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August 23, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jun 16, 2008
Reluctant runner viewed as possible Fukuda fill-in
It is expected that a race for Japan's national leadership will start after Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda hosts the summit meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Toyako, Hokkaido, in July.
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2008
Vying to be the Olympic host
Tokyo, Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro have been chosen final candidates for the 2016 Olympic Games. Japan's capital city has received the top rating in the International Olympic Committee's preliminary selection round, but this only marks the start of a long race. The climax comes Oct. 2, 2009, when...
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2008
'Ni hao' to a new face
Justice Ministry records reveal that Chinese have become the largest group of foreigners residing in Japan, edging out Koreans who had been in the top spot since records were taken in 1959. Chinese residents in Japan now number 600,000, double their 1997 number. With Brazilians and Filipinos, the next...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2008
Healing Bolivia at a gloomy political junction
By Juan Gabriel Tokatlian
BUENOS AIRES — Since the mid-19th century, Latin America has suffered fewer interstate wars and undergone less state creation than any other region of the world. The continent has been a relatively quiet periphery because its countries tend neither to fight each other nor to divide from within. Bolivia,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2008
The right options for Iran
By Volker Perthes
BERLIN — With U.S. President George W. Bush in Europe getting EU leaders to agree to toughen U.N. sanctions against Iran, and with the ongoing debate between John McCain and Barack Obama about whether the United States needs to talk with Iran's rulers, the issue of Iran's nuclear program is heating...
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2008
Australia-Japan partnership
In their first meeting last week, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sidestepped a sensitive issue that could harm bilateral relations. Instead, in their joint statement, they confirmed the two countries' "commitment to strengthening further the comprehensive strategic,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 15, 2008
Nuggets of 'wisdom' can speak volumes beyond what's said
By Roger Pulvers
"Biting Comments, Curious Statements and Famous Misstatements" is the headline on the lead article in the June 5 issue of the popular Japanese weekly magazine Bungei Shunju. It features dramatic ejaculations of famous politicians, sports figures and entertainers, among others.
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2008
From fantasy to nightmare
The nightmare in Akihabara last week, when a knife-wielding man drove a truck into a Sunday crowd, leaped out and started stabbing people at random, has continued to shock the country. As the victims' families grieve, the injured recuperate and witnesses struggle to recover, the attack has become even...
COMMENTARY
Jun 15, 2008
Dose of humility overcomes a world of hurt
By Tom Plate
LOS ANGELES — It is precisely during economic and political tension that more frequent and fervent expressions of sincere humility might serve to smooth over some tough spots. After all, being truly humble can serve to downsize egos that otherwise tend to mushroom minor molehills into major mountain...
EDITORIALS
Jun 14, 2008
Prepare for the worst
An expert panel of the government's Central Disaster Prevention Council recently projected that a major earthquake in the Kinki and Chubu region occurring at noon in winter would cause economic damage of ¥74 trillion and ¥33 trillion, respectively. Such an earthquake would shred heavily used traffic...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2008
Losing Turkey to a new geopolitical course
By Mark Almond
OXFORD, England — Turkey has long been a haven of geopolitical stability. But since 2003, Turkey's virtually unquestioned alliance with the United States has undergone a profound re-evaluation due to the Iraq War. The Turkish consensus on its decades-long EU candidacy has begun to wobble, owing to...
COMMENTARY
Jun 13, 2008
Scrutable, 'invisible' Japan
By Kazuo Ogoura
The international community of scholars with an interest in Japan is rife with whisperings of Japan's "invisibility."
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.
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.
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.
Infectious diseases to watch for in Japan this summer amid surge of cases
An illustration of a colony of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough. As of Aug. 10, there were 64,467 cases reported this year, according to the latest data from the Japan Institute for Health Security.
103-year-old remembers Soviet attack right after WWII
Shoichi Takahashi holds a photo of himself when he was younger, in Otaru, Hokkaido, on May 17.
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.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan
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.

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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