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September 03, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2010
Tweets of freedom are ringing across China
By Emily Parker
NEW YORK — Google has been widely celebrated for its loud refusal to continue censoring its search results in China. It is still unclear whether Google will continue to operate in China, but in any event we are not about to see much change in China's Internet policy. More likely, all this "foreign...
EDITORIALS
Mar 3, 2010
Signs of tsunami complacency
The magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday prompted the Japanese Meteorological Agency to issue "major tsunami" alerts. The quake killed more than 700 people in the South American country. Of the estimated 350 people who died in the seaside resort of Constitucion, it is thought many were...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2010
Grasping for a way to save the Greek sinner
By Hans-Werner Sinn
MUNICH — The euro's current weakness has one culprit: Greece. At 14 percent of GDP, Greece's latest current-account deficit was the largest of the euro-zone countries after Cyprus. Its debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 113 percent by the end of 2009. As this year's deficit is projected to be more than 12...
COMMENTARY
Mar 2, 2010
U.S. 'torture memo' lawyers got off too easily
By Cesar Chelala and Ronald Meinardus
NEW YORK — The recent statement by the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) that the two lawyers who wrote the so-called torture memos merely exercised "poor judgment" is a disservice to justice. This is a topic that should be properly addressed by a serious inquiry...
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2010
A promise the DPJ should forget
The Hatoyama administration has decided to abolish tolls for 50 sections of 37 expressways in Japan on a trial basis. This experiment, which covers some 18 percent of the nation's expressway network, will last from June to the end of March 2011. Making the nation's expressways toll-free was one of the...
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2010
Security for dispatch workers
The labor ministry last month asked an advisory body to discuss possible revisions to the law governing the dispatch of temporary contract workers. The Hatoyama administration hopes to improve the stability of dispatch workers' employment situation, and plans to send a bill containing revisions to the...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2010
Whose GDP is No. 2 misses point
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — News headlines this month proclaimed that Japan is still the world's second-biggest economy, ahead of its neighbor China. Gross domestic product figures for 2009 showed Japan with $5.085 trillion against China's $4.91 trillion.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2010
Don't sweat decline of the traditional press
By Ziga Turk
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Throughout history, political leaders have supported existing communication technologies in order to defend the system in which they rule. Today, too, governments may be tempted to protect newspapers and public TV on the pretext of "saving democracy as we know it."
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2010
Stepping up to devolution
Giving more power to local governments is one of the Democratic Party of Japan's main election promises. The Hatoyama administration and local governments on Feb. 18 agreed on a draft of a bill giving legal backing to a planned policy forum in which concerned Cabinet ministers and local government leaders...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2010
Isolated India is bad news
LONDON — It would be an understatement to suggest that Indian diplomacy faced a major setback at the Afghanistan Conference in London. India was humiliated and its concerns were summarily ignored. In one stroke, Pakistan rendered New Delhi irrelevant in the evolving security dynamic in Afghanistan....
COMMENTARY
Mar 1, 2010
Woods' apology whips up media incapable of behaving with class
By Tom Plate
LOS ANGELES — At times my loyalty to my chosen profession of journalism cannot be taken as a given. This is one of those times.
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2010
Why the oppressed must tell their own story
By Ramzy Baroud
SEATTLE — When American historian Howard Zinn died recently, he left a legacy that redefined our relationship to history. Professor Zinn dared to challenge the way history was written. He defied the conventional construction of historical discourses by the pen of victors or elites.
More sweltering days forecast for September after hottest summer on record
By the end of August, 8,341 people had been transported by ambulance for heatstroke in Tokyo alone.
‘Mount Fuji Lawson’ becomes a symbol of Japan’s overtourism problem
A couple poses for a wedding photo in front of a Lawson in the town of Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 25.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
Woman dies after possible knife attack in Setagaya
Police investigate the scene where a woman was found bleeding on a street in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward on Monday.
Suntory CEO Takeshi Niinami resigns over alleged possession of illegal drugs
Takeshi Niinami, then-chief executive officer of Suntory Holdings, in May 2024
Why Stalin didn’t invade Hokkaido still largely unknown, 80 years after WWII
During a survey to collect the remains of victims from the Taito Maru, one of the vessels involved in the Three Ships Incident, a metal helmet was found near the stern of the vessel on Aug. 5, 1984, at Rumoi Port. No human remains were discovered.
More sweltering days forecast for September after hottest summer on record
By the end of August, 8,341 people had been transported by ambulance for heatstroke in Tokyo alone.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
‘Mount Fuji Lawson’ becomes a symbol of Japan’s overtourism problem
A couple poses for a wedding photo in front of a Lawson in the town of Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 25.
‘Cool’ Patagonia wants to take used items into the mainstream
"It's not just about sales. It's about system change," said Marty Pomphrey, general manager of Patagonia Japan, on Aug. 6.

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
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