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EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 2014

Interrogation recordings pinched

The scope of crimes in which a special justice advisory panel has recommended electronically recording the entire interrogation process for suspects appears too limited.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
May 29, 2014

Pyongyang decides to reopen investigation into Japanese abductees

In a potential breakthrough, Pyongyang has agreed to reinvestigate the fates of Japanese who vanished in North Korea, including those suspected of being abducted by North Korean agents, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 24, 2014

Summit kept to script that sidestepped many issues

High-level summits like Thursday's between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are mostly scripted affairs, with a clearly defined agenda revolving around the most pressing, or politically important, issues.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 1, 2014

Trite TV drama about children's home misses a chance to edify and entertain

Groups including the National Council for Children's Group Homes and Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto have accused NTV of 'violating human rights' and displaying 'prejudice against the children as well as the staff who are working in these childcare institutions.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 16, 2013

Don't throw those boring New Years cards away!

Starting this year Japan Post is offering cash prizes for its New Years lottery.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 4, 2013

New secrecy law seen best serving bureaucrats

The secrecy bill is dangerous because Japan already has a lot of nondisclosable information and several laws to protect it, the head of an NPO warns.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 30, 2013

Rescues of South Koreans abducted by North come with controversy

In divided Korea, even the homecomings can be bitter.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 16, 2013

NSA broke privacy rules repeatedly, audit finds

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
EDITORIALS
Jul 14, 2013

Dangers of constitutional revision

If the LDP and and its allies win at least two-thirds of the Upper House seats on July 21, watch for Shinzo Abe to push constitutional revisions.
JAPAN / Politics
May 16, 2013

Iijima's North trip ups hope for progress on abductions

Tokyo authorized and is in charge of the surprise trip to Pyongyang by special adviser Isao Iijima, a senior government official indicated Wednesday, while Cabinet members all remained tight-lipped in public amid speculation the government hopes to resume direct talks with North Korea to resolve the...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 23, 2013

The stalking cure: rehabilitating an all too common menace

When forensic psychiatrist Frank Farnham first meets a stalker, he doesn't judge. Some of his clients have done awful things. They have intimidated, pursued and terrified their victims.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 5, 2013

Missteps bedevil U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Africa

The U.S. military was closely tracking a one-eyed bandit across the Sahara in 2003 when it confronted a hard choice that is still reverberating a decade later. Should it try to kill or capture the target, an Algerian jihadist named Moktar Belmoktar, or let him go?
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 24, 2012

An ominously familiar Japanese contemporary

Things do sometimes go backward.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2012

Lower House OKs ¥90 trillion 2012 budget but deadline delays loom

The Lower House passed a ¥90.3 trillion budget for fiscal 2012 on Thursday, ensuring the legislation will be enacted, but the opposition camp could still prevent it from entering into force before the new fiscal year starts.
COMMENTARY
Mar 3, 2012

How to push reform forward

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has stated he would stake his political life on realizing integrated reform of the tax and social security systems. Japan's financial structure is worse than those of other advanced countries and even that of Greece, which was responsible for the euro crisis. Therefore it...
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
Feb 18, 2012

Fiscal ills not DPJ's doing but it's holding the bag

The tax and social security reform outline adopted by the Cabinet on Friday indicate the government has run out of options and must finally address welfare costs and public finances that have been spiralling out of control for years.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2012

Noda team faces rocky Diet session

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says his partially reshuffled Cabinet is the best lineup ever, but it will need to be to face the turbulence expected in the Diet session that started Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2012

Picks mirror more pragmatic tack, bid to exert leadership

With a minor but crucial reshuffle Friday, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda prepared to tackle his most important and difficult task — raising taxes.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2011

Kan hints at playing nuclear energy card

Whether to promote nuclear power will be the most crucial issue in the next national election, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday, rekindling speculation that he may want to dissolve the Lower House over energy policy.
BUSINESS
Jun 25, 2011

Tepco pensions may be tapped for redress

Tokyo Electric Power Co. may need to cut pensions to acquire ready cash to compensate people affected by the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis if a government panel examining the utility's assets deems this necessary, Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2011

A modest proposal for sustaining growth

BEIJING — In March, at a meeting in Beijing organized by Columbia University's Initiative for Policy Dialogue and China's Central University of Finance and Economics, scholars and policymakers discussed how to reform the international monetary system. After all, even if the system did not directly...
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2011

Government shutdown in June?

As battles rage in the Diet between the ruling and opposition camps over fiscal 2011 budget-related bills, one dreadful scenario has emerged: The debt-ridden government may run out of funds by around June.
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2011

Another DPJ metamorphosis

Japan and the United States signed an agreement last month on a five-year extension of Japan's host-nation financial support to help cover part of the costs of stationing U.S. forces in Japan under the bilateral security arrangement.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami