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January 24, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Nov 3, 2012

Has Mr. Berlusconi's luck run out?

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been found guilty of tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. Incredibly for a leader of a Group of Eight nation, this is not Mr. Berlusconi's first conviction — he has been found guilty in three other unrelated trials — nor might it be...

EDITORIALS

Nov 2, 2012

Justice for Mr. Mainali

In a Monday retrial of Mr. Govinda Prasad Mainali, a Nepalese man who had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the March 1997 robbery-murder of a 39-year-old Tokyo woman, the prosecution reversed its position and stated that he is innocent. The Tokyo High Court will acquit him on Nov. 7....

EDITORIALS

Nov 2, 2012

Urgent tasks for the Diet

Following Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's policy speech on Monday in the Lower House, a period of questions and answers started in the current extraordinary Diet session on Wednesday. Political parties should refrain from bickering and speedily act on two urgent issues — the passage of a bill to float...

EDITORIALS

Nov 1, 2012

Wealth and power in China

The New York Times has reported that the family of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao controls assets worth $2.7 billion. In response, access to The New York Times in China is now blocked and every mention of the story in the media and on microblogs is being censured. The story is a reminder of the problems...

EDITORIALS

Oct 31, 2012

Chipping away at Mr. Noda's rule

In a Lower House by-election on Sunday in the Kagoshima No. 3 constituency, a Liberal Democratic Party candidate, also supported by Komeito, defeated a candidate of the People's New Party — a coalition partner of the Democratic Party of Japan — who received full support from the DPJ. The DPJ's defeat...

EDITORIALS

Oct 31, 2012

Partisan politics hobble Diet

A 33-day extraordinary Diet session kicked off on Monday under unusual circumstances. The opposition in the Upper House refused to listen to a policy speech by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on the grounds that the chamber in the previous session passed a censure motion against him. Thus Mr. Noda gave...

EDITORIALS

Oct 30, 2012

Eleven long years of war

Eleven years have passed since America and its coalition allies launched Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban government in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, a little less than a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States that killed some 3,000 people.

EDITORIALS

Oct 30, 2012

Prenatal test raises ethical concerns

As part of their research, about a dozen medical institutions in Japan plan to start carrying out prenatal detection tests that can predict whether a fetus has Down syndrome or not with an accuracy of more than 99 percent. The method, developed in the United States, consists of testing a blood sample...

EDITORIALS

Oct 29, 2012

Stumbling blocks for devolution

The abolition in principle of regional bureaus of central government ministries is a pillar of the DPJ-led government's policy of pushing devolution. Of some 300,000 national public servants, nearly 200,000 belong to regional bureaus of central government ministries. The first step toward the abolition...

EDITORIALS

Oct 29, 2012

Too little, too late

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Oct. 17 told the Cabinet members to draw up an economic package because the Japanese economy is losing steam. On the surface, his move seems reasonable. Japan's real economic growth plummeted to an annualized 0.7 percent in the April-June period from the annualized 5.3...

EDITORIALS

Oct 28, 2012

Mr. Ishihara goes national

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced Thursday that he will resign and return to national politics by launching a new political party and becoming its leader. He is stepping down as governor nearly two and half years before his term expires. Given his popularity and personality, and voters' frustration...

EDITORIALS

Oct 28, 2012

A mother's message

Twenty years after Mieko Hattori's 16-year-old son, Yoshihiro, was fatally shot while studying in America, the outspoken mother has once again called for tighter gun control laws in the United States and around the world. Her latest speech was delivered in Baton Rouge, the town where 20 years ago her...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.

Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go

By Kazuaki Nagata and Richard Meyer

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