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August 22, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
May 30, 2012
Looking at the lay judge system
Three years have passed since the lay judge system was introduced to bring citizens' perspective into criminal trials. According to the Supreme Court, 20,817 had people served as lay judges and 7,257 as backup lay judges by the end March. More than 95 percent of them said that participation in trials...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2012
More forensic experts needed
The Diet is expected to soon start deliberating on two bills designed to improve procedures involving autopsies when unnatural deaths are suspected. The bills are a welcome step which will help rectify the current situation in which the police disregard most deaths they handle as having nothing to do...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2012
Time for the Diet to act
There remains less than a month before the current Diet session is scheduled to end on June 21. Deliberations have started in a Lower House special committee on the tax and social welfare reform. Among the bills before the committee are two related to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's plan to raise the...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
May 28, 2012
Overruling doubt to indict: underbelly of Japan's reform
The April 26 acquittal in Tokyo District Court of former Democratic Party of Japan chief Ichiro Ozawa signified total "defeat" for public prosecutors in view of the strong possibility, as a journalist on judicial matters said, that the prosecutors had maneuvered a "prosecution inquest committee," an...
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2012
China, too, faces challenge of an aging society
By Cesar Chelala
Parallel to its economic development, China is facing the challenge of a rapidly aging population. This is happening at a time when urbanization and industrialization is quickly increasing in the country. It is a trend that has weakened traditional family support networks, particularly for the elderly....
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2012
Why do economies stop growing?
By Michael Spence
Over the years, advanced and developing countries have experimented, sometimes deliberately and frequently inadvertently, with a variety of approaches to growth. Unfortunately, many of these strategies have turned out to have built-in limitations or decelerators — what one might call elements of unsustainability....
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2012
Selling an Olympic image
Tokyo, along with Madrid and Istanbul, has made it to the final phase of the International Olympic Committee's selection process for the city that will host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, after the IOC's eliminated Doha and Baku from the list of candidates. But to become the host for the games, Tokyo...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 28, 2012
Unmachinable, unreformable, but necessary
By Hiroaki Sato
One recent topic for The Wall Street Journal's front-page space set aside for stories other than the daily shenanigans of business, politics and wars was the community in Florida created for retired letter carriers. ("In Florida, These Retirees Deliver a First-Class Protest," March 27.)
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2012
The politics of victimhood
By Ramesh Thakur
When a group of gay activists engaged in an angry confrontation with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who was having dinner with a major columnist in a Melbourne restaurant, the journalist noted how those demanding tolerance of diversity had shown an ugly face of extreme intolerance uncharacteristic of...
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2012
Leveling the field for renewables
The government has drawn up a design for Japan's feed-in tariff system to promote the generation of electricity through renewable energy sources. In a nutshell, it has decided the prices at which the nation's major power companies buy such electricity and the duration of contracts. In principle they...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 27, 2012
Nuclear power profiteers seem keen to risk getting blood on their hands
By Roger Pulvers
Areport this year by the Independent Investigation Committee on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, a group set up in September 2011 by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, condemned what it called Japan's "absolute safety myth." The Japanese government, in collusion with the media and the regional electric-power...
EDITORIALS
May 27, 2012
Foundation for future pensions
The government has sent a bill to unify different pension systems for public servants and private school teachers, on one hand, and corporate workers, on the other. The Diet should thoroughly discuss the bill since it will lay a long-term foundation for the nation's pension system.
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.
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.
Japanese manufacturers moving headquarters out of central Tokyo
A building in Kawasaki housing Toshiba's new headquarters
Is sumo becoming a victim of its own popularity?
A training session at Shikoroyama stable in June 2016. Sumo training sessions are increasingly simulated or the preserve of group tours.
Japanese man suspected of ordering double murder in Manila
Two suspects arrested over the killing of two Japanese last week are held in restraints in Manila on Tuesday.
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.
Winning warship bid gives Japan confidence boost as Tokyo eyes more exports
Australia’s decision to select Japan's upgraded Mogami-class warship, seen in this computer-generated image, has been “well received across Japanese industry," a Defense Ministry official said.
In Paris, chefs Chizuko Kimura and Kei Kobayashi make their mark
Chef Kei Kobayashi is France's only Japanese chef with three Michelin stars.

Podcast

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

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers
By Tomoko Otake

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