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May 16, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY
May 29, 2008

Prime ministers in trouble

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda face a sea of troubles. Neither looks likely to keep his job long enough to make a significant contribution to solving the problems in Britain or in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2008

Girls and women: first casualties in wartime

AMSTERDAM — Truth is often said to be the first casualty in wartime. But if the real truth is told, it is women who are the first casualties. In conflict zones, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF recently observed, sexual violence usually spreads like an epidemic. Whether it is civil war,...
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2008

Another nail for Mr. Brown?

In another sign that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in real trouble, his Labour Party was beaten in a by-election last week. Coming on the heels of a crushing defeat in local elections earlier this month, Labour looks exhausted and desperate for a turnaround in its fortunes. With the British...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2008

Is China's Tibet policy bad for business?

PRAGUE — When a Chinese government security official recently accused followers of the Dalai Lama of organizing suicide attacks — merely the most extreme of a barrage of allegations against the "Dalai clique" — it was as though the Cultural Revolution were still raging. Indeed, particularly where...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
May 13, 2008

Brex upgrade roster in busy offseason

Just as the team name reveals, the Link Tochigi Brex are trying to do everything to make themselves successful in their first season in the JBL's top league.
COMMENTARY
May 12, 2008

Row that demonized China

So now we know, officially, that the U.S. military contemplated a nuclear attack on China during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis. But what few realize is how this then led to a violent slanging match between Beijing and Moscow, which in turn was to lead to the Vietnam and other Indochina wars, which in...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 11, 2008

The authorities gain complete control of the stories

Prior to the recent retrial of a man who was eventually sentenced to death by the Hiroshima High Court for killing a woman and her 1-year-old child in 1999, the Broadcasting Ethics and Program Improvement Organization complained about the coverage of the case. The BPO said that media outlets concentrated...
EDITORIALS
May 10, 2008

Mr. Brown gets battered

Even though he was not on the ballot, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown took a beating in local elections last week. His Labour Party suffered its worst election loss in 40 years, animating Conservatives who now smell blood and prompting calls for Mr. Brown to hand over the reins of power to a more...
JAPAN
May 9, 2008

Lawmakers form bipartisan group to back life sentence without parole

With only a year left before the public starts taking part in criminal trials as lay judges, Diet members from the ruling and opposition camps formed a new group Thursday whose aim is to get life sentences without parole into the penal code.
JAPAN
May 8, 2008

Radio broadcast of hanging earns listeners' kudos

The radio broadcast of an execution recorded in 1955, including the vivid sound of a creaking rope as the prisoner was hanged, met with a generally positive reaction from listeners, Nippon Cultural Broadcasting Inc. said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY
May 4, 2008

A chance for Beijing to take a stand on health

LOS ANGELES — As matters now stand, accredited, professional journalists from Taiwan are once again being denied press passes by U.N. authorities to cover the annual World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization. This year's event takes place in Geneva on May 19. The topic is "A Safer Future:...
Reader Mail
May 4, 2008

Pleased with new look of publication

Regarding the May 1 letter "Why fix what's not broken?": I offer my reason to fix things that aren't broken. Even though the publication might not appear to be broken, it's important to attract new customers as well as keep the old ones. If that means making some changes to the presentation to make it...
Reader Mail
May 4, 2008

Improve content, including letters

I have been a loyal reader of The Japan Times for the 12 years I have been here. This is my first time to write, but I am driven to address two key points. First, I agree with recent letters that the latest changes of format in this paper were ill-advised and poorly thought out. It seems to be following...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
May 2, 2008

Big man Newton an integral part of Evessa's run at third straight bj-league title

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which is in its third season. Jeff Newton of the Osaka Evessa, who face the Rizing Fukuoka in Saturday's semifinal showdown at Ariake Colosseum, is the subject of...
Reader Mail
May 1, 2008

More smoking regulations, please

I applaud Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa for his efforts to ban smoking in public places in the prefecture ("Kanagawa eyes wide-reaching smoking ban," April 16). This is a necessary measure that the central government should have put in place a long time ago. I hope that other governors will follow...
Reader Mail
May 1, 2008

Death penalty is no deterrent

The April 23 article "Kamei seeks to undermine death penalty" states "A 2004 government opinion poll showed that 81.4 percent of respondents supported the death penalty, on the grounds that only capital punishment can provide true closure to the families of the victims, and that executions act as a deterrent...
Reader Mail
Apr 27, 2008

