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JAPAN
Jan 6, 2009

Diet reopens; relief package main focus

Diet convened Monday for a regular 150-day session, with debate to focus on immediate economic relief measures mapped out in the second extra budget bill for fiscal 2008.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2009

Aso: No election until budget passes

Prime Minister Taro Aso said Sunday that the fiscal 2009 budget is his top priority and he won't dissolve the Diet until the budget and related bills make it through the Diet.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THE MANY FACES OF CITIZENSHIP
Jan 5, 2009

A convenience in peace becomes matter of conflict in war

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EDITORIALS
Jan 1, 2009

Gingerly start to the new year

Japan greets the new year with political stagnation and dysfunction inherited from 2008. The stifling atmosphere nationwide is due not only to deepening economic difficulties caused by the global financial crisis that started in the United States but also to the failure of Prime Minister Taro Aso's administration...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2009

Will Obama's promise of change include U.S.-Japan relations?

The Jan. 20 inauguration of the U.S. administration of Barack H. Obama is not only of historic consequence for the United States in terms of his being the first black president as well as first chief executive from the post-Vietnam War generation, but it also has aroused extremely strong interest worldwide....
COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2008

Good riddance to a bad year

If U.S. President-elect Barack Obama can walk on water, then change really is coming to the United States and the world. If there are no more big unexploded bombs buried in the world's financial systems, then this may be just an ordinary recession. But the most telling image of 2008 was Iraqi journalist...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2008

Will Europe rise to the Obama opportunity?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Will 2009 and the beginning of Barack Obama's U.S. presidency mark the beginning of a new era in trans-Atlantic relations, or will the old divisions linger, nurtured by the depth and gravity of the economic crisis? Will the crisis lead to nationalistic and selfish attitudes on both...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 26, 2008

High notes, low tones

The ups and downs of 2008 in music.
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2008

Spike feared in idled-temp suicides

Nonprofit organizations and Diet members fear they will see a surge in suicides among temporary workers subjected to massive dismissals as the plunging economy gives them no room to survive with little financial or housing support.
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2008

Japan's global invisibility

Friends of Japan abroad understand why Japanese politicians often assume a low profile in international relations. When they don't — as when paying much-publicized official visits to Yasukuni Shrine or taking a recalcitrant position on whaling — they attract criticism.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2008

Central Europe and the bear

How are the ex-communist countries of Central Europe faring during the present global economic downturn? To judge by the glittering city of Budapest, the answer is that so far the forces of recession have made little impact. The restaurants are full, the shops crowded, the streets jammed with vehicles,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2008

The dilution of devolution

The government's devolution panel has submitted to Prime Minister Taro Aso a second set of recommendations calling for the consolidation of regional offices of central government ministries and a reduction in the number of national servants working at such offices.
Reader Mail
Dec 14, 2008

Soka Gakkai's position on article

Unfortunately, there were a number of errors in the Dec. 2 FYI article "Soka Gakkai keeps religious, political machine humming." As I was interviewed for this article on Nov. 21, I would like to make several points in response.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2008

Aso's latest stimulus worth ¥23 trillion

Prime Minister Taro Aso unveiled a ¥23 trillion stimulus package Friday that will allow up to ¥12 trillion in public funds to be injected into financial institutions, far more than the ¥2 trillion initially planned.
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2008

Responsibility for food safety

A panel of the Cabinet Office on Nov. 25 made public a report on a scandal involving the reselling of contaminated rice for human consumption, which had surfaced in September 2008. The report said officials of the farm ministry lacked a sense of responsibility for their role in ensuring the safety of...
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2008

Obama and the vets: caring for a generation

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — When Eric K. Shinseki, the first four-star U.S. Army general of Japanese- American ethnicity, was still his service branch's chief of staff, he became a symbol of doubt about official competence in pursuit of the Iraq war.
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2008

What is LDP official trying to do?

What is LDP official trying to do?

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