservoir in Inuyama, Aichi Prefeture, on Thursday. The jet crashed shortly after takeoff a day earlier.
Historian Rob Fitts discovers earliest ever reference to baseball in Japan
Japan's Shohei Ohtani carries the Japanese flag onto the field before the start of the World Baseball Classic final against the United States in Miami on March 21, 2023.
Harmfully hot days for pregnant women in Japan nearly doubled over past five years
New research by a U.S. climate scientists’ group reveals that extreme heat has increased the risks of preterm births and other pregnancy complications in Japan, nearly doubling the number of days that are harmfully hot for pregnant women over the past five years.
Sumo title contenders already emerging in early stages of Tokyo meet
Onosato (left) battles Abi on Day 3 of the Summer Basho in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Tokyo Stock Exchange wants stocks to be affordable for the average investor
The Tokyo Stock Exchange building in Nihonbashi. The exchange wants companies to lower the entry cost of investing in their shares.

Podcast

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By Tomoko Otake

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