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November 24, 2024
 

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EDITORIALS
May 29, 2004

Reinstating a jury system

Japan is set to introduce a new criminal trial system by the end of this decade, in which professional and lay judges will deal with major cases on an equal footing. A judicial reform bill calling for the creation of the saiban-in (citizen judge) system passed the Upper House last week, making it certain...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 28, 2004

Ancient port of quiet delights

By the time footsore travelers on the old Tokaido Highway made it to Otsu, the town must have been no unwelcome sight. Many of them would just have trudged some 500 km from Edo (present-day Tokyo), and Otsu was the last of the 53 official way-stations strung out along the great thoroughfare. Just 10...
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2004

New democracy masters coalition-building

HONG KONG -- Ironically, at a time when the United States is trying to bring instant democracy to the Middle East, Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, is undergoing a complex, three-tiered democratic election virtually unnoticed.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2004

Labor is game but Howard forges on

SYDNEY -- It is fitting that an Australia-U.S. free-trade agreement should be signed the day Prime Minister John Howard celebrated 30 years in Federal Parliament. Both events mark historic steps in Australian politics and in a firm alliance with the United States.
JAPAN
May 25, 2004

Koizumi's Pyongyang trip: Was it politically motivated?

Many high-ranking officials of the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Official Residence had urged caution, saying the idea was too risky and too early.
JAPAN
May 25, 2004

Koizumi's Pyongyang trip: Was it politically motivated?

Many high-ranking officials of the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Official Residence had urged caution, saying the idea was too risky and too early.
EDITORIALS
May 24, 2004

A qualified success for Mr. Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has completed his second trip to Pyongyang. Unlike with his first visit, there were no surprises this time. He returned home with the families of four abductees, a promise to arrange a reunion between a fifth abductee and her three family members in Beijing, and pledges...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2004

On the move after decades of pacifism

A quiet pride is evinced in the dispatch of Japan's Self-Defense Forces troops for peacekeeping in Iraq even though the polls say a bare majority opposes the deployment. Says a business executive: "That's their profession; that's what they've been trained for."
JAPAN
May 22, 2004

Nation waits as Koizumi jets to Pyongyang

Expectations are high in Japan that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who will visit Pyongyang on Saturday for his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, will return with the families of the five repatriated abductees.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2004

Myanmar's thorn in the ASEM process

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Once again, the experiment known as the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) enters the limelight for the wrong reasons. With preparation under way for a summit meeting in Hanoi next October, the focus is not so much on real issues as on the format for participation. Characteristically,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 16, 2004

EU stretching the envelope

MOSCOW -- Nobody truly knows where Europe ends. Geographically, it is supposed to run all the way east to the Ural Mountains, but few would argue that this definition should be taken seriously. What matters is culture and politics and the allegiances resulting from both. With the recent expansion of...
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2004

New jailers, same prison?

The stage-managed toppling of ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's statue will not, after all, be the image defining the Iraq war. Like the famous photo of the young girl on fire running naked to escape the horror of napalm in the Vietnam War, the photographs emerging from Abu Ghraib prison will be the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 13, 2004

Ozawa undecided about taking DPJ helm

Ichiro Ozawa, deputy head of the Democratic Party of Japan, gave a guarded response Wednesday to a formal request that he assume the party's presidency following the resignation of DPJ leader Naoto Kan over his failure to pay mandatory pension premiums.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 13, 2004

Ozawa undecided about taking DPJ helm

Ichiro Ozawa, deputy head of the Democratic Party of Japan, gave a guarded response Wednesday to a formal request that he assume the party's presidency following the resignation of DPJ leader Naoto Kan over his failure to pay mandatory pension premiums.
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 11, 2004

Kidnap crisis poses a new risk

When five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq last month, huge public concern for their safe return quickly gave way to hostility and a campaign of vilification. A disastrous public appeal by the families of three of the hostages for the withdrawal of SDF troops from Iraq encouraged the government to...
Features
May 9, 2004

