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September 06, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2010
Minamata criteria slammed
In 1977, the government adopted strict criteria for the official recognition of people as victims of Minamata disease, Japan's worst pollution-induced affliction caused by Chisso Corp. Only someone suffering from a combination of methyl mercury-poisoning symptoms, such as sensory disturbances and visual...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2010
Immelt's China meltdown
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt has certainly stirred up a hornet's nest in China with his words of wisdom about doing business there. In the most publicized supposedly private speech of the year, Immelt grumbled that it was getting very difficult for big companies...
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2010
Retrial of the Fukawa case
A retrial of the Fukawa case — in which two men were given life sentences for their conviction of a murder-robbery committed 43 years ago — started July 9 at Mito District Court's Tsuchiura branch. In the case, no material evidence came forth. Mr. Shoji Sakurai and Mr. Takao Sugiyama, convicted on...
COMMENTARY
Jul 22, 2010
Pond scum could save the world
By Michael Richardson
Do we really need to keep pushing the frontiers in the search for oil? Must we venture into ever deeper and more dangerous waters, and into areas on land where technical challenges and political risks are rising? Some leading multinational energy companies evidently believe there may be a promising alternative...
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2010
Ditching a political vision
The Democratic Party of Japan's manifesto for the 2009 Lower House election envisaged establishing a National Strategy Bureau directly under the prime minister. The bureau would gather talented people from both the private and public sectors to work out a national vision and decide on the framework of...
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2010
Rwanda: Kagame's dilemma
By Gwynne Dyer
Did Paul Kagame really stop the genocide in Rwanda 16 years ago, or did he just interrupt it for a while? That question frightens him so much that he will not risk everything on the outcome of a democratic election.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2010
No global shortage of fiscal fibs and follies
By Barry Eichengreen
BERKELEY, Calif. — Across the globe, the debate over fiscal consolidation has the distinct sound of two sides talking past one another.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2010
The U.N. pulls its punches
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the U.N. Security Council blinked — again. Offered the chance to make a forceful denunciation of the attack on the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan, the council pulled its punches. Three months of intense negotiations yielded a statement that looks good until...
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2010
Don't underestimate ASEM
By Brahma Chellaney
One of the less-noticed initiatives in the world is the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), designed to foster closer cooperation between the old economic giants of Europe and the new economic powers of Asia — the two diverse but culturally rich continents that together represent half of the world's GDP and...
COMMENTARY
Jul 20, 2010
Student-teacher relationship sliding in India
By Gautaman Bhaskaran
CHENNAI, India — The suicide of a 13-year-old schoolboy suggests there is something grossly wrong with a society and its education system. Rouvanjit Rawla, a student of class 8 at one of India's most prestigious schools, La Martiniere, in Kolkata, killed himself after the principal caned him. The tragedy...
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2010
Citizens' view of Mr. Ozawa
Tokyo's No. 1 Inquest of Prosecution Committee, an independent judicial panel composed of 11 citizens, said in its decision dated July 8 that the prosecution's decision not to indict former Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa in connection with the alleged false reporting on political...
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2010
Tax ripoff gets thumbs down
The Supreme Court has decided that a 1968 tax notice imposing inheritance as well as income taxes on the beneficiaries of life-insurance money paid in the form of a pension is illegal. The ruling was the culmination of a lawsuit filed against tax authorities in 2005 by a Nagasaki housewife. She deserves...
Bangladesh is a South Asian time bomb
Many Bangladeshis hoped that the overthrow of long-time leader Sheikh Hasina last year would revitalize the country’s democracy after an authoritarian lurch under the “iron lady.” Instead it has led to proliferating human-rights abuses, intensifying repression and widespread Islamist violence.
‘Confugenics’ and East Asia's demographic crisis
East Asia’s fertility plunge is driven not just by financial costs but by perfectionist cultural expectations that burden parents with intense educational and social demands.
Tropical Storm Peipah brings heavy rain to parts of western Japan
Tropical Storm Peipah made landfall in western Japan on Friday, prompting the Japan Meteorological Agency to issue warnings of landslides and other disasters due to heavy rainfall in several areas.
Trump signs order reducing tariffs on Japanese autos
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s chief tariff negotiator, shake hands.
Tamagotchi hatches 100 million shipments worldwide thanks to ’90s nostalgia
The latest version of Tamagotchi, called Tamagotchi Paradise, is awarded the best digital toy at Tokyo Toy Show on Aug. 28.
London’s calling and sumo’s top division — along with Hello Kitty — are ready to answer
Yokozuna Hoshoryu and Hello Kitty, an ambassador for sumo's upcoming tour to London, at Tokyo's Kokugikan on Tuesday
Resonac creates 27-member consortium to pursue advanced chip developments
Representatives from member companies of JOINT3, a consortium working together on semiconductor-related developments announced by Resonac, pose for a photo in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Haru Nemuri’s radical new album refuses easy listening
Musician Haruna Kimishima, better known as Haru Nemuri, confronts Japan’s politics, nationalism and censorship on her recent output.
Overseas sluggers step up to bat in small-town Hokkaido
The Betsukai Pilot Spirits welcomed new players (left to right) Yuta Yamanaka, Roman Guthrie, Scott Bellina and Leo Jiminian this year, pictured here with Yassir Lachkar of the Ishikari Red Phoenix.
Xi — joined by Kim and Putin — delivers stark warning at military parade
Chinese leader Xi Jinping walks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Beijing on Wednesday.

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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Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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