Search - cabinet

 
 
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 8, 2009

Reading between the lines of Hatoyama's far-sighted 'vision thing'

The prime minister's keynote policy address in the Diet affords the nation's leader an opportunity to present their overall thinking to the people — as its name in Japanese, shoshin hyomei (declaration of convictions), would indeed suggest.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2009

Speaking out about domestic violence

Just a year into her marriage, Emi Yoshida realized she might not survive it. Her violent, drug-addict husband had tried to strangle her, then beat her unconscious outside their Tokyo home. When she came to, he was threatening her with a knife.
JAPAN
Nov 6, 2009

Campbell talks up ties with U.S. but ducks queries on Futenma

Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, made a brief stop Thursday in Tokyo to talk up bilateral ties despite simmering discord over where to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
EDITORIALS
Nov 6, 2009

Separate surname option

Justice Minister Keiko Chiba is so eager to revise the Civil Law that the government is likely to submit a related bill to the Diet next year. One of the changes proposed will be to allow all people to retain their existing surnames after getting married, if they so choose. At present, following the...
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2009

Still wrestling with Europe

Some things seem to go on forever. For half a century the British have been wrestling with the question of their relations with the rest of continental Europe and the struggle continues unabated and still unsolved.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 3, 2009

Demography vs. demagoguery: when politics, science collide

Last June, I attended a symposium sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies. Themed "Imploding Populations: Global and Local Challenges of Demographic Change," I took in presentations about health care, international and domestic migration, and life in a geriatric society.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 3, 2009

Demography vs. demagoguery: when politics, science collide

Last June, I attended a symposium sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies. Themed "Imploding Populations: Global and Local Challenges of Demographic Change," I took in presentations about health care, international and domestic migration, and life in a geriatric society.
EDITORIALS
Nov 2, 2009

JAL from the ground up

Struggling Japan Airlines Corp., following recommendations made by a task force of the transport ministry, has given up trying to reconstruct itself on its own and has put itself under virtually direct state supervision. Specifically, the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. (ETIC) of Japan, which...
BUSINESS
Oct 31, 2009

Rehab team eyes legislation to cut JAL pensions

The government formed a team Friday to discuss measures for financially troubled Japan Airlines Corp., including a bridge loan JAL is expected to need for survival as early as next month and proposed legislation to cut the carrier's pension benefits.
EDITORIALS
Oct 30, 2009

LDP makes its intentions clear

The Diet got down to business Wednesday with a plenary session in which party representatives posed questions to the government. Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu Tanigaki, a former finance minister and now an opposition leader, led off by grilling Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in the Lower House....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2009

Japan-U.S. ties need revamp: Hatoyama

In light of next year marking the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Thursday it's time the overall defense alliance is reviewed.
COMMENTARY
Oct 30, 2009

Significance of East Asia

There have been renewed debates over the pros and cons of forming an East Asia community ever since the Hatoyama Cabinet advocated its promotion. Such debates have triggered the argument in the United States (and among some Japanese journalists) that East Asia community building runs counter to U.S....
BUSINESS
Oct 30, 2009

Japan, U.S. trail in hiking interest rates

The global monetary policy divide is widening as the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan and major counterparts lag behind Norway and Australia in raising interest rates, a trend that is set to continue into 2010.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2009

LDP fires salvo at Hatoyama

The Liberal Democratic Party, as the new embodiment of the opposition camp, wasted no time Wednesday in lashing out against the Democratic Party of Japan administration, grilling the Cabinet for lacking a long-term vision on national strategies and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's political funds scandal....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2009

Hatoyama's talk of 'equal' ties leaves U.S. in dark

Japan and the United States need to rethink their relationship and expand their ties from a narrow alliance to a partnership that can deal with a broad range of global challenges, American foreign policy experts said in a recent symposium in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2009

Mr. Hatoyama states his politics

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama made his first keynote address to the Diet on Monday. He should be commended for summing up his "politics of fraternity" in his own words — thus dumping the practice of pasting together sentences written by bureaucrats from various ministries.
BUSINESS
Oct 28, 2009

JAL downfall not just its own doing

With Cabinet ministers indicating Japan Airlines Corp. may get an injection of public funds, a transport ministry task force is in the final stages of compiling a rehabilitation plan for the struggling carrier.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 28, 2009

Hatoyama pushing economy 'backward,' Takenaka says

Heizo Takenaka, the architect of policy changes credited with securing Japan's longest postwar economic expansion, blasted the Democratic Party of Japan-led government for undermining prospects for recovery.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat