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September 17, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Aug 31, 2007

The education of a sumo wrestler

Yokozuna Asashoryu, accompanied by his stable master Takasago, has flown to his motherland Mongolia for treatment of a mental disorder and injuries to his left elbow and lower back. The injuries have been diagnosed as requiring six weeks to heal.

EDITORIALS

Aug 31, 2007

A troubled cop off the beat

Guns possessed by yakuza gangsters pose a threat to society. But what happened early last week in Tokyo is serious as well. A "koban" (police box) duty officer of the Metropolitan Police Department assigned to the Tachikawa Police Station used a gun issued to him to shoot a woman to death in her apartment...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 31, 2007

Transformation of Turkey

By Soli Ozel

ISTANBUL — Abdullah Gul's election as Turkey's 11th president marks a watershed in the country's history.

EDITORIALS

Aug 30, 2007

Common cause in Central Asia

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held its annual summit in mid-August, providing the occasion for another round of hand-wringing over whether an anti-Western bloc has emerged. Those dark speculations are exaggerated. Indeed, the rest of the world should support efforts to increase counterterrorism...

COMMENTARY

Aug 30, 2007

Happiness can't be legislated

By David Howell

LONDON — The question is topical because economists and other experts are increasingly doubting whether existing policies, such as steps to increase economic growth, really add to people's welfare and contentment.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 30, 2007

China's happy mask hides huge problems

By Giles Merritt

BEIJING — China's "face" may be its Achilles' Heel. As it basks in its new status as an economic superpower — the dragon that is outpacing Asia's tigers as well as the donkeys of the West — China is mistakenly downplaying its own serious structural weaknesses.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 30, 2007

Collective self-defense and collective security: what the differences mean for Japan

By Craig Martin

As the debate in Japan heats up over whether and how to amend Article 9 of the Constitution, the terms "collective self-defense" and "collective security" are often used in the same breath, almost as though they were synonymous. Often the terms are avoided altogether. The 2007 Defense White Paper uses...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 30, 2007

Reforming Aboriginal affairs

By Alan Goodall

SYDNEY — A rush of reform bills through Parliament, a lockdown in Sydney for an APEC heads-of-state meeting, unseasonal storms sweeping across the whole continent — what's going on in Australia? Surely the signs of an knife-edge national election ahead.

COMMENTARY

Aug 29, 2007

Don't toy around with Sino-U.S. relations

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — An effective foreign policy requires proportionate thinking. Hysteria and demagoguery can win a few elections, but they can lose wars and economic battles of enormous consequence. In the United States, foreign policy is particularly complex: Even if the president and the executive branch...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 29, 2007

It's not the West that should worry Putin

By Andrei Piontkovsky

PRAGUE — Last week, Russia and China held joint military maneuvers in the presence of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao. But a new strategic alliance between the two countries is not likely, as it is China that poses the greatest strategic threat to Russia, although...

EDITORIALS

Aug 29, 2007

Mr. Abe plays it safe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who chose not to step down after his Liberal Democratic Party's devastating defeat in last month's Upper House election, reshuffled the LDP leadership and his Cabinet on Monday. Mr. Abe has at least two messages for the people: that his new Cabinet is reliable and stable, and...

EDITORIALS

Aug 28, 2007

Learning from a summer of disasters

With an airplane exploding, bridges collapsing, and a nuclear plant shutting down, it has been a summer of disasters. Around the globe since May, no continent has been left untouched — whether by fire, flood, tornado, airplane crash or a collapsing mine. Disasters, clearly, do not take summer vacations....

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

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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