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EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2005

Winning doesn't make him right

The Osaka High Court on Friday found unconstitutional Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's three visits to Yasukuni Shrine from 2001 to 2003. The court said the visits violated Article 20, Section 3, of the Constitution, which prohibits religious education and any other "religious" activity by the state...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 2, 2005

A stinging voice of conscience who told it like it is

He would have turned 80 this month. And in our time of ill-lived religious fanatics and retrograde policy planners, we feel his loss all the more.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 2, 2005

Harumi Kurihara: Homing in on success

As a cook and lifestyle guru, Harumi Kurihara has often been dubbed Japan's answer to America's Martha Stewart or Britain's Delia Smith. But in February this year, she scaled new heights when the English-language edition of her book "Harumi no Japanese Cooking" -- titled "Harumi's Japanese Cooking" --...
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2005

Women's suit against Ishihara fails

The Tokyo High Court rejected on Wednesday a lawsuit accusing Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara of disparaging women.
EDITORIALS
Sep 27, 2005

Worthy of the term 'opposition'?

As the Democratic Party of Japan, which suffered a crushing defeat in the Sept. 11 Lower House election, begins a rejuvenation effort under its new leader, Mr. Seiji Maehara, the No. 1 opposition party must solve difficult problems to turn it into a party capable of seizing power.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 25, 2005

Help the disabled, but don't deny them

Several years ago, the government discussed state-sponsored care for people with disabilities. The idea was to assist mentally and physically disabled people in leaving publicly-funded facilities and entering society; or, at least, that was how it was presented.
JAPAN
Sep 22, 2005

Koizumi's new mandate even gets LDP rebels' nod

Liberal Democratic Party President Junichiro Koizumi was re-elected prime minister Wednesday by more than two-thirds of the 480-seat House of the Representatives on the opening day of a special Diet session, with supporting votes coming even from some of his LDP foes.
Japan Times
Features
Sep 18, 2005

In skeptical quest of a boom

"Why don't you write about the kimono boom?" they said, citing anecdotal evidence suggesting that the traditional gown of Japan was making a comeback. So, with several people at The Japan Times claiming they'd seen "a lot" of people wearing them recently, off I set to investigate.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 18, 2005

Trying to keep the train-groping perverts out of touch

Earlier this year when some Japanese train lines inaugurated women-only cars the Western media picked the story up as yet another example of Weird Japan, a place, they implied, where sexual deviancy was so culturally grounded that the only thing railway companies could do to protect female passengers...
Sep 17, 2005

Kan to again seek DPJ helm

Former Democratic Party of Japan leader Naoto Kan announced Friday he will run for the DPJ helm, following Seiji Maehara's decision the previous day to also run.
JAPAN
Sep 15, 2005

Trespassing case is political, activists tell court

Three peace activists on trial for trespassing at a Self-Defense Forces housing compound where they had been distributing antiwar leaflets told the Tokyo High Court on Wednesday their arrest and indictment is a form of political suppression and their case should be dropped.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2005

Human rights key to China's development

NEW YORK -- During a recent visit to Beijing, U.N. rights envoy Louise Arbour called attention to the serious human-rights situation in China and the need for improvements according to international human-rights standards. An important step in that regard would be for China to ratify the International...
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2005

Scandal claims key Asahi, industry exec

The Asahi Shimbun's executive adviser said Wednesday he will step down from his post and resign as chairman of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association to take responsibility for a fabricated report published in the daily.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2005

LDP leading in polls with a week to go

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is likely to win a majority Sept. 11, while the Democratic Party of Japan may not end up with the 175 seats it held when the House of Representatives was dissolved, a Kyodo News survey shows.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2005

1,132 candidates face off for Lower House election

Campaigning for the Sept. 11 House of Representatives election officially kicked off Tuesday with 1,132 candidates throwing their hats in the ring for 480 seats.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 28, 2005

Summer scorecard: road trips, managers, scraped bathtubs

Road Trip of Survival: The Hanshin Tigers came through their "Road Trip of Death" in pretty good shape. The team went 10-9 while away from their home Koshien Stadium (being used for the national high school Tournament) for 25 days from Aug. 1 and was still in first place in the Central League, leading...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 28, 2005

Soviet checkmate finished Japan

RACING THE ENEMY: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005, 382 pp., $29.95 (cloth). Wartime U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb remains controversial. Until Murray Sayle's seminal article in the New Yorker (July...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 28, 2005

Intelligent Design: One chance encounter explains it all

Ijust happened to be reading the Kansas City Star the other day when a fascinating article caught my eye. The Star reported, in its Aug. 2 edition, that the Kansas Board of Education has approved a draft of new science standards proposed by supporters of so-called Intelligent Design.
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2005

Victor's logic in hindsight

Every August Japan is filled with prayers for the 3.1 million Japanese who died in the Pacific War and feelings of resentment against the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This August, which marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, Japanese media have done intensive reporting to...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

Cartoon duo leads the way in a version of history that's no joke

The phrase "textbook row" has become a regular sighting in Japanese newspapers of late, as newly authorized history books for schools are accused, both at home and abroad, of "glossing over" the bloodier aspects of this country's warmongering, Imperialist past.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2005

Revisiting capital punishment

NEW YORK -- Recent statements on capital punishment by John Paul Stevens, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, to the American Bar Association could reignite the debate on this important issue. His statements followed several exonerations of death-row inmates through scientific evidence. He said these exonerations...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2005

Koizumi calls election for Sept. 11

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi dissolved the House of Representatives on Monday and called a general election for Sept. 11 a few hours after the House of Councilors voted down the government-sponsored postal privatization bills.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 7, 2005

Nepalese children caught in the crossfire

NEW YORK -- The armed conflict in Nepal between the government and Maoist guerrillas is making victims of an increasing number of children, who have been subjected to a wide array of human-rights violations. Over the past several years, the U.N. Security Council has worked to develop a body of law intended...
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2005

Publisher hit for alleging murder role

Publisher Kodansha Ltd. was ordered Wednesday to pay 8.8 million yen in damages to a 49-year-old man for defamation, having suggested in one of its magazines that he had been involved in the murder of a family in Fukuoka in 2003.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 25, 2005

Depredation of species that get in our way

NEW YORK -- "Protected Birds Are Back, With a Vengeance: Cormorants Take Over, Making Some Enemies." This headline in the New York Times earlier this month, inset in a photo showing a few black birds atop a tree, struck me with the thought: So it has come to pass. Hadn't the same daily some years back...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 23, 2005

Defense chief given missile-intercept role

The Diet enacted a revised law Friday that allows the Defense Agency chief to order emergency missile interceptions without waiting for approval from the prime minister and the Cabinet.

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