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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 18, 2008

Police in dock over rape

Crimes by women and crimes against women in Japan receive uneven coverage in the press. Female suspects, particularly those charged with serious offenses, are so thoroughly skewered in the media that defense attorneys often complain that a fair trial is near impossible. Crimes against women receive...
COMMENTARY
Mar 15, 2008

Still mired in parochialism

LONDON — "No man is an Island, entire of itself; everyman is a piece of the Continent.''
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2008

The afterlife for bureaucrats

For years the phrase "from the public sector to the private sector" has been used in the context of politics and the economy. In April 1985, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp. and Japan Monopoly Corp. were privatized, becoming NTT and Japan Tobacco respectively. In April 1987, Japanese National...
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2008

Canon declines to condemn whale hunt

Canon Inc., the world's largest maker of digital cameras, has declined a request from Greenpeace International to condemn the government's expedition to hunt whales in the Southern Ocean.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2008

Lower House rams through antiterrorism bill

For the first time in half a century, the Lower House on Friday overrode the Upper, ramming a bill through the Diet to resume the Maritime Self-Defense Force refueling duty in the Indian Ocean.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2008

Japan stumbles its way toward a two-party system

2007 was a politically significant year. It is stirring to see how much the political terrain has changed from the beginning of the year to now.
Reader Mail
Dec 6, 2007

Tired of the same old commentary

There are too many "multi-commentators" on Japanese TV programs. I'm talking about people who comment on various subjects. Are they experts on all of these subjects?
CULTURE / Books
Nov 25, 2007

Saucy Plate dishes out some choice morsels

Confessions of an American Media Man: What They Don't Tell You at Journalism School by Tom Plate. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2007, $16.50 (paper) One day, media maven cum academic Tom Plate — a frequent contributor to The Japan Times opinion page — arrived for an appointment at the office of...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2007

Aussies eye painless change

SYDNEY — A conservative coalition that has governed Australia for over a decade under Prime Minister John Howard faces a severe test ahead of next week's national election.
COMMENTARY
Nov 2, 2007

Dealing with the Iran threat

LONDON — The imposition by the United States of sanctions against Iranian banks and the revolutionary guards, combined with discussion about the "big blue" bomb, has led to an increase in tension in the Middle East, a rise in the oil price and fears that the U.S. is preparing an attack on Iranian nuclear...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 23, 2007

Ships out at sea or troops in a war zone?

The special antiterrorism law that expires Nov. 1 is the hottest dispute in domestic politics and could even determine the fate of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and his administration.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / DECENTRALIZATION SYMPOSIUM
Oct 3, 2007

Bureaucracy resists change, fights to retain its power

Public support for the "doshu-sei" system will depend on whether people can realize the benefits of ongoing efforts at decentralizing the nation's administrative powers, but the efforts have so far been hampered by the strong resistance of the central bureaucracy, panelists told the Sept. 18 symposium....
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2007

Japanese politics baffles

To me, the results of the July 29 Upper House elections were a clear signal that the Japanese people were fed up not only with Shinzo Abe as prime minister but also with the governing Liberal Democratic Party and its policies as a whole.
SOCCER
Sep 24, 2007

Inamoto hoping to get career back on track in Frankfurt

FRANKFURT — It's fair to say that if Junichi Inamoto had begun his European adventure at Eintracht Frankfurt instead of Arsenal his star would probably be shining that much brighter now.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2007

Filipinos respectful of a star's conviction

BANGKOK — Joseph Estrada, the disgraced former president of the Philippines, faces the prospect of spending his remaining years in prison after a special court in Manila found him guilty of amassing around $15 million in bribes and kickbacks. During the 30 months he ruled his country, from mid-1998...
COMMENTARY
Sep 11, 2007

Off the nuclear mainstream

On July 16, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck Niigata Prefecture, causing widespread damage and an emergency shutdown of four of the seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. (The remaining three reactors were undergoing regular checks.) The Chuetsu-oki Earthquake touched off a fire...
COMMENTARY
Sep 9, 2007

Extreme events fire up the Greek fringe

LONDON — "How are our children going to survive in a land that is dead?" asked a survivor of the wildfires that seared much of southern Greece during the last week of August.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 9, 2007

Cardboard-bun incident serves up more distaste for China

Though it wasn't the most significant news story of the summer, the video that circulated worldwide in early July about the Dalian street vendor who sold pork buns stuffed with cardboard was certainly the most fun for local news outlets since it involved two subjects Japanese media can't get enough of:...
Reader Mail
Sep 5, 2007

Message of a war-crimes judge

I generally agree with the Aug. 26 editorial, "Eyes on the prize with India," with regard to the emerging economic, political and strategic closeness between Japan and India. But the argument at the tail end that, by meeting the son of late Justice Radhabinod Pal in Calcutta, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe...
COMMENTARY
Aug 27, 2007

Issues with U.S. hurt LDP

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been rocked by its humiliating defeat in the July 29 House of Councilors (Upper House) election. The LDP's loss was generally attributed to the government's long-standing mismanagement of public pension accounts, but in my opinion, two United States-related issues...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 19, 2007

Can justice possibly 'flower' in Japan's new courts?

A new poster at subway stations in Tokyo shows a smiling young woman confidently clutching her handbag along with the slogan: "About the time I turn 20, the courts will change. I guess both the law and the courts will become more familiar then."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 14, 2007

Abuse, racism, lost evidence deny justice in Valentine case

In 1999, a Brazilian resident of Japan named Milton Higaki was involved in an accident that killed a schoolgirl. Rather than face justice in Japan, he fled to Brazil fearing "discrimination as a foreigner in Japanese courts."
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 12, 2007

TV host visits South Korea, WWII Tribunal Judge special, WWII A-bomb special tribute

One of the most popular series on NHK is "Tsurube no Kazoku ni Kampai (Tsurube Toasts Families)" (NHK-G, Monday, 7:30 p.m.), in which sandpaper-voiced rakugoka (comic storyteller) Tsurube Shofukutei and a guest visit a town or village and casually strike up conversations with people on the street with...
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2007

Scripting the exit from Iraq

LONDON — Prospects for Iraq and its people are gloomy. Responsibility for that rests partly with Saddam Hussein and his evil regime, but also with the Americans and their allies for botching the aftermath of the March 2003 invasion.
COMMENTARY
Jul 14, 2007

New York Times vs. reality

LONDON — The New York Times has been wrong on Iraq for so long that it has become a tradition, and they respect tradition at the Times. Its Monday (July 9) editorial calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq caused a great stir in the United States: "It is time for the United States to leave...
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2007

Kyuma incident rekindles A-bomb debate

Fumio Kyuma's resignation Tuesday as defense minister over his remarks on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has spotlighted the still sharply divided perception gap between Japan and the United States over what some see as one of the most horrific war atrocities in history.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2007

U.S. still considers Japan top partner in Asia: poll

Japan is still the United States' most important partner in Asia, according to an annual public opinion poll commissioned by the Japanese government, the Foreign Ministry said Monday.

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