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COMMENTARY
Sep 7, 2002

End to France's political lull

PARIS -- French ministers are back at work after the three weeks or so of rest they were granted following their first 100 days in office. The least one can say is that the tasks ahead of them won't be easy. Crime has increased by 3 percent in spite of the new Cabinet's vow to make crime-fighting a top...
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2002

Initial budget requests up 3.4% on 2002 but likely to be cut

General account budget requests for fiscal 2003 will total 84.02 trillion yen, up 2.79 trillion yen, or 3.4 percent, from the initial budget for the current fiscal year, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2002

Funds sought for Okinawa university

The Cabinet Office said Wednesday it will submit a fiscal 2003 budget request of 1.93 billion yen related to the establishment of a new university featuring a graduate school curriculum focusing on natural sciences in Okinawa in 2007.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2002

Koizumi repeats antiwar vow on 57th anniversary of surrender

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated Thursday his determination to uphold the nation's antiwar pledge as he attended a memorial marking the 57th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2002

Hiroshima mayor calls on the U.S. to 'sever the chain of hatred'

HIROSHIMA -- On the 57th anniversary of the first atomic bombing, the view from this reborn city was of a world that since Sept. 11 has turned its back on the message of the bomb's survivors.
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2002

Attack-response law dead in the water?

When the government submitted a set of emergency-response bills to the Diet in April, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was breaking a decades-long taboo under the war-renouncing Constitution.
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 2002

Putting new wine in a new bottle

Bureaucratic reform, not just political reform, is urgently needed in Japan. In a nutshell, that is the message of the latest annual government report on the civil service. The report, for the first time, includes government employees' thoughts about themselves, their colleagues and their bosses.
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2002

Koizumi set to issue financial stability directive

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi indicated Thursday he will instruct his Cabinet ministers to step up measures to stabilize the financial system and reassure bankers before the imposition of a cap on all bank deposit guarantees in April.
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2002

Economic support to China necessary, Kawaguchi says

OSAKA -- Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Saturday she believes it is necessary for Japan to extend economic assistance to China, despite international concerns about the country's increasing military budget.
JAPAN
Jul 14, 2002

Panel suggests liaison office for refugees

A new liaison office should be established under the Cabinet Secretariat to better deal with refugee issues, a Liberal Democratic Party panel said in a report on Japan's refugee policy obtained Saturday.
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2002

Government sees 'incipient recovery'

The government on Thursday upgraded its economic assessment on the back of brisk exports and improved production but warned that downside risks to the economy are increasing.
BUSINESS
Jul 6, 2002

GDP data likely to be late: official

Japan's gross domestic product data for the April-June quarter probably won't be released by Aug. 19 as planned, a senior Cabinet Office official said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2002

Road panel to include controverial writer

A long-awaited list of members of a key government panel that will discuss proposed privatization of road-related public bodies was released Friday, controversially naming the well-known nonfiction writer Naoki Inose.
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2002

Rural areas boast higher employment for women in 30s

Women in their 30s who live in rural prefectures are more likely to have jobs than their counterparts in metropolitan areas, according to a government white paper on gender equality released Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2002

Suzuki concession eyed in bid to end Diet boycott

Opposition parties on Monday indicated they might be ready to discuss an end to their Diet boycott following a request by prosecutors to strip lawmaker Muneo Suzuki of his parliamentary immunity from arrest.
COMMENTARY
Jun 13, 2002

Wounds of flawed partition remain raw

HONG KONG -- Once again, Indo-Pakistani relations are seen to be teetering on the brink of potentially calamitous conflict. Yet too little attention is being paid to the possible solutions that could diminish the sustained Indo-Pakistani cold war with its proven tendency to occasionally become hot.
EDITORIALS
Jun 4, 2002

Hollow debate on Diet extension

Discussions and bargaining on an extension of the current session of the Diet, which is scheduled to end on June 19, are heating up. Speculation about the extension of a Diet session that is tied up with the existing political situation is not unusual in itself, but discussions that reflect a leadership...
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2002

Dispel the end-of-era mood

An interesting new book by Edo Period literary expert Takehiko Noguchi, "Bakumatsu Kibun" (The Mood in the Last Days of the Tokugawa Shogunate), details how shogunate officials and citizens of Edo indulged themselves in lavish consumption and entertainment as they faced the demise of the government....
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2002

Koizumi must act to end his state of siege

I cannot help but suspect that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the members of his Cabinet feel beset with troubles both at home and abroad as the current session of the Diet enters the homestretch.
BUSINESS
May 15, 2002

Workers' confidence up for sixth month

Economic confidence among employees with jobs close to the consumer improved in April for the sixth month in a row, but pessimists still outnumber optimists, according to a government survey released Tuesday.
BUSINESS
May 14, 2002

Core machinery orders declined 6.2% in March

Core private-sector machinery orders fell 6.2 percent in March, reverting to minus territory after rising in February for the first time in three months, the Cabinet Office said Monday.
JAPAN
May 11, 2002

Personal information bill endangers privacy, press: LDP politician

A government-sponsored bill to protect personal information, which critics fear would threaten freedom of the press, is more likely aimed at protecting bureaucrats rather than individual members of the public, according to a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who has openly criticized the legislation....
BUSINESS
May 8, 2002

Localities slow to start PFI projects: survey

A Cabinet Office survey released Tuesday reveals that 79.2 percent of local governments and municipalities have not started preparations to implement private finance initiative projects.
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2002

Let firms police selves, panel says

An advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday suggested that companies enter into covenants with their customers regarding product quality and safety.
BUSINESS
Apr 20, 2002

Posts deregulation bills may shatter LDP, Aso warns

The Liberal Democratic Party may be torn apart if Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi goes ahead with his controversial plan to have four bills related to postal deregulation approved by the Cabinet on April 26, a top LDP policymaker warned Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2002

Bills covering emergencies presented

The government has moved forward on draft versions of bills to govern Japan's response to a foreign military attack, with Cabinet endorsement eyed for April 16, according to government sources.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2002

Key economic gauge stays below 50%

The nation's coincident index stayed below the boom-or-bust line of 50 percent for the 13th straight month in January, according to a government report released Thursday.
JAPAN / CLOSE NEIGHBORS
Feb 14, 2002

Lawmakers' views of past still plague relations

An education ministry panel's approval last April of a history textbook, which critics denounced as attempting to glorify Japan's wartime past, drew a quick response from South Korean politicians.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2002

Tokyo stocks plummet to 18-year low

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average closed at an 18-year low Tuesday as investors fretted over delays in structural reform and a plunge in U.S. stocks.

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