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COMMENTARY
Feb 8, 2006

China swaps historical facts for fiction

HONG KONG -- At a time when Beijing is upbraiding Tokyo for its depiction in history textbooks of the invasion and occupation of China in the 1930s and 1940s -- and used it as a reason for excluding Japan from the United Nations Security Council -- it has exposed its own politicization of history by...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 29, 2006

Sifting through the geeks -- that's all of us -- to identify the perverts

Less than a week after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki on Jan. 17, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia had not only recorded the ruling in its entry on Miyazaki, but had added an incisive note. When the Miyazaki case was dominating the headlines in 1989, he...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2005

Koizumi aide Iijima wins libel suit

The Tokyo District Court ordered a publisher and a writer Friday to pay 1.35 million yen in damages to a key aide to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi over a magazine article that claimed he is effectively subordinating Koizumi.
Japan Times
Features
Nov 6, 2005

Surveying a state of change

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi led his Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide victory in the Sept. 11 general election he called as a de facto referendum on his drive to privatize postal services.
COMMENTARY
Nov 2, 2005

No changing colors in China

HONG KONG -- Two weeks ago, China issued a 23,000-word white paper on democracy, the first time the Communist government had ever done so. However, instead of being a blueprint for the development of representative government, the white paper turned out to be a defense of the perpetuation of the monopoly...
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2005

Weekly admits plagiarizing wire poll stories

The weekly magazine Shukan Kinyobi has apologized to Kyodo News and Jiji Press for plagiarizing stories from the two news agencies about the Sept. 11 general election.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 25, 2005

Illuminating responses to 'Glimmers of hope . . . '

One of the most entertaining things about being a columnist is getting feedback from readers.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2005

Scholar troubled by Japan's direction

Few intellectuals in Japan today are as deeply committed to peace and democracy as Rokuro Hidaka is. The 88-year-old sociologist is a witness to Japan's aggression in China and, during the war, even went as far as proposing that Japan withdraw its troops from China, return its colonies and lay down foundations...
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2005

LDP's new Constitution will widen SDF's role

The Liberal Democratic Party on Monday unveiled a rough outline of its planned constitutional amendment, which says the Self-Defense Forces should be defined as a military tasked with defending Japan and joining international peacekeeping efforts.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 22, 2004

'Stray dogs' dig the dirt

"Bluebottle fly" was what he says he was called by the police. But freelance journalist Shunsuke Yamaoka is now getting a buzz from watching the law deal with wrongdoers he exposed.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2004

'Cat paradise' sad gloss for pet dumpsite

"Please do not mention the name of this place in your article," the woman begged during an interview. "Please."
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 20, 2004

Bill of rights

As the government moves to beef up the country's military preparedness, once again the issue of the protection of foreigners' rights has been raised.
EDITORIALS
Jul 5, 2004

A step in the right direction

Japan will soon express its willingness to become a party to the twin protocols of the four Geneva conventions that were approved in 1949 to protect war victims and prevent the kinds of abuses that had occurred during World War II. The supplementary protocol agreements, adopted in 1977, set humanitarian...
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2004

Crackdown has publishers running scared

Yasunori Okadome last month suspended publication of his profitable monthly gossip magazine Uwasa-no-shinso (The Truth Behind Rumors), due to fears that a lawsuit could put him out of business for good.
EDITORIALS
Mar 26, 2004

Last resort to protect privacy

Over the past two weeks Japanese media have made much of a privacy issue involving the eldest daughter of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka. It all started with an article in a popular weekly describing the daughter's private life. Responding to a request from her lawyer, the Tokyo District Court...
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2004

Koizumi urges LDP-DPJ effort to revise Constitution

Constitutional reform is no longer a taboo issue and the Liberal Democratic Party should work together with the Democratic Party of Japan to submit bills to this end to the Diet, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2004

Court targets obscene comics

A Tokyo publisher was found guilty in a landmark criminal trial Tuesday of distributing obscene comic books containing uncensored sex scenes.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2004

DPJ set to submit own proposals on Constitution

The Democratic Party of Japan said Tuesday it will issue constitutional amendment proposals by 2006.
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2003

Courageous decision on Iraq

LONDON -- The Japanese government's decision to send members of the Self-Defense Forces to take part in humanitarian efforts in Iraq was a courageous one.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 29, 2003

Debate on Emperor's role in war lives on

NEW YORK -- Will the nearly 60-year-old debate on the Showa Emperor's role in World War II ever end?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 17, 2003

Safe hydrogen power needs nuclear energy

Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, said in 1928 that "the slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner plate to the full garage." Soundbite culture had taken hold even then, and Hoover's words were quickly paraphrased as "a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot."...
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2003

Ministry protests refugee newspaper story

The Justice Ministry has protested against an article run by the Yomiuri Shimbun on Thursday that said the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau is recommending that a former North Korean agent be granted refugee status, according to ministry officials.
COMMUNITY
Mar 15, 2003

Historian seeks clear U.N. mandate for peace

German-born Klaus Schlichtman is a peace historian. An academic who found his way late in life -- a "seeker" in every sense of the word.
COMMENTARY
Mar 4, 2003

Signs of a thaw in cross-Strait relations

HONG KONG -- In a potentially significant move, China is reported to have pulled back some of its missiles along the Fujian coast facing Taiwan, something that the United States and Taiwan have been urging China to do for some time. An article in Taiwan's United Daily News on Thursday reported that "the...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2003

Editor suspended for Chimura story

The editor in chief of the Shukan Asahi magazine has been suspended over an article published in the weekly without the permission of a couple who have returned to Japan after being abducted by North Korean agents, it was learned Saturday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 5, 2002

Extensive debate on the Constitution

A Lower House constitutional research panel last week released an interim report summarizing nearly three years of its discussions. The voluminous document covers a wide range of subjects, including the Emperor system, roles of the Self-Defense Forces and basic human rights. However, it leaves open the...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 11, 2002

Beijing forcing Chen to take own road

NEW YORK -- Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's posture toward China has undergone a significant change recently -- from showing infinite good will to proclaiming that Taiwan is an independent sovereign state and that Taiwan's future should be determined by the people of Taiwan. He now supports legislation...
COMMENTARY
Jun 15, 2002

Japan remains very abnormal

When the framers of Japan's postwar Constitution included the much-debated Article 9 prohibiting the nation from ever having armed forces or from ever going to war, they had a reason. They saw Japan as a nation with an incurable propensity to slip into militarism.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 14, 2001

Taiwan deserves to be a U.N. member

NEW YORK -- The United Nations admitted Tuvalu, a tiny South Pacific island state, as its 189th member last fall, but not Taiwan despite the latter's efforts for the past decade. The U.N.'s action seems incongruous even by a simple comparison.

Longform

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