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November 14, 2025
 

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Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 23, 2007

The nuts and bolts of the legislature

The Diet is the center of Japanese politics. It's where ruling and opposition lawmakers play power games and employ tactics in both open and backroom negotiations. With this year's ordinary legislative session set to start Thursday, following are some basic facts about the parliamentary system:
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2007

Nationalist populism rising in Europe

PRAGUE -- The collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe 15 years ago brought vast and positive democratic changes. But in 2006, after more than a decade of striving for acceptance by the West, the moral and political vacuum left by communism was fully exposed. Can a new balance between the...
COMMENTARY
Jan 8, 2007

Cabinet office losing its grip

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is under intense pressure to overhaul his administration after two scandal-tainted aides were forced to resign in December. The trouble came only three months after he took office.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2006

Palestinian civil conflict leads nowhere

PRAGUE -- Regardless of the latest hastily negotiated truce, the battle between nationalist Fatah and Islamist Hamas seems to be gaining intensity. Palestinian politics, always self-destructive, has reached new heights of internal conflict, pulling the population deeper into disorder and pushing them...
COMMENTARY
Dec 24, 2006

Next to the Iraq catastrophe, minor dramas marked 2006

LONDON -- In hard news terms, it's been one of the slower years: no great events, few surprises and no real shocks. But as the little events accumulated during 2006, the shape of the future gradually became clearer in three important dimensions.
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 2006

Mr. Chen faces more difficulties

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has dodged yet another bullet. Unlike the failed assassination attempt during his last election campaign, this attack was metaphorical. His party defeated an impeachment vote in Taiwan's legislature, virtually ensuring that Mr. Chen will serve out his second four-year...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2006

Thaksin poses dilemma for Thai leaders

Thaksin Shinawatra, in exile in London, has given notice that he is still alive and very much kicking. Indeed, the deposed leader is playing a devilishly devious and clever, but potentially deadly, game for himself and for Thailand.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2006

Vatican places state of limbo in limbo

HONG KONG -- Theologians of the Roman Catholic Church are recommending the abolition of a special place that has existed for more than 2,000 years and enriched the world of literature and politics, as well as theology. Pope Benedict XVI himself has given his clear opinion, as an eminent theologian, that...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 11, 2006

The overrated and the underrated

Several months ago I devoted a column to aspects of Japanese life that I felt received too much or too little attention in the eyes of foreign visitors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Nov 5, 2006

Joi Ito: Master of multitasking

Joichi Ito, better known as Joi Ito, defies any one simple label.
COMMENTARY
Oct 16, 2006

Abe off to impressive start

In his summits with Presidents Hu Jintao of China and Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took the first step toward improving relations that had soured between Japan and the two countries under the rule of his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. His initiative also opened a...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 15, 2006

Abe might not have Koizumi's hair and flair, but he's got a girl

During the recently closed Koizumi Era, the media was mostly silent about the former prime minister's marital status and lack of female companionship.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 29, 2006

Street spirits plug in and out

In Japan these days, music and politics don't generally sit well together. On the face of it, a group who seem to have bucked the system is Osaka's Soul Flower Union, who released a new best of album on Sept. 20 and are now on a nationwide tour.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2006

Populist, unambiguous Koizumi tough act to follow

Shinzo Abe, the new prime minister, is one of the country's most popular politicians. His problem is that the one before him, Junichiro Koizumi, is even more popular.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 25, 2006

What's in store for Thailand?

During a conference in Bangkok in August, signs of a three-way tussle among Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, his political opponents and the military were already evident. For example, a former army chief who remains influential as an adviser to the king made a point of wearing the uniform while addressing...
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 24, 2006

Koizumi's Shake, Rattle & Roll

Elvis impersonator? Japan's Thatcher? Faction buster? Nah, as the curtain falls on the Koizumi show, he will be remembered above all for his missed opportunities and self-indulgent gestures at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo -- that, and steamrollering the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 into oblivion....
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2006

Three candidates vie for the top job

The following are profiles of the three candidates running in the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election.
EDITORIALS
Sep 5, 2006

What is expected of Mr. Abe

With Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe's formal announcement of candidacy in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election, the tripartite race between Mr. Abe, Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki has heated up. Given Mr. Abe's great popularity, it is likely...
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2006