No way to express one's view

Regarding the recent vandalism of Zenkoji Temple following its decision to not host the start of the Olympic torch relay, it is a pity that people, whatever their reason, resort to vandalism instead of expressing their personal opinion in a more respectable and mature manner. Vandalizing a historical...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 27, 2008

Hail and farewell to the world's greatest 'Good Gringo' U.S. president

On April 1, the widely read History News Network (HNN) Web site announced the results of a survey it conducted among historians.
Reader Mail
Apr 27, 2008

Mutual respect is crucial

We should all be concerned with the lack of appropriate political dialogue not between lukewarm diplomats, but rather protesters and pro-China demonstrators. Recent events have been distressing. A brave Chinese student at Duke attempted to disperse a commotion between the two groups, but her attempt...
COMMENTARY
Apr 27, 2008

It doesn't take much imagination to guess the winner of an imaginary 'world primary'

LOS ANGELES — OK, so he did lose the Pennsylvania primary — but might Sen. Barack Obama be otherwise elected king of the world?
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 27, 2008

Hack, slash and hew — all with Zen in mind

As hobbies go, you might describe mine as, well, quite bloodthirsty.
Reader Mail
Apr 24, 2008

CPR article could save lives

According to the April 2 article "Skip mouth-to-mouth: CPR ruled just as good with hands only," the American Heart Association has announced that simple uninterrupted chest presses at the rate of 100 times a minute could save a life in a case of a sudden cardiac arrest in adults. Evidently, in contrast...
COMMENTARY
Apr 24, 2008

U.S. candidates' top target: China

Ever since the Tiananmen Square military crackdown of 1989, China has become an issue in domestic American politics, usually with the party in power — either Republican or Democratic — being attacked by the opposition party for not being tough enough toward Beijing.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Apr 23, 2008

Otsuka homers in Lotte's rout of Seibu

CHIBA — The Chiba Lotte Marines threw everything but the rule book at the Seibu Lions on Tuesday night. Good thing their manager was there to back them up.
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2008

Death penalty ruling marks dramatic shift

Tuesday's ruling in which a 27-year-old man was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of a mother and her infant daughter in Yamaguchi Prefecture marks a major judicial change, according to legal experts.
EDITORIALS
Apr 22, 2008

Preparing for lay judge system

The government has announced that the lay judge system will take effect on May 21, 2009. The new system will be used in criminal cases in which suspects are indicted on and after that day. Trials using lay judges are expected to begin in late July or early August 2009.
Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Greasing the wrong wheels

In "Leviathan" Thomas Hobbes wrote, "Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money." These words apply to the tentative law of road construction included in the gasoline tax. The word "temporary" means "semi-permanent" in the crooked world of politics, and this huge budget has snowballed to...
Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Loosen Net restrictions in China

The April 6 article "China allows access to English Wikipedia" mentions that the Chinese government has finally allowed people to access the English version of Wikipedia. On the other hand, there are still great numbers of Web sites that remain blocked.
Success of Chinese-made fighter jets against India raises alarm in Asia
Chinese J-10 fighter jets from the People's Liberation Army Air Force August 1st Aerobatics Team perform during a media demonstration at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, in November 2015.
Japan to recognize Taiwan as place of origin in family registration system
Masataka Yuhara, secretary-general of the Friends of Lee Teng Hui Association in Japan, which has been calling for "Taiwan" to be permitted as a place of origin in family registers.
Japanese retailers turn to California rice for cheaper alternative
U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass eats California rice at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday along with Mitsuko Tsuchiya, vice president of retailer Aeon.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Two crew feared dead after ASDF training jet crashes in Aichi
Self-Defense Forces personnel collect apparent parts of an Air Self-Defense Force T-4 training jet from a reservoir in Inuyama, Aichi Prefeture, on Thursday. The jet crashed shortly after takeoff a day earlier.
Sumo title contenders already emerging in early stages of Tokyo meet
Onosato (left) battles Abi on Day 3 of the Summer Basho in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Harmfully hot days for pregnant women in Japan nearly doubled over past five years
New research by a U.S. climate scientists’ group reveals that extreme heat has increased the risks of preterm births and other pregnancy complications in Japan, nearly doubling the number of days that are harmfully hot for pregnant women over the past five years.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Tokyo Stock Exchange wants stocks to be affordable for the average investor
The Tokyo Stock Exchange building in Nihonbashi. The exchange wants companies to lower the entry cost of investing in their shares.
Consumption tax set to dominate Upper House election debate
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba enters his office in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Podcast

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

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?
By Tomoko Otake

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