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September 13, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Mar 15, 2012

Disposing of disaster debris

One year since the 3/11 disasters, the devastated areas face many difficult problems. One big problem is how to dispose of the large amounts of debris that the massive earthquake and tsunami left.

COMMENTARY

Mar 14, 2012

Japan's cautionary tale for the U.S.

By Robert Samuelson

Since the financial crisis, a shadow has hovered over the U.S. economy: Japan. Could what happened there happen to us? The bursting of Japan's real estate and stock bubble in the early 1990s has had lasting consequences: a "lost decade" (actually, two) of meager growth and weak job markets. Though hardly...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 14, 2012

World has a stake in Russia's youthful vanguard

By Condoleezza Rice

The election of the once and future president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, tempts one to despair that the brief and inspiring political awakening in Russia over the past year was for naught. He has gotten his way — replacing his protege Dmitry Medvedev and reclaiming the Kremlin to solidify...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 14, 2012

A wakeup call Japan ignored

By Paul Blustein

At 2:46 p.m. Sunday, March 11, my family and I joined millions of Japanese standing silently at a Buddhist temple or a Shinto shrine. With heads bowed, we remembered the events of one year earlier, when our house swayed for nearly three minutes and the power died. In the Tohoku region, several hundred...

EDITORIALS

Mar 14, 2012

Loss of bonds a growing problem

A series of incidents in which people who had received no help from others citizens or local governments and apparently died alone raises concerns that human ties in Japanese society are growing increasingly thin and that the nation's social safety net has serious holes.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 14, 2012

Renew commitment to building a new Japan

By Yoshihiko Noda

March 11 is etched in Japan's collective consciousness. Sunday, on the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which triggered the starkest crisis our country has faced in a generation, we commemorated all of those who suffered. Our thoughts went out to all of the victims of the tragedy...

EDITORIALS

Mar 14, 2012

Ease loan burdens in disaster area

Enterprises and individuals in the areas devastated by the 3/11 disasters are saddled with loans and are facing great difficulty in restarting their business and rebuilding homes. On March 5, the doors opened at a government organization that was established to help small-scale enterprises, self-employed...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 14, 2012

Sending the wrong message to North Korea

By Andrew Natsios

Another food crisis has spread across North Korea, caused by yet another poor harvest and Pyongyang's disastrous currency manipulation scheme, which wiped out the savings many people had used to feed themselves. We do not know how many people are dying, but it is not as bad as the famine of the 1990s,...

COMMENTARY

Mar 13, 2012

Greece could learn from Argentina's experience

By Cesar Chelala

To understand Greece's recent travails and how the country got there, it is useful to quote what Mikis Theodorakis, the famous Greek songwriter and composer, wrote about it recently on his homepage:

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 13, 2012

Public acceptance of high salaries for athletes contrasts with low regard for finance superstars

By Kenneth Rogoff

The biggest news around Cambridge in recent weeks has been Jeremy Lin, the Harvard economics graduate who has shocked the National Basketball Association by rising overnight from "nowhere" to become a genuine star, leading a losing New York Knicks team to an unlikely string of victories.

EDITORIALS

Mar 13, 2012

Volunteers still very much in need

Areas hit by the 3/11 disasters are suffering from a shortage of volunteer workers. Reconstruction is entering a critical phase and the whole nation must make an effort to lend a helping hand so that those whose lives have been upended by the disasters do not feel that they have been forgotten.

EDITORIALS

Mar 13, 2012

Put the political maneuvering aside

The Lower House on Thursday passed the ¥90.333 trillion fiscal 2012 budget with the support of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and its coalition partner, the People's New Party. But Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda cannot be optimistic about upcoming Diet business and must overcome several hurdles....

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.

The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight

By Mai Yoshikawa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

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