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July 22, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Sep 20, 2009
Japan's health care as a model
The health care debate in America has had an interesting item mentioned again and again in recent weeks — the Japanese health care system! Editorials and news reports have held up Japan as an example of good-quality health care.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2009
Putin's preferred memory of World War II
By Alexander Etkind
CAMBRIDGE, England — Soviet ideology was always about the future. By contrast, today's official Russian ideology seems to be focused squarely on the past.
EDITORIALS
Sep 20, 2009
More foreign students than ever
The Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education recently convened over a government proposal to increase the number of foreign students in Japan to 300,000 by 2020. That plan is positive not only for students, schools and teachers, but also for Japan as a whole. This increased opening...
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2009
Divining Japan's new leadership amid the expectations of change
By Hugh Cortazzi
LONDON — On a recent visit to France, I was frequently asked about the results of the Japanese election. Did the results mean that Japan was really changing? Would the new Japanese government increase Japan's influence in the world?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 20, 2009
Now suicide has become a political issue, how will Japan address it?
By Roger Pulvers
Without a doubt the grimmest statistic coming out of Japan today concerns the number of suicides, which have exceeded 30,000 annually for 11 years in a row — engendering indescribable tragedies for so many families.
EDITORIALS
Sep 19, 2009
Mystery of the missing freighter
It still isn't clear exactly what happened to the Russian-crewed freighter Arctic Sea, which mysteriously disappeared in European waters last month. Inconsistencies and the implausibility of the official story — it was a hijacking — have prompted considerable speculation.
COMMENTARY
Sep 19, 2009
Colombo risks squandering Sri Lanka's hard-won peace
By Brahma Chellaney
If Sri Lanka is to become a tropical paradise again, it must build enduring peace. This will only occur through genuine interethnic equality, and a transition from being a unitary state to being a federation that grants provincial and local autonomy.
EDITORIALS
Sep 18, 2009
Pardon Mr. Chen to help Taiwan
The conviction and sentencing of former Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian is a troubling development. The life sentence handed down to Mr. Chen is certain to deepen the fissures in an already deeply divided and volatile society. He has appealed the sentence.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2009
Japan's harmonious drift
By Guy Sorman
PARIS — Forget what you have heard about the hardworking Japanese salaryman: Since the early 1990s, the Japanese have slackened their work habits.
COMMENTARY
Sep 18, 2009
Competing northern passages
By Gwynne Dyer
LONDON — Early next week two German-owned container ships will arrive in Rotterdam from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, having taken only one month to make the voyage. That's much faster than usual — but then they didn't take the usual route down through the South China Sea, past Singapore,...
COMMENTARY
Sep 18, 2009
Beijing's 'internal affairs'
By Frank Ching
HONG KONG — Ever since the 1950s, China has subscribed to the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries, which was first written into a treaty that it signed with India in 1954. China has loudly upheld this principle and criticized those who, in Beijing's view, interfere...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2009
Economists banked too much on rationality
By Robert J. Shiller
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The widespread failure of economists to forecast the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 has much to do with faulty models, which meant that economic policymakers and central bankers got no warning of what was to come.
Japan ruling bloc loses majority in Upper House after election drubbing
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who serves concurrently as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, leaves at the party's headquarters following announcement of Upper House election result projections in Tokyo early Monday.
‘Japanese First’ Sanseito emerges as powerful force after Upper House poll
Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya in Tokyo on Sunday night
Foreign residents closely follow Japan's election and party pledges
A police officer walks past posters of Liberal Democratic Party candidates, as well as one showing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, outside the party's headquarters in Tokyo on Sunday. As Japan’s foreign population continues to rise, one of the talking points during Sunday’s election was how the country should deal with the increase of international residents.
Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
Hitomi Obara, 2012 Olympic champion in wrestling, dies at 44
Hitomi Obara competes at the London Olympics in August 2012.
Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
Pentagon looks to unleash ‘military drone dominance’
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hosts a drone demonstration at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on July 10.
‘Noto Democracy’ and the slow work of civic change
Yukio Iokibe’s “Noto Democracy" centers on Motoyuki Takii, a former junior high school teacher who publishes a handwritten newspaper every month to encourage the residents of Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture, to engage in local politics.
In microbes we trust: Embracing the nature of fermented food
You don't need an oven to make Kenji Morimoto's easy and delicious Miso Sticky Toffee Crepe Cake.
Touring the Silk Road — without leaving Tokyo
One of the entrances to Pao Compound, a nine-story Silk Road-inspired complex in Tokyo's Higashinakano neighborhood

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan
By Alex K.T. Martin

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