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May 01, 2025
 

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COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 8, 2005

Speed trap

It must have taken him by surprise. Kenji Kobayashi, former member of the House of Representatives from the Democratic Party of Japan had just lost his seat a week previous.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 6, 2005

Say 'cheese' and snap out of such fanciful thinking

Foreign-ministers-in-waiting don't drop clangers for nothing. When the then Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Taro Aso spoke last month at the newly-opened Kyushu National Museum in Dazaifu, Fukuoka Prefecture, he fully expected his clanger to resound and reverberate when it hit the ground....
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Ban urges Koizumi to end visits to Yasukuni

South Korea's foreign affairs and trade minister on Friday urged Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi not to visit contentious Yasukuni Shrine again, according to a Japanese official.
COMMENTARY
Oct 19, 2005

Building a 21st-century Commonwealth

LONDON -- On the historic Mediterranean island of Malta there will take place in a few weeks time a meeting of nations with colossal potential significance for world peace and development.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2005

Koizumi reinvents race as issue-specific affair

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is changing the face of election campaigns, and one place this is being felt is the Liberal Democratic Party's Kyoto prefectural chapter, which traditionally has been the LDP's nerve center for local candidates.
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...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 17, 2005

All hail the Land of the Free -- or else!

The United States of America is all akilter.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 27, 2005

Economists, remember to mind your Ps and Qs

Children are told to mind their Ps and Qs when they go visiting. They must be on their best behavior. They have to be able to speak like well-educated young people. They have to know P from Q. Well, so do economists, actually.
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2005

Lively politics worries China

HONG KONG -- Although Taiwan's lat est constitutional reforms preclude any declaration of formal independence for the foreseeable future, they do strengthen Taiwan's democratic development.
COMMENTARY
Jun 12, 2005

Harmful to Japan's interest

Should he continue his custom of making annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi could seriously harm Japan's national interest. His persistence in visiting the Tokyo memorial to the nation's war dead has intensified the firestorm of anti-Japanese criticism in China and South...
EDITORIALS
Jun 1, 2005

France says no to the EU

French voters have rejected the European constitution. The results were not unexpected, but they were a shock nonetheless. France has long been a pillar and an engine of European integration. It is unclear how the European Union will deal with this setback. For French President Jacques Chirac, the outcome...
EDITORIALS
May 4, 2005

A new Constitution by the people

Fifty-eight years ago, on May 3, 1947, the postwar Constitution of Japan came into effect. Today this new national charter, underscored by its pacifist principles, is broadly accepted by the Japanese public. Yet, strange as it may seem, this is a constitution enacted by Imperial order, not by popular...
COMMENTARY
May 2, 2005

Mending Japan-China ties

LONDON -- European issues inevitably seem remote to readers in Japan just as Far Eastern problems are remote to the public in Britain. But no one concerned about world peace can be other than apprehensive about friction between major powers in the Far East, especially against the background of threats...
JAPAN
Apr 21, 2005

Upper panel can't agree on need for new Article 9

A House of Councilors panel on the Constitution endorsed a final report Wednesday that cites the need to revise the supreme law to ensure new human rights concepts and agrees a female should be allowed to ascend the Imperial throne, but fails to declare a consensus on amending the war-renouncing Article...
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2005

Change Constitution: Lower House report

A Lower House panel submitted a final report Friday to Speaker Yohei Kono, stressing the need to amend the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 and to allow a female to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2005

Intervention based on rules

According to the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, "The maintenance of world peace and security depends importantly on there be-- ing a common global understanding, and acceptance, of when the application of force is both legal and legitimate."
EDITORIALS
Apr 9, 2005

Politicized student textbooks

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has announced the results of its screening textbooks scheduled for use in junior high schools beginning in April 2006. Two things are particularly notable with regard to neighboring Asian nations such as South Korea and China. First,...
COMMENTARY
Mar 28, 2005

Positive media shock waves

Internet entrepreneur Takafumi Horie has sent shock waves reverberating through the Japanese media industry with his hostile takeover bid for Nippon Broadcasting Co., a member of the Fujisankei media conglomerate.
Features
Feb 27, 2005

Judges 'on bended knee'

For the 21 years of his life as a judge, Akira Rokusha lived a closeted existence. From his home in an official residence alongside fellow judges and other courthouse employees, he was taken to the court in a special minibus, and he spent his days off reading and reviewing material related to his cases....
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 22, 2005

Resisting the tide

Social studies teacher Sho Sasaki is fiercely proud of his native Iwate's local heritage.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2005

Howard Baker will be missed

The image of ambassadors has changed greatly over the years. Until the mid-20th century, ambassadors were said to be "dwellers among the clouds" -- a Japanese phrase for the nobility. This metaphor showed what ordinary people thought of nobles. To the commoners busy with their daily work, the privileged...
COMMENTARY
Feb 3, 2005

Fear of rips in the EU fabric

LONDON -- The fear here is that the whole of Europe has succumbed to the virus of racism and that new political parties based on some variant of racism will swell in popular support, win elections, run institutions of state -- including the European Union -- and destroy the civilization that has been...
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2005

Panel: Is a woman's place on the throne?

A private advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi kicked off discussions Tuesday on the Imperial House Law, with the central theme to be whether and how a female could ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2005

Panel set to ponder female on the throne

The government will kick off discussions this week that could result in changing the male-only Imperial succession rule which experts say has been practiced for more than 1,000 years.
COMMENTARY
Jan 24, 2005

A return to Northern basics

The Japan-Russia talks on the Northern Territories are deadlocked. Shortly after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union seized four islands or islet clusters northeast of Hokkaido -- Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai. In 1993, the two nations issued a joint statement calling for the conclusion...
COMMENTARY
Jan 14, 2005

Busting tired political myths

LONDON -- Opinion polls continue to put the British Labour Party well ahead of other parties, and the general expectation of the political pundits is that Prime Minister Tony Blair will win yet again when the general election comes, most probably on May 5.
COMMENTARY
Dec 30, 2004

Enough of grievance politics

DUBAI/LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been in the Middle East recently, asserting that the Israel-Palestine dispute is "the most important issue facing the world today."
JAPAN
Dec 28, 2004

Government panel to debate letting woman ascend throne

The government said Monday it will set up an advisory panel next month to discuss revising the Imperial Household Law with an eye to allowing a female ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Dec 28, 2004

Government panel to debate letting woman ascend throne

The government said Monday it will set up an advisory panel next month to discuss revising the Imperial Household Law with an eye to allowing a female ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami
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.
Shohei Ohtani's example could change Japan's views on paternity leave
Shohei Ohtani and Mamiko Tanaka announced the birth of their first child on April 19.
Nearly half of workers in Japan engage in ‘quiet quitting’
"Quiet quitting" is most common among the younger generation, with 46.7% of respondents to a survey in their 20s identifying with the practice, reflecting a less-motivated workforce more focused on work-life balance.
Delta routes new Airbus plane to Tokyo to sidestep Trump tariffs
Delta Air Lines signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York on April 9. The airline is flying a new Airbus SE plane through Japan to skirt U.S. import tariffs.
High levels of PFAS found in blood of Osaka factory workers
The levels of a type of "forever chemical" found in seven current and former employees at Daikin Industries' Yodogawa plant in Osaka Prefecture were about 38 times those for nearby residents, according to a survey conducted by a team including Kyoto University.
Could this be Japan’s year at the Kentucky Derby?
Christophe Lemaire rides Admire Daytona, who was bred in Japan, during the UAE Derby at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai on April 5.
Counting the reasons why there are so few American cars in Japan
Tesla's store in Tokyo's Shibuya district. While sales of American cars in Japan appear to be shrinking, Tesla's presence in the country is growing.
Shohei Ohtani's example could change Japan's views on paternity leave
Shohei Ohtani and Mamiko Tanaka announced the birth of their first child on April 19.
Nearly half of workers in Japan engage in ‘quiet quitting’
"Quiet quitting" is most common among the younger generation, with 46.7% of respondents to a survey in their 20s identifying with the practice, reflecting a less-motivated workforce more focused on work-life balance.
U.S. secretary of the navy weighs ‘dual-use’ shipbuilding with Japan
John Phelan at a Senate confirmation hearing for U.S. secretary of the navy in Washington in February

Podcast

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

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
By Alex K.T. Martin

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