Search - cabinet

 
 
BUSINESS
Dec 9, 2009

Record ¥53.5 trillion in debt to be issued

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said Tuesday the government will issue a record ¥53.5 trillion in debt this fiscal year, causing bond sales to exceed tax revenue for the first time in 63 years.
BUSINESS
Dec 8, 2009

Takenaka says administration lacks policy control

Heizo Takenaka, the former economy minister credited with guiding Japan's longest postwar expansion, on Monday attacked the coalition government for lacking policy direction as it haggles over the next stimulus package.
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2009

Coalition freezes Japan Post share sale

The first extraordinary Diet session held under the Cabinet of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama adjourned Friday after the ruling bloc used its majority to ram through the Upper House a law to freeze the state's planned sale of shares in Japan Post Holdings Co. and its banking and insurance units.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2009

Wishing the science away

LONDON — Ahead of the Copenhagen conference on climate change (which starts Monday), those who have argued that there is no conclusive proof that climate change is man-made were encouraged by the recent leak of e-mails from the archives of the University of East Anglia. The exchanges suggested that...
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2009

Defense minister may visit U.S. over Futenma

Okada and I will join it, if necessary, to hold ministerial-level discussions," Kitazawa said in a speech at the National Defense Academy in Japan in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. "It would not be difficult (for the two countries) to share how things should be during the course of last-minute negotiations,"...
COMMENTARY
Dec 2, 2009

Commonwealth reaches out

Every two years the heads of government of the 50-plus states of which the Commonwealth consists, embracing almost a third of the planet's entire population and several of its most dynamic economies, meet to discuss issues of common concern.
BUSINESS
Dec 2, 2009

BOJ antes up ¥10 trillion for bank system

Amid mounting pressure from the government to rein in deflation and the surging yen, the Bank of Japan said Tuesday it would pump some ¥10 trillion into the banking system to keep the economy on a recovery track.
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2009

Amano faces defiant Tehran, Pyongyang

, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaks with Malaysia's Mohd Arshad bin Monzoor Hussein, chairman of the IAEA's Board of Governors, as departing IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei looks on at Vienna's International Center on Friday. AP PHOTO
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2009

Hepatitis redress legislation clears Diet

A comprehensive bill to support people with hepatitis B and C, along with an attached statement recognizing the government's liability in spreading infections via tainted blood products, cleared the Diet on Monday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 27, 2009

Bringing Japan to Britain

When she looked at the floor plans for Oxford's redesigned Ashmolean Museum and saw that her two Japanese galleries formed an L-shape in one corner of the building, curator Clare Pollard didn't see an awkward space. "I saw a tea-house," she explains. And there it sits, in the crook of two beautiful and...
EDITORIALS
Nov 26, 2009

Patching up a Diet rift

Diet affairs have followed a tortuous course since the Democratic Party of Japan last week rushed a bill for helping small and midsize enterprises overcome cash flow problems through the Lower House Financial Affairs Committee. The DPJ then railroaded passage of the bill at a plenary session of the Lower...
JAPAN / ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
Nov 26, 2009

CO2 cuts will require nation's transformation

First in a series
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2009

Hatoyama silent on funds probe

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama remained mum Tuesday on his ever-widening fundraising scandal, saying he trusts prosecutors to judge whether he is liable for any misconduct.
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2009

Next step toward budget

The waste-cutting panel of the Hatoyama administration's Government Revitalization Unit has finished its first round of work and now moves on to the second round. In the work completed, the panel reviewed funding allocations for some 240 projects included in the fiscal 2010 budgetary requests, which...
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2009

Same old perk of the ruling party

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan Thursday rushed a bill through the Lower House Financial Affairs Committee on Thursday to help small and midsize enterprises overcome cash flow problems. The opposition Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito refused to join the vote. Later the Lower House approved the...
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2009

Hatoyama to U.S.: turn over suspect

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama called on U.S. military authorities Thursday to pressure a suspect to report for police questioning in connection with a fatal hit-and-run in Okinawa on Nov. 7.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2009

DPJ rams debt relief bill through committee

A bill aimed at encouraging lenders to freeze debt repayments for small and midsize companies was set to clear the Lower House late Thursday night after the ruling bloc rammed it through a Diet committee in the first such power play since the Hatoyama administration assumed office two months ago.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past