Lost in translation on Japanese screens

Unlike the countries that tend to dub foreign movies, Japan has been mainly using subtitles for more than 70 years. No one knows exactly why, but some say the Japanese simply enjoy hearing the original voices of the actors and the sounds in the background. Most now take it for granted that going to the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 9, 2004

If only divorces were scripted by TV writers

It's easier to get a divorce in Japan than anywhere else in the world. If both parties agree, all they have to do is affix their seals to a document and their union is instantly dissolved -- no trial separation period, no grounds, no mess.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 9, 2004

Terrorism in its most serious form

WAR AND STATE TERRORISM: The U.S., Japan and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century, edited by Mark Selden and Alvin Y. So. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 293 pp., £22.95 (paper). This provocative examination of state terrorism asks readers to reconsider their assumptions about who are the "bad...
COMMENTARY / World
May 9, 2004

Dahka stalling on joint border patrols

NEW DELHI -- The importance of joint border patrols on the Indo-Bangladeshi border cannot be overemphasized. Although India's northwestern border makes news due to problems in Kashmir or to cross-border terrorism of the most vicious kind, the eastern border that India shares with Bangladesh also has...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 4, 2004

Rallies staged for, against revision

Both proponents and opponents of revising the Constitution held rallies and meetings Monday in Tokyo to mark the 57th anniversary since it came into force.
EDITORIALS
May 3, 2004

Limits to good intentions

The government was right to flatly reject the demand from Islamic hostage-takers last month that Japan withdraw its troops immediately from Iraq. That resolute response was supported by most Japanese, boosting Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's popularity ratings. Yet, as security in Iraq continues to...
EDITORIALS
May 2, 2004

A passion for punctuation

What's the biggest and most inspiring British export since the latest volume of "Harry Potter"? Not embattled football star David Beckham. Not a young prince, dutifully inspecting misery in the Third World. Not even another eloquent apologia for the fiasco in Iraq by Prime Minister Tony Blair. No, the...
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2004

Boat crew survivors focus of Bikini nuke test study

The city of Sukumo, Kochi Prefecture, will conduct health studies next month on crews from Kochi fishing boats hit by fallout from the 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Central Pacific.
EDITORIALS
Apr 28, 2004

Back to the future in Indonesia

The first round of voting in Indonesia's electoral pageant has revealed a wave of nostalgia for the past. Golkar, the party of disgraced former leader Suharto, came out on top in national parliamentary elections in early April. Days after the results were announced, Golkar picked Mr. Wiranto, a former...
COMMENTARY
Apr 28, 2004

Polls to change face of Asia

HONOLULU -- Winston Churchill once said "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried." Recent elections in South Korea and Taiwan have already demonstrated that irony. This year contains a number of presidential and parliamentary elections that promise to...
COMMENTARY
Apr 26, 2004

Democracy, Filipino style

MANILA -- Before I moved to Manila two years ago, a Filipino parliamentarian told me about election-related violence in his country. At that time I could hardly believe my ears. Now I have come to understand that ballot snatching, intimidation of voters and even assassinations are a sad reality in many...
Features / LIFE OR DEATH
Apr 25, 2004

Debate heats up over legal reform

The maximum legal penalty in Japan is death. Locked alone in their tiny cells, 56 death-row prisoners are now awaiting their fate. Last year, one person was executed. No one knows how many will be this year.
MULTIMEDIA
Apr 24, 2004

Rachad Farah

As he prepares to leave Japan for his next diplomatic posting, Rachad Farah, ambassador of the Republic of Djibouti, admits he cannot help but have "a heavy heart." He has been here 15 years, and to leave is wrenching even though he goes to an attractive new posting. For the last 10 years, he has been...
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Japan will spend ¥325 million in government funds on Princess Yuriko's funeral
Princess Yuriko waves during the New Year's public greeting at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in January 2019.
MUFG fires worker over ¥2 billion theft from clients’ safe deposit boxes
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is investigating the incident and consulting with the police.
China reinstates visa-free travel for Japanese nationals
Beijing Daxing International Airport
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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