Morearticles

 
Menu
Search
 
August 31, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

More Opinion stories

EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2007
A fresh defense scandal
The credibility of the nation's defense administration is at stake in the wake of a fresh scandal embroiling a former top bureaucrat of the Defense Ministry and a defense contractor. We welcome the nonpartisan decision, reached at a Lower House select committee last week, to summon former administrative...
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2007
Cabdrivers could get a lift
The government has given the green light to a hike in taxi fares in Tokyo, although it allowed a lower rate of increase than the industry sought because of concern that national price trends could be inflated. The rise will take effect in December and be followed by similar increases nationwide. Aimed...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 28, 2007
A rough guide to avoiding ethnocentric cloddery
By Roger Pulvers
Writing in The Guardian on Oct. 16, Mark McCrum listed 10 "hot tips to avoid social embarrassment" while traveling overseas. There were three among these travel faux pas that particularly caught my eye.
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2007
Japanese men going belly up
Japanese men are suddenly overweight. The latest criticism of health, diet and fitness — "metabolic syndrome" — is aimed at men and their bulging waistlines. According to some reports, metabolic syndrome is found in a larger and larger proportion of middle-aged and young people, especially men. Their...
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2007
Part-time all the time
Some days, it seems as if all of Japan is being run by part-timers. Every service job, from store clerks to ticket vendors to front-desk help, seems to be handled by nonregular employees. The enthusiasm of many freshly hired workers is matched by their lack of experience. One hardly knows what to expect...
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2007
Limits of EU centralization
By David Howell
LONDON — In Lisbon, yet another European Union Treaty has been signed, this one purporting to replace all previous treaties and to give Europe the pattern of governance it needs to meet the future.
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2007
A ceiling on extended power
The Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly has enacted a bylaw limiting a governor to three consecutive terms in office, or 12 years. It will not take effect, though, until the central government places a limit on the number of times a person can be elected as governor or mayor, by revising the Local Autonomy...
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2007
Deadbeat life insurers
The nation's 38 life insurance companies have failed to pay ¥91 billion of insurance money and other due payments in about 1.2 million cases over five years since the 2001 fiscal year. This backlog will surely increase public worry following the reported nonpayment problem at nonlife-insurance companies...
EDITORIALS
Oct 25, 2007
Mr. Sarkozy's first real test
A fter a whirlwind start, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing his first real head winds. Having taken the initiative since moving into the Elysee Palace in May, Mr. Sarkozy is being buffeted by public worker strikes and a high-profile divorce. Neither should be fatal to his presidency, but both...
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2007
Libya comes out of the cold
Libya has won a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Tripoli's victory is the clearest sign of its international rehabilitation and a possible lesson for other so-called rogue states: Returning and respecting international norms can pay real dividends.
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2007
Don't forget Myanmar
There is a seeming return to normalcy in Myanmar. Calm has returned to the streets and demonstrations are over. The junta has lifted its curfew and ended the ban on gatherings of more than five people. Once cordoned-off pagodas have reopened to the public. The military junta has appointed a commission...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2007
Turkey's army won't invade
By Ian Bremmer
PRAGUE — Just when the smoke from Turkey's domestic political conflicts of the past year had begun to clear, another deadly attack by Kurdish separatists on Turkish soldiers has the government threatening military attacks inside northern Iraq. That prospect raises risks for Turkey, Iraq and the United...
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
Top Japan trade negotiator canceled U.S. trip over rice, report says
Ryosei Akazawa
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
Most Trump tariffs are not legal, U.S. appeals court rules
Workers hang a large poster of U.S. President Donald Trump on the facade of the Department of Labor headquarters building in Washington on Wednesday.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
YouTube Music Weekend is where Japan’s internet-born performers go global
Headlining the second day of YouTube Music Weekend is Vocaloid artist Kikuo, who, with 1.46 million YouTube subscribers, is one of the most popular artists in the genre.
Japan looks to build drone ‘shield’ in record defense budget request
A group of Ground Self-Defense Force service members discuss drone operations and capabilities at a joint static display during the Orient Shield 24 opening ceremony at the Yausubetsu Training Area in Hokkaido in July last year.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.
Jesse Kirkwood: ‘Languages are entire cultural universes with all sorts of baggage’
Jesse Kirkwood is part of a vibrant field of translators who have nurtured what might be called a “post-Murakami era of Japanese literature and translation,” one book at a time.

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER