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August 11, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2005
The right thing is not permanent tax cuts
By Isabel Sawhill and Michael O'Hanlon
WASHINGTON -- Since his re-election, President George W. Bush has emphasized the need for U.S. fiscal responsibility. He has pledged to halve the enormous federal budget deficit in his second term. He has vowed to put social security on a sound, long-term footing. And he has just submitted a 2006 budget...
EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 2005
In praise of a 'billy sook'
With spring just around the corner, what images pop into the mind? Naturally, you're thinking cherry blossoms and daffodils, spring lambs and fluffy chickens, dolls and kites, eggs and chocolate. But some of you will also be thinking rabbits, and you are in luck, because next month brings the publication...
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2005
Nightmare choice set to confront China
By Frank Ching
HONG KONG -- North Korea's surprise announcement last week that it possesses nuclear weapons and would indefinitely boycott the six-party talks immensely complicates the Korean nuclear problem and puts additional pressure on China as host of the multilateral talks to get them started again.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2005
Diaspora bridges China and ASEAN
By Eric Teo Chu Cheow
SINGAPORE -- On Feb. 9, the start of the Year of the Rooster, ethnic Chinese communities across Southeast Asia took stock of their progress and their future in the shadow of China's peaceful development and its strengthened status within the region of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations....
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2005
Missile defense and civilian control
The Cabinet earlier this week approved a bill that would provide a legal framework for a missile defense (MD) system. During the current regular session of the Diet, the government is seeking approval of the proposed amendment to the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) Law plus a bill for creating an integrated...
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2005
Unity crucial for the model to work
Now that the religious political bloc of the Islamic Shiites has triumphed in the Iraqi National Assembly election, it can take the initiative in the transitional administration that follows the present interim government. The U.S. strategy of turning Iraq into a model of democratization for the Middle...
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2005
Blinders on a vital interest
By Robyn Lim
In relation to Iran, Japan needs to get its priorities straight. Currently, Japan is spending only 1 percent of its gross domestic product on defense while living in a dangerous region. It is critical for Japan's economic and strategic security that the United States remain willing to protect Japan's...
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2005
Pyongyang ups the ante
North Korea has announced that it has nuclear weapons and that it is abandoning multilateral talks designed to keep the Korean Peninsula free of them. Still, there is less to Pyongyang's declaration than meets the eye. North Korea has indicated in the past that it possessed nuclear arms, and its disdain...
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2005
Racist banner looks frayed
By Gregory Clark
Understanding Japan and the Japanese was never meant to be easy. This is especially true for the Japanese attitude to foreigners -- at times exclusivist and at other times extremely open. There is an answer to the seeming contradiction, but it requires outsiders to accept that the Japanese might have...
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2005
Flawed compromise takes effect
The Kyoto Protocol on climate change takes effect Wednesday after more than seven years of difficult and complex negotiations aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. Perhaps future generations will remember Feb. 16, 2005, as the day the world launched a determined...
COMMENTARY
Feb 16, 2005
Answering Pyongyang's divisive tack
By Ralph Cossa
HONOLULU -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's initial response to Pyongyang's surprise announcement that it felt compelled to suspend its participation in the six-party talks and that it had manufactured nukes was exactly right.
EDITORIALS
Feb 15, 2005
Keeping to the PKO principles
With the signing of a peace agreement in Sudan, ravaged by more than 20 years of civil war, the government is weighing plans to have the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) participate in U.N. peacekeeping operations (PKO). Japan has received an informal request for cooperation from U.N. Secretary General Kofi...
Tokyo’s WWII museums hold diverse views on war and peace
A carrier-based Type 52 Zero fighter marks the entrance foyer of Yasukuni Shrine's Yushukan, a museum that tells a more nuanced story of Japan's experience in World War II than the controversies around the shrine might suggest.
Japan starts survey on foreign nationals' unpaid resident taxes
In the most recent regular session of parliament, problems were highlighted regarding some foreign workers leaving Japan without paying outstanding taxes.
Summer bonuses at major Japan firms hit record
The fourth consecutive year of increase came after many firms raised their monthly wages this spring and as a result of solid earnings mainly among manufacturers.
Japan's inheritance tax is high, unforgiving and sometimes avoidable
The National Tax Agency at the Ministry of Finance, Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Japanese tax authorities can bill foreign residents in Japan for assets inherited globally.
Weather agency warns of landslides and flooding in Kyushu as heavy rain continues
An embankment on the Amikake River that collapsed due to heavy rain in Aira, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Friday. Downpours continued in the Kyushu region over the weekend.
At Himawari Shokudo 2, Italian food with a Japanese soul
At Himawari Shokudo 2, chef Hozumi Tanaka serves Italian-inspired fare with a focus on Toyama produce, such as this appetizer of lightly blanched "hotaru ika" (firefly squid) served atop mixed wild plants and a crepe prepared from "yamato-imo" yam.
Cheer with caution: Expert advises sports fans have game plan for extreme heat
A Cardinals fan fans himself during the seventh inning of a game against the Pirates in St. Louis, Missouri, in June 2022.
Australia's warship selection signals Japanese defense industry's arrival
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Mogami-class frigate. Australia's selection of an upgraded version of the Mogami-class warship for its next frigate class could prove to be a watershed moment for Japan’s defense industry.
Japan's inheritance tax is high, unforgiving and sometimes avoidable
The National Tax Agency at the Ministry of Finance, Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Japanese tax authorities can bill foreign residents in Japan for assets inherited globally.
Will the movement seeking Ishiba’s resignation succeed?
Liberal Democratic Party youth division head Yasutaka Nakasone (center) and other members speak to reporters in Tokyo on July 25.

Podcast

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

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person
By Naoko Abe

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