Declining sources of pride

The 9/11 terrorist attacks five years ago added a new page to world history, posing a new threat to global security. Following the attacks, the Bush administration in the United States demanded that the international community choose between democracy and dictatorship, between good and evil. Calling...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2006

OhmyNews Japan service launched

The Japanese version of South Korean Internet news service OhmyNews was launched Monday, featuring articles from "citizen reporters" on topics ranging from politics to entertainment.
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2006

Eating elastic loaf in Tehran

Now we know for sure that politics warps our opinions on everything under the sun, political or not. Either that, or everything under the sun is political. Take the matter of language and Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the ragingly anti-Semitic president of Iran, who has been the butt of a lot of snide jokes...
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2006

An opportunity to mend ties

Intensive debate is under way ahead of the governing Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election next month to choose the successor to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. At issue is how to assess the reform policies of Koizumi -- now the third-longest reigning prime minister in the postwar years...
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2006

Downhill path from fear to proliferation

Why have some of Japan's leaders been talking about the need to acquire the ability to attack North Korean missiles on the launchpads? It's because they know that the United States, despite its overwhelming air and maritime power, cannot credibly threaten North Korea. That is because North Korea holds...
EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2006

Mr. Zidane and other 'demons'

Zinedine Zidane must be thanking the gods for FIFA, which in a welcome move Thursday did much to restore some of the lost glow to his image -- and some sanity to a debate in which sanctimonious nonsense had been gaining the upper hand.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2006

The radicalization of Western Muslims

LONDON -- What is it that makes young Muslims in the West susceptible to radicalism? What is it about the experience of the West's rising generation of Muslims that leads a small minority to see violence as a solution to their economic and political dilemmas, and suicide as their reward and salvation?...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 15, 2006

Fuji Rocking 10 years on

Fuji Rock Festival is the biggest event on the calendar for many Japanese and foreign residents alike. Sure, it costs a stack of cash to go, but the festival is not your typical commercial venture. Word on the street is that it has been anything but a money spinner for concert promoter Smash Japan. Instead,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 4, 2006

Will ghostwriters face 'treachery' from post-Koizumi Japan?

A recent news item in The Japan Times really shocked me. It concerned what a former political heavyweight once said in private.
JAPAN
May 10, 2006

Business lobby presses Koizumi to forgo Yasukuni

In a move indicative of how concerns have grown over the tension between Japan and China, a major business lobby on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to stop his annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, saying they are the main obstacle to improving relations.
COMMENTARY
May 2, 2006

Limiting the economic gaps

Japan is rich because Japanese are poor.
From France to Mali, a deportee's struggle far from home
Moussa Sacko, a Malian deported from France — where he had lived since he was a young child — stands on a street in Bamako, Mali, in December. Compared with his home in France, Bamako feels like a different planet, Sacko said.
Descendants in Philippines denied Japanese citizenship
What would a ‘backup capital’ look like for Japan?
The Japan Innovation Party has long sought to get Osaka designated as Japan's backup capital.
Chinese national sentenced for hit-and-run that injured four children in Saitama
A Saitama district court sentenced Deng Hongpeng, a Chinese national and demolition worker, to two years and six months in prison, suspended for four years, for hitting a group of elementary school children with his car and fleeing the scene while driving under the influence.
As attacks surge, who can cull bears in Japan?
Police cars leave the Akita Prefectural Police headquarters to cull bears, in the city of Akita on Thursday.
Japan fully enters sports streaming era as fans face new dilemmas
Sports fan Tadashi Yokoyama streams basketball and fencing on three screens.
Tatsuya Nakadai: A masterful leading man and postwar icon
Tatsuya Nakadai had the look of a leading man in his youth, but his large and searching eyes suggested the pain and loneliness of an old soul.
As Japan’s female leader rises, can she cross sumo’s sacred line?
Japan Sumo Association Chairman Hakkaku (front center) delivers a speech on the first day of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament at the Fukuoka Kokusai Center on Sunday. Centuries of belief and tradition still underpin the all-male association's stance of excluding women.
Takaichi doesn’t mince words on Taiwan, but dramatic policy shift unlikely
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi responds to questions during a House of Representatives Budget Committee session in parliament on Tuesday.
Florist Nicolai Bergmann flourishes outside the box
Florist Nicolai Bergmann shops for fresh flowers at the Ota flower market in Tokyo on Friday.

Podcast

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

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years
By Yukana Inoue

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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