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August 23, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 18, 2008
Japan affords translators an elevated status not found elsewhere
By Roger Pulvers
Here's a little quiz for you.
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2008
Mr. Siniora gambles and loses
It is increasingly clear that the administration of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is the government of Lebanon in name only. In deciding to confront Hezbollah last week, Mr. Siniora badly miscalculated, and was forced to make a humiliating retreat. Now, the country teeters on the precipice of a civil...
COMMENTARY
May 16, 2008
What if Barack Obama were a real Muslim?
By Tom Plate
LOS ANGELES — A significant number of West Virginians (and some others in America) evidently take the view that U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim. In a surpassingly depressing report from the coal-miner state on the eve of Tuesday's West Virginia primary, The Los...
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2008
Giving nonprofits their due
Ten years have passed since the promulgation of the Law Concerning the Promotion of Specific Nonprofit Organization Activities (NPO Law). Many people benefit from NPO services. The central and local governments need to adopt measures to strengthen NPOs' financial bases and overall ability to carry out...
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2008
Misguided use of space
The Diet is expected to enact soon a bill establishing a basic law on space. The bill, passed by the Lower House in a plenary session, represents a drastic departure from Japan's traditional "peaceful purposes only" space policy and could lead to extensive use of space for military purposes. Regrettably,...
EDITORIALS
May 15, 2008
Devastating quake in China
The death toll from the massive earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province Monday has neared 15,000, and more than 20,000 are reportedly still trapped under rubble. This is China's most devastating earthquake since the July 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, Hebei Province, which killed about 242,000 people....
EDITORIALS
May 15, 2008
Contradictory road-tax law
Resorting to a two-thirds majority in the Lower House on Tuesday, the ruling bloc enacted by revote a bill to use revenue from gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas taxes for road-related projects for 10 years from fiscal 2008. The action was taken after the opposition-controlled Upper House had voted...
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2008
Getting Japan to capitalize on its innovation
By Andrei Hagiu and Robert Dujarric
BOSTON/TOKYO — As they lament the West's obsession with China and prepare to host the Group of Eight in July, Japanese fear becoming a minor planet in the Chinese orbit. Trouble is, Japan still sees manufacturing as the key to prosperity, despite the fact that it is vulnerable to offshoring.
COMMENTARY
May 14, 2008
Protectionism won't solve crisis
By Hugh Cortazzi
LONDON — The devastating cyclone that hit lower Burma (Myanmar) has caused horrific loss of life and largely destroyed what was once the rice bowl of Asia. There is an urgent need for food, clean water and shelter for those affected, but the Burmese authorities would apparently rather maintain their...
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2008
The Jews' return to history
By A.B. Yehoshua
TEL AVIV — Ten years ago, on Israel's 50th anniversary, the peace process begun by the 1993 pathbreaking Oslo accord — reached by Israel and the Palestinian Authority — established the legitimacy of two peoples' existence in their shared homeland on the basis of territorial compromise. There was...
COMMENTARY
May 14, 2008
Why Burma has been trashed for 46 years
By Gwynne Dyer
LONDON — The Burmese regime is not to blame for the powerful cyclone that struck the Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon early this month, killing up to a hundred thousand people. But it certainly will be to blame for the next wave of deaths if aid does not soon reach the survivors.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2008
Condemning the crime in Gaza
By Jimmy Carter
ATLANTA — The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned — with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air or land.
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Demystifying the manufacturing success of China
China’s massive scale, strong education system and competitive local governance have enabled it to reach the technological frontier and dominate high-tech manufacturing despite its low per capita gross domestic product.
Infectious diseases to watch for in Japan this summer amid surge of cases
An illustration of a colony of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough. As of Aug. 10, there were 64,467 cases reported this year, according to the latest data from the Japan Institute for Health Security.
103-year-old remembers Soviet attack right after WWII
Shoichi Takahashi holds a photo of himself when he was younger, in Otaru, Hokkaido, on May 17.
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.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.
Atsushi Kitagawara’s exhibition finds poetry in architecture
The inverted cone, one of Atsushi Kitagawara’s six signature elements in architecture, is a key feature of the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection museum building.
Candidates preparing to make final pitches for Sawamura Award
Hawks pitcher Livan Moinelo has a 1.13 ERA in 19 starts this season.

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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