Search - 2005

 
 
COMMENTARY
Jul 10, 2008

Travails of a nuclear deal

In the twilight of George W. Bush's presidency, there is an unseemly rush in Washington and New Delhi to seal a contentious but far-from-complete civil nuclear deal, even as that issue has landed India in a political crisis.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 9, 2008

Actor's new role: to remind G8 of their pledges

SAPPORO — The Group of Eight leaders need to "act now" and place eradicating poverty at the top of their agenda because 30,000 children are dying every day in the developing world, British actor Bill Nighy said.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 9, 2008

G8 nations reaffirm Africa aid pledges

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Faced with criticism for long delays in delivering promised aid to Africa, member nations of the Group of Eight pledged Tuesday to follow through on commitments made at the 2005 Gleneagles, Scotland, summit.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2008

Creation of low-carbon societies demands wholesale changes on national, global level

"In pursuit of Japan as a low-carbon society" was the theme of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's speech at the Japan Press Club on June 9. The following is an abridged excerpt from a translation of his remarks.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2008

A wave of migrating brains and barbarians

MUNICH — Europe is experiencing a huge wave of migration between east and west. This movement resembles the Great Migrations (Volkerwanderung) of the fourth to sixth centuries.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2008

LDP's future as dicey as Humpty Dumpty's

BRUSSELS — Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has been in office less than 12 months, yet polls show popular support for his administration running around 20 percent. Fukuda and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) face a bleak future.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jun 26, 2008

Mature Matsuda aims for swimming medal, legacy in Beijing pool

While even a year makes a huge difference for a professional athlete in terms of development, greater progress can be made in four years.
COMMENTARY
Jun 25, 2008

What to expect from North Korea

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently announced that North Korea will soon release its much anticipated (and long overdue) "complete and correct declaration" of all its nuclear activities. In return, the Bush administration will remove Pyongyang from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and...
EDITORIALS
Jun 24, 2008

More people dying alone

Many elderly people die alone these days. The breakup of the extended family structure amid the march of urbanization as well as, possibly, the accompanying economic decline in rural areas may be responsible for weakening human bonds. To discuss the issue of dying alone, four government bodies — the...
EDITORIALS
Jun 24, 2008

Negligible rise in fertility rate

The nation's fertility rate — the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime — has gone up, albeit slightly, for two consecutive years. But the population remains on a downward trend. The government needs to foster economic and social conditions that will make it easier for people to...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2008

Nobel laureate raps Japan for avoiding midterm carbon goal

YOKOHAMA — Japan's reasons for not committing to a medium-term target for cutting carbon emissions are "unfounded," the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told The Japan Times on Saturday.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 20, 2008

Consensus elusive ahead of climate meet

Time is running out for Japanese diplomacy — and possibly for the future of the Earth, too.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2008

Death sentences on the increase

Tuesday's hangings of serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki and two other inmates come at a time when courts are more inclined to mete out capital punishment.
COMMENTARY
Jun 10, 2008

A shift in priority to 'happiness'

Per capita gross domestic product is a highly valued as yardstick for measuring the degree of "affluence" enjoyed by the citizens of each nation. The figures of various countries are usually converted into U.S. dollars to determine how countries rank internationally.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 10, 2008

Where did all the babies go?

Last Wednesday, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced that Japan's total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of babies born to women during their reproductive years — rose slightly to 1.34 for 2007, even though about 3,000 fewer children were born last year than in 2006. Two years...
JAPAN
Jun 5, 2008

Bar to kids' citizenship ruled illegal

In a ruling sure to affect thousands of others born out of wedlock to non-Japanese mothers, the Supreme Court on Wednesday granted 10 children of Filipino women the right to Japanese nationality.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 3, 2008

Absentee ballot system up, running

Suffrage is a fundamental right of a democracy, and many countries ensure their citizens can cast absentee ballots.
COMMENTARY
Jun 2, 2008

Macho move would make Burma's plight even worse

Their paranoia and mistrust of the outside world are such that Burma's generals have been criminally tardy in permitting emergency humanitarian supplies and personnel to come into the country. More than 100,000 may have been killed and over 2 million displaced and made homeless by the cyclone.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 1, 2008

Rivalry in Asia upsets the balance of power

RIVALS: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, by Bill Emmott. London: Allen Lane, 2008, 314 pp., £20 (cloth) The United States and Europe are coming to understand that the rise of China and India means that there will be increasingly less scope for the status...
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2008

Another nail for Mr. Brown?

In another sign that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in real trouble, his Labour Party was beaten in a by-election last week. Coming on the heels of a crushing defeat in local elections earlier this month, Labour looks exhausted and desperate for a turnaround in its fortunes. With the British...
Japan Times
JAPAN / AFRICA LIFELINE
May 27, 2008

Investors looking beyond raw materials to consumers

Japan and its trading houses have scrambled in recent years to court resource-rich African countries as competition has intensified with Europe and China to secure natural resources and raw materials prices have surged with the demand of rapidly growing emerging economies.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake