Morearticles

 
Menu
Search
 
August 24, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

More Opinion stories

COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2008
Tamp down the old ways
By Kiroku Hanai
Sixty years ago on Nov. 12, 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMT) handed down its verdict branding Japan an aggressor nation and leading to the execution of six military leaders and one politician for instigating the war. As if to substantiate the validity of this verdict,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 24, 2008
Burst of U.S. bubble arouses old specters
By Hiroaki Sato
So the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has spoken: The "usual tools of economic policy — above all, the Federal Reserve's ability to pump up the economy by cutting interest rates — have lost all traction" ("Depression Economics Return," Nov. 14, The New York Times).
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2008
Increase peacekeeping efforts
Two officers of the Ground Self-Defense Force have been dispatched by the government to join the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) peace support operation in southern Sudan. The decision to dispatch them was made in early October on the basis of the 1992 international peace cooperation law. The...
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2008
Opposition to dam plan
The governors of Osaka, Kyoto, Shiga and Mie prefectures have called on the government to cancel its plan to build a dam on the Daido River, part of the Yodo River system, in Shiga Prefecture. They said its priority is low and that the dam should not be included in a development program to construct...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2008
Deciphering the oil puzzle
By David Howell
What happens when the demand for oil flattens out or falls and the supply of oil continues as before or actually increases? The answer is economics at its simplest — the price plummets. And that indeed is what has occurred.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2008
Connecting the solutions while there's time
By Ban Ki Moon and Ban Ki-moon
WASHINGTON — The world does not need to be reminded of the urgency of this historical moment. We sense it every day in the news. One day a major bank, insurance company, or automaker announces a record loss. The next brings word of the impact on nations and peoples least able to cope with these blows...
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2008
Tough lessons in drug use
Until recently, Japan has not needed much of a drug policy, but recent headlines about "university pot busts" indicate one is overdue. Outside of Japan, marijuana arrests no longer even get space in newspapers, since access and use of marijuana is an everyday reality, unhealthy and questionable as it...
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2008
Recession at the people's level
Admitting trouble has never been a strong point of the Japanese government, nor has planning ahead, but the failure to promptly and directly confront the current recession will have serious long-term effects. As news from abroad pours in, it is equally clear that Japan, one of the world's largest economies,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 23, 2008
Judging Japanese architecture as the epitome of environmental art
By Roger Pulvers
"We sense the natural in things that form a happy link with their surroundings. . . . A natural architecture is architecture that creates this propitious connection."
EDITORIALS
Nov 22, 2008
Disturbing rise in geriatric crime
Despite frequent headlines reporting heinous crimes, the Justice Ministry's 2008 white paper on crime provides somewhat assuring figures. The number of crimes, excluding traffic-related offenses, declined for five consecutive years. But Japanese society faces a new problem. Crimes committed by elderly...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2008
A better built ship weathers a 'perfect storm'
By Augusto De La Torre
WASHINGTON — It was short-lived, the decoupling. For a few months — from August 2007 to mid-2008 — Latin America thought it might emerge from the global financial crisis relatively unscathed. Even as the subprime cancer spread through the industrialized world, in Latin America things didn't look...
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2008
Drunk driving deadly serious
Recent traffic incidents show that some people are not aware of the serious nature of drunk driving. While the use of marijuana among university students has been in the public limelight recently, drunk driving — an infinitely more common problem with far deadlier results — should be the subject...
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.
Women-only communities flourish in China
Chen Yani (right), nicknamed "Keke," eats lunch with friends and guests in a female co-living space she founded called "Keke's Imaginative Space" in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on July 14.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Man arrested over deadly stabbing of woman in Kobe
Masashi Tanimoto, 35, the suspect in the deadly stabbing a 24-year-old woman, is taken into custody in Kobe on Friday night.
Japanese city proposes two-hour daily limit for smartphone use
The Toyoake Municipal Government in Aichi Prefecture is planning to enact an ordinance to urge all smartphone users in the city to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school.
Alicia Keys closed Summer Sonic, but J-pop owned it
Summer Sonic’s 2025 lineup demonstrated its strength, showcasing the latest in J-pop, including “new kawaii” act Fruits Zipper.
Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027
Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER