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February 01, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Sep 11, 2010

Rights of whistle-blowers

The Aomori District Court on Sept. 6 sentenced two Greenpeace Japan activists to a suspended one-year prison term, ruling that they broke into a cargo delivery depot in Aomori on April 16, 2008, and stole a 23-kg package of whale meat that a whaling ship crew member was mailing home to Hakodate, Hokkaido....

EDITORIALS

Sep 11, 2010

When the world went adrift

Nine years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaida on the United States — symbolized by the collapse of the Twin Towers at New York's World Trade Center after two airliners' had crashed into them, and the deaths of some 3,000 people — the world seems adrift without a compass. In the absence...

EDITORIALS

Sep 10, 2010

King-of-the-islands tiff

The Japan Coast Guard early Wednesday arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel after his ship hit two Japan Coast Guard patrol boats on Tuesday inside Japanese territorial waters near the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

EDITORIALS

Sep 10, 2010

Different strokes of the DPJ

As the Democratic Party of Japan's presidential election campaign has passed the halfway point, the differences in political style between the two candidates — Prime Minister Naoto Kan and former DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa — have become clear. On some points, however, they both remain fuzzy....

EDITORIALS

Sep 9, 2010

Bacterial assault on hospitals

Fifty-three patients at Teikyo University Hospital in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward have been infected with the multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter bacterium since August last year. Thirty-one of them died later of various causes, and nine of those deaths are believed to be directly attributable to the superbug....

EDITORIALS

Sep 8, 2010

Mr. Karzai's corruption problem

The key to a viable Afghanistan, one that is stable and peaceful and commands the allegiance of a majority of its citizens, is an honest and credible government. The Taliban and other insurgencies are a threat, but they gain traction only because Afghans feel that the government in Kabul does not look...

EDITORIALS

Sep 7, 2010

Preparing for 'deep landslides'

Unusually strong rains caused heavy damage in western Japan and the Chubu region this summer. For example, an evacuation order was issued to 110,000 residents of some 48,000 households in Hiroshima. In mid-July, record precipitation was recorded at six points in Japan, including rainfall of 107 mm per...

EDITORIALS

Sep 7, 2010

Guarding against livestock disease

Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru of Miyazaki Prefecture on Aug. 27 declared the end of the foot-and-mouth disease crisis that started in April in his prefecture. Some 289,000 farm animals were destroyed during the crisis. Both the central and prefectural governments should not let their guard down because...

EDITORIALS

Sep 6, 2010

Risks of a more active defense

A private advisory panel to Prime Minister Naoto Kan submitted a report Aug. 27 calling for changing Japan from a "passive peace-loving nation" to a "proactive peace-loving nation." The panel was formed in view of a planned revision of the defense program outline — a guideline for building up defense...

EDITORIALS

Sep 6, 2010

Record budget request

Government ministries and agencies have submitted a record-high budget request of ¥96.75 trillion for fiscal 2011, topping by 1.8 percent the corresponding ¥95.04 trillion figure for fiscal 2010, which was also a record. Election pledges by the Democratic Party of Japan, automatic increases in social...

EDITORIALS

Sep 5, 2010

Evolving convenience stores

In the three and a half decades since their introduction to Japan in 1974, convenience stores have become such a fixture that it is hard to imagine life without them. Passing department stores in sales by 2008, outlets now number more than 40,000 throughout Japan. In July their customer count rose by...

EDITORIALS

Sep 5, 2010

Definitions of fatherhood

Fathers and mothers starving their infants, grown children hiding the deaths of parents and living off their pensions, the elderly dying of heat stroke alone in their rooms — recently Japan has seen a wave of incidents casting doubt on the strength of family and community ties.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.

Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick

By Alex K.T. Martin

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