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September 18, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Mar 18, 2008

Privacy vs. Juki Net

The Supreme Court earlier this month declared as constitutional the nationwide Juki Net residency registry network, ruling against residents who had filed four separate lawsuits. Citing the possible danger of information leakage and use of information for illegitimate purposes, residents from Osaka,...

EDITORIALS

Mar 18, 2008

Time to boost domestic demand

The dollar plunged last week to the ¥95 level for the first time in 12 years and six months. The U.S. currency at one point moved to record lows against the euro. Its weakness results from a fear among market players that the U.S. economy is heading toward a recession. The subprime mortgage crisis in...

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Mar 17, 2008

Ozawa's troops are restless

Political insiders have begun suspecting that Ichiro Ozawa may be losing his grip on the Democratic Party of Japan after a head-on collision between the DPJ and the governing coalition was averted during 11th-hour mediation by the Lower House speaker and the Upper House president.

EDITORIALS

Mar 17, 2008

Punishing bureaucratic neglect

The Supreme Court earlier this month upheld a suspended prison sentence for a former health ministry official who had been found guilty of failing to prevent the sale and use of HIV-contaminated blood products that resulted in the death of a patient suffering from impaired liver function. It concluded...

COMMENTARY

Mar 17, 2008

Tainted 'gyoza' poisoning bilateral ties

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG — The tainted "gyoza" dumpling scare in Japan has caused the delay of President Hu Jintao's visit to Tokyo and, if not properly handled, could result in the unraveling of the dramatic improvement in bilateral relations achieved since October 2006, when Shinzo Abe broke the ice by visiting...

EDITORIALS

Mar 17, 2008

Deadlock in 'gyoza' probe

The investigation into food-poisoning incidents caused by insecticide-tainted "gyoza" dumplings imported from China is deadlocked because Japan and China have completely different views as to where the insecticide contaminated the gyoza. China opposes Japan's view that the possibility of the contamination...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 16, 2008

Dancing with bears in Putin's shadow

By Yu Bin

Perhaps more than any other capital in the world, Beijing has closely observed the changing of the guard in the Kremlin. There are many reasons for Beijing's concerns: Russia's revival as a major power, its petro-politics approach to foreign relations, its management of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization...

COMMENTARY

Mar 16, 2008

Is Obama another JFK, Bush, or both?

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — Admirers of Barack Obama who glibly and favorably compare the Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency to John F. Kennedy always assume that they are doing the former a favor. But there's another way to look at it — and it's less pretty.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 16, 2008

Ireland wrestles with a plethora of polemics

By Roger Pulvers

First of two parts

EDITORIALS

Mar 16, 2008

Underwhelming pay raises

Most leading carmakers, electronics manufacturers, shipbuilders and steelmakers have concluded this year's spring wage talks. Although they offered wage raises for the third straight year on improved earnings, the raises remain at last year's levels, failing to meet union demands for the most part. The...

EDITORIALS

Mar 16, 2008

Renewable energy surges forward

Renewable energy is developing rapidly in terms of investment and energy production. The Renewable Energy 2007 Global Status Report made public in late February is food for thought for energy policymakers, citizens, and power and other companies. Renewable electricity generation capacity reached an estimated...

COMMENTARY

Mar 15, 2008

Still mired in parochialism

LONDON — "No man is an Island, entire of itself; everyman is a piece of the Continent.''

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.

Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

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