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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2009

A sense of drift pervades Indian democracy

LONDON — As the largest democracy in the world enters into the campaign phase for its 15th parliamentary elections, it seems preoccupied with trivialities: Which Bollywood actor will contest? Which Nehru-Gandhi family scion will be the prime ministerial candidate? Will various regional satraps come...
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2009

Steps against Pyongyang widened

With the U.N. Security Council stuck in debate about how to respond to North Korea's rocket launch, Japan increased and extended its own sanctions Friday to condemn the hermit state, which sent the Taepodong-2 over its territory.
JAPAN / Q&A
Apr 10, 2009

What did Japan's response to the North's rocket prove?

When North Korea sent what it claims was a rocket carrying a satellite over the Tohoku region Sunday, the Self-Defense Forces units deployed to possibly intercept it held their fire because the craft apparently posed no threat to Japan's territory.
COMMENTARY
Apr 9, 2009

Australia and Afghanistan

So Australia's Labor Party prime minister, the Chinese-speaking Kevin Rudd, has promised Australia will stay the course with the United States in Afghanistan right to the very end. That's interesting. Canberra once also promised the U.S. it would stay in the Vietnam war till the very end. "All the way...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 9, 2009

DPJ pushes ¥21 trillion two-year stimulus plan

The Democratic Party of Japan proposed an economic stimulus package Wednesday that would feature ¥21 trillion in spending over the next two years to help the nation weather its worst postwar recession.
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2009

Aso orders ¥10 trillion in stimulus

Determined to get the economy off the ropes, Prime Minister Taro Aso has ordered Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano to put together a stimulus package that would see actual spending in excess of ¥10 trillion, equivalent to more than 2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, Yosano said Monday.
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2009

Tokyo's mood mixed over rocket launch

There was a mixture of anger and surprise on the streets of Tokyo on Monday over North Korea's rocket launch.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 7, 2009

Prosecutors boast clout, success

Prosecutors are legal professionals who work for the state and represent the public interest. They have the authority to investigate any crime and indict and try alleged offenders.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2009

North Korea fires rocket over Tohoku

North Korea fired a long-range rocket over the Tohoku region Sunday, but Japan did not try to shoot it down because its debris posed no threat to Japanese territory.
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2009

No need to keep vigil of sky for falling objects: Kawamura

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura assured the public Saturday that there was little chance that part of the rocket North Korean plans to send over the country will actually fall on Japanese soil.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 5, 2009

Deciphering 'A Page of Madness'

Teinosuke Kinugasa's "A Page of Madness" ("Kurutta Ichipeiji," 1926) was long thought lost. Only some 75 years later did the discovery of the missing negative allow the picture to be finally viewed by the present generation. At the same time there emerged a critical need to evaluate it because it seemed...
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2009

Two false alarms leave Japan egg-faced

North Korea may have spent Saturday toying with a jumpy Japan over its plan to send a rocket over the Tohoku region, but it managed to cause a meteoric embarrassment to Tokyo — twice — without ever pushing the launch button.
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2009

Netanyahu's fig leaf buffer

LONDON — "I am not afraid of Bibi (Netanyahu). I will not be anybody's fig leaf," said Ehud Barak, leader of Israel's Labor Party, defending his decision to join the hard-right coalition government formed by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. But off in the distance there was a curious whirring noise....
Reader Mail
Apr 2, 2009

Generalizations invite challenge

Debito Arudou does paint a bleak picture of the travails of many foreigners at the hands of the Japanese legal system. I do have issues with a couple of his points, though. First, he asserts that "bail [is] impossible for non-Japanese to get." Yet, simply typing "foreigner bail" into The Japan Times'...
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2009

Women should lead Russia

Do not underestimate Russia. That is just what many commentators are doing these days as they look at its declining population, its collapsing stock market, its dangerous reliance on oil and gas exports, the dismal style of its political leadership, its docile parliament, its aggressive foreign policy,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / SOUTH KOREAN JOURNALIST SYMPOSIUM
Apr 1, 2009

Worldwide recession exposes cracks in South Korean society

The continuing decline of the middle class and increase in the ranks of the poor threaten to exacerbate South Korea's demographic woes, Kim Dong Seop, an editorial writer for the Chonsun Ilbo daily, told the March 13 symposium.
EDITORIALS
Mar 29, 2009

Supporting single mothers

As the economy worsens, some people will suffer more than others. For the first time ever, the number of Japanese single mothers receiving child-care allowances to supplement their low income has topped 1 million, the health and welfare ministry reported in March. These single-mother households greatly...

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