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March 12, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2010
Pedal faster, not slower
By Kevin Rafferty
LONDON — Memo to Naoto Kan, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, and Hu Jintao and Manmohan Singh: Running an economy is like riding a bicycle — if you maintain a good speed, you can make progress; but if you reduce your speed, there is always the danger of losing your balance,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2010
Sumos and the yakuza
By Masahiro Matsumura
OSAKA — Perhaps no other sport is pursued as religiously as sumo wrestling. Before a match, referees — who double as Shinto priests — purify the seaweed, salt and sake. Wrestlers wash their faces, mouths and armpits before entering the dohyo (ring), on whose sacred sand neither shoes nor women...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2010
EU leaders must face a welfare state crisis
By Guy Sorman
PARIS — In the Western part of Europe — the part that former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld maliciously labeled "Old Europe" — almost every government is in deep political trouble.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2010
Muskoka declaration of health highlights abandoned promises
By Hany Besada and Leah Mcmillan
WATERLOO, Canada — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper — who is the 2010 president of the Group of Eight industrialized nations — has summarized the "Muskoka Initiative: Maternal, Newborn and Under-5 Child Health" by exclaiming "We have been successful."
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jul 26, 2010
Black Sea challenge by U.S. set to keep Russia on edge
A storm is gathering in and around the Black Sea as Russia faces a mounting challenge from the United States, which is beefing up its military presence in former Soviet satellite countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2010
Give Israeli 'traitor' unconditional freedom
By Cesar Chelala
NEW YORK — On May 23, Mordechai Vanunu, whom Amnesty International calls a "prisoner of conscience," was sent to prison for three months, accused of violating the terms of his 2004 release from prison. He has spent 18 years in prison, the first 11 years in solitary confinement.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2010
Claims of U.S. financial reform presuppose great leap of hope
By Kevin Rafferty
LONDON — Champagne cork headlines were popping all over the United States the week before last when the Senate passed financial reform measures variously described as "a sweeping overhaul of the big banks" . . . "the biggest changes for generations" . . . "the greatest cleanup since the Great Depression"...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 25, 2010
The samurai who were let out of the box
By Hiroaki Sato
NEW YORK — The Museum of the City of New York has an exhibition titled "Samurai in New York: The First Japanese Delegation, 1860." The "delegation" was the first embassy dispatched by Japan in more than a millennium. The previous one, in 838, went to the Tang Dynasty court to pay tribute to the Chinese...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 25, 2010
Savoring the wisdom of some Japanese predictions about Japan
By Roger Pulvers
FIRST IN A THREE-PART SERIES — I was 8 years old when we got our first television set, a 10-inch Admiral. That was in 1952, still early days for the new and exciting medium. It wasn't long before I was glued every week to my favorite program, "Criswell Predicts."
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2010
India ignoring Washington as it woos Iran
By Harsh V. Pant
LONDON — India and Iran have decided to give new direction to their bilateral ties that have been dormant for some time now.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2010
Poll thunder Down Under
By Alan Goodall
SYDNEY — Two untested political leaders with no new policies to offer but with lots of vocal thunder — that's how Australians view the current battle for Canberra. By election day Aug. 21, when every eligible Australian adult is required by law to vote, the thunder will be sounding mighty hollow....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2010
Immelt's China meltdown
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt has certainly stirred up a hornet's nest in China with his words of wisdom about doing business there. In the most publicized supposedly private speech of the year, Immelt grumbled that it was getting very difficult for big companies...
Osaka Expo-linked spending expected to hit ¥1 trillion
The Osaka Expo site on Yumeshima island in December.
The North Korea taekwondo supremo that Austria can't kick
The entrance sign of the headquarters of the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) is pictured, on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria, on March 5, 2025. While the sports organization has faced accusations of working for Pyongyang, ITF has denied "any wrongdoing," insisting the federation promotes taekwondo worldwide.
Amid labor shortage, Japan approves guidelines to upskill foreign workers
A Vietnamese worker harvests tomatoes at a farm in the city of Asahi, Chiba Prefecture, in 2018.
Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida to step down
Makoto Uchida, CEO of Nissan, will step down from the post at the end of this month.
Man arrested after fatal stabbing of woman in Shinjuku Ward
Investigators from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police examine the scene where a woman in her 20s was stabbed on Tuesday morning in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.
‘We are not Ukraine’: Top Taiwan officials temper comparisons after U.S. U-turn
People hold a Ukrainian flag and a Taiwan flag during a protest to mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Taipei on Feb. 23.
14 years after 3/11 disasters, Fukushima vies to become a startup hub
Aizawa Concrete employees work in the Namie factory in Fukushima Prefecture in January.
Tokyo’s vinyl experts say overseas buyers are ‘sustaining the scene’
Rintaro Sekizuka runs a record store in both London and Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward.
Slowly but surely, Osaka emerges from Kyoto’s fine-dining shadow
Bar Bota, the 37th-floor watering hole at the Four Seasons Osaka, looks out on a glittering cityscape better known for its cheap eats and drinks.
Cherry blossom season set to kick off on March 21 in Tokyo
A Weathernews forecast shows the cherry blossom season will begin on March 21 in Tokyo.

Podcast

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

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high
Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high

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