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COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2008

Remember the black swans

The great global economic establishment is once again divided as to what is going to happen next. Half say we are lurching toward a new bout of world inflation. Half say the danger is deflation and world recession, even depression.
EDITORIALS
May 21, 2008

Economic optimism unwarranted

The Cabinet Office has announced that Japan's gross domestic product grew 0.8 percent in real terms in the January-March period from the previous quarter for an annualized growth of 3.3 percent. The growth represents an economic expansion for three consecutive quarters and exceeded Japan's potential...
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2008

Rescuing the revolution from Yushchenko

BRUSSELS — There is no more depressing sight in politics than a leader who, desperate to cling to power, ruins his country in the process. By his recent actions, President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine now looks like he has joined the long list of rulers who have sacrificed their country's future simply...
EDITORIALS
May 19, 2008

Rising costs of living

Price rises are hitting both consumers and enterprises. Among consumer goods, rises in the prices of food and energy, closely tied to people's daily lives, are conspicuous, and companies hit by higher raw materials costs hesitate to raise wages. These factors tend to depress consumer demand, thus damping...
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2008

Mr. Siniora gambles and loses

It is increasingly clear that the administration of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is the government of Lebanon in name only. In deciding to confront Hezbollah last week, Mr. Siniora badly miscalculated, and was forced to make a humiliating retreat. Now, the country teeters on the precipice of a civil...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 16, 2008

Sex slaves struggle to keep plight in focus

SEOUL — They're the dwindling survivors of a war crime who have fought 17 years for justice. Now amid a gathering revisionist movement in Japan, they live out their final days in the South Korean countryside with the worst fear of all: that the world will forget what happened to them.
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2008

Giving nonprofits their due

Ten years have passed since the promulgation of the Law Concerning the Promotion of Specific Nonprofit Organization Activities (NPO Law). Many people benefit from NPO services. The central and local governments need to adopt measures to strengthen NPOs' financial bases and overall ability to carry out...
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2008

Misguided use of space

The Diet is expected to enact soon a bill establishing a basic law on space. The bill, passed by the Lower House in a plenary session, represents a drastic departure from Japan's traditional "peaceful purposes only" space policy and could lead to extensive use of space for military purposes. Regrettably,...
JAPAN
May 15, 2008

Clark, Fukuda concur on all but agriculture

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda agreed Wednesday to cooperate on global warming, security and other areas but failed to make progress on signing a free-trade agreement, according to a joint statement issued after their summit in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2008

Condemning the crime in Gaza

ATLANTA — The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned — with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air or land.
JAPAN
May 10, 2008

For the moment, panel turns aside road tax bill

An Upper House panel rejected a contentious bill Friday to use road-related tax revenue exclusively to pay for road construction for the next 10 years — even though it will likely be rammed through the Diet by the ruling coalition next week.
COMMENTARY
May 10, 2008

Britain's next government must beat mood of retreat

LONDON — Has the political tide in Britain now turned? And is the Labour Party under Prime Minister Gordon Brown now heading for defeat?
JAPAN
May 9, 2008

Lawmakers form bipartisan group to back life sentence without parole

With only a year left before the public starts taking part in criminal trials as lay judges, Diet members from the ruling and opposition camps formed a new group Thursday whose aim is to get life sentences without parole into the penal code.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 4, 2008

Japan's media plays nursemaid to nation's immature democracy

A major Japanese newspaper publishes an article denouncing the prime minister. Reporters hold a rally to criticize his Cabinet. The government responds by banning sales of the edition of the newspaper that carried the article, indicting its author for violation of the Newspaper Law. Rightwing agitators...
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2008

Rule of law comes under fire

The government's reactions to the Nagoya High Court's April 17 decision that Japanese operations in Iraq are unconstitutional, raise profoundly disturbing questions about the rule of law and the democratic separation of powers in Japan.
EDITORIALS
May 2, 2008

Constructive solution needed

The ruling bloc has re-enacted a tax code bill to restore gasoline and other road-related tax surcharges by voting it in a second time with a two-thirds majority in the Lower House — a procedure provided by the Constitution. This is the first time in 56 years that such a revote was taken. The timing,...
JAPAN
May 1, 2008

Pandas added to summit agenda

Japan will ask China to provide new panda bears to Ueno Zoo during the summit between President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda next week in Tokyo, a Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday.

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