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COMMENTARY
Jul 4, 2008

One small step for stability

HONG KONG — The June 18 announcement of the Beijing-Tokyo agreement to jointly develop gas fields in the disputed waters of the East China Sea should help ease tensions between the two countries as they try to forge a new, forward-looking cooperative relationship, but it may cause internal difficulties...
COMMENTARY
Jul 3, 2008

Iraq's petroleum dilemmas

An intense debate is going on inside Iraq about the future of its oil industry. That such a debate should be going on at all is encouraging and a sign that at last the security situation may be getting better and the government more established.
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2008

Yokota continues to pressure Cabinet to resolve abductions

Shigeru Yokota, father of abductee Megumi Yokota, criticized the government Wednesday for softening its stance on North Korea.
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2008

New pension errors found

Another example of sloppy work by the Social Insurance Agency has come to the fore. Sampling of pension-related records on original paper registers and in computers shows errors in 1.4 percent of matched records that relate to pensions for company-employed workers or kosei nenkin. As health and welfare...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2008

Panel formed to study Ainu situation, advocate policies

A government panel was formed Tuesday to recommend future policies regarding the Ainu after studying their current conditions and the discrimination they face, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said.
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2008

Prime ministers should serve four-year terms, Nakagawa says

The prime minister should serve a four-year term instead of the current situation in which the post sometimes seems like a revolving door, Hidenao Nakagawa, former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2008

Same ol' world after Bush

LONDON — There is a marvelous painting by Brueghel in the Brussels art gallery. British poet W.H. Auden was sufficiently impressed to write a poem about it: Icarus, his wings melted, is plunging to a watery grave. But the world goes on. Peasants continue with their lives, plowing their fields. They...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2008

LDP's future as dicey as Humpty Dumpty's

BRUSSELS — Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has been in office less than 12 months, yet polls show popular support for his administration running around 20 percent. Fukuda and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) face a bleak future.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2008

Fukuda: U.S. delisting won't change stance

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda brushed aside concerns that the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from its list of terrorism-sponsor states would hurt Tokyo's efforts to resolve its dispute with Pyongyang over its past abductions of Japanese.
BUSINESS
Jun 26, 2008

Goodwill to liquidate temp agency

Goodwill Group said Wednesday it will close its scandal-tainted temp staff unit Goodwill Inc. by the end of July because the health ministry is preparing to revoke its business license.
EDITORIALS
Jun 25, 2008

More doctors needed

A private advisory body for health minister Yoichi Masuzoe has urged the government to increase its quota for medical students. The recommendation comes amid reports that pregnant women, children and rural residents are having difficulties getting medical treatment. The government should implement this...
BUSINESS
Jun 24, 2008

Manufacturer confidence at four-year low

Confidence among manufacturers for the April-June quarter fell the most in at least four years because of surging commodity costs and waning demand for cars and electronics, a government survey showed Monday.
COMMENTARY
Jun 21, 2008

Security versus freedom

How to maintain a fair balance between national and individual security and traditional freedoms and human rights is an important political issue in Britain. We have been forced to accept increasing intrusion into our private lives by government agencies. Some fear we are living in a world similar to...
EDITORIALS
Jun 21, 2008

Consumers to come first

An expert panel has submitted to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda a final plan to establish a Consumer Agency that would integrate the administration of consumer affairs now handled by different ministries and agencies.
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2008

Japan stays the path on terror list

Japan will keep pressuring the United States not to remove North Korea from its list of terrorist-sponsoring states since there has been no major progress on resolving the abduction issue, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / RETRACING ROUTES
Jun 20, 2008

Immigrants weave tale of triumph

When the Kasato Maru arrived in Brazil with the first Japanese immigrants at Santos port near Sao Paulo on June 18, 1908, a shipload of Okinawans and other Japanese disembarked and headed out to find work on the coffee plantations, seeking a better life.
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2008

What's Europe's next move?

The Irish have spoiled the party. By decisively voting down in a referendum the proposed Lisbon Treaty on the future organization and governance of the European Union, the Irish have brought the whole process of EU reform to a dead halt.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2008

Death sentences on the increase

Tuesday's hangings of serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki and two other inmates come at a time when courts are more inclined to mete out capital punishment.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2008

Taiwanese patrol ships join intrusion

A private boat carrying Taiwanese protesters and nine accompanying Taiwanese patrol vessels briefly entered Japanese territorial waters near a disputed island in the East China Sea early Monday despite repeated advance warnings from Japan.

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