editorial

EDITORIAL: More government involvement needed to...
Radioactive water leaked from the No. 2 and No. 3 underground tanks, shown with dotted lines, at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The photo was taken on April 7. (Yosuke Fukudome)
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has acknowledged that radioactive water leaked from two underground storage tanks at the utility’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
EDITORIAL: Abe should work immediately on plan to...
U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Tokyo and Washington thrashed out a plan to return to Japan tracts of land used for U.S. military facilities in Okinawa Prefecture as a step to reduce the southern...
EDITORIAL: Major weapons exporters should sign arms ...
Mari Amano, right, and other representatives for the U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty meet the reporters in New York on March 18. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
It is said that every minute a person is killed with a weapon somewhere in the world. The treaty on the global arms trade approved by the U.N. General Assembly on April 2...
EDITORIAL: BOJ needs self-control in implementing...
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, center, attends a policy meeting on April 4. (The Aahi Shimbun)
The Bank of Japan under new Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on April 4 decided on a new monetary-easing policy as part of efforts to "do everything possible" to achieve a 2-percent...
EDITORIAL: New diplomacy needed to reduce North...
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said the nuclear crisis generated by North Korea "has already gone too far."
EDITORIAL: Japan losing competitiveness in science...
On his visit to the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe on Jan. 11, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is briefed by RIKEN President Ryoji Noyori, center, and Kyoto University professor Shinya Yamanaka. (Pool)
Since science represents humanity's collective intelligence, it has no national borders. As such, it does quite fine without contributions from researchers in some countries.
EDITORIAL: Textbook screening provision is...
Textbooks for use at senior high schools in fiscal 2014 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
How should sensitive issues concerning modern and contemporary history and territorial disputes be taught at school? This question is debated almost annually at this time of...
EDITORIAL: Reforms of training system for legal...
Reactions are mixed in front of lists of people who passed the bar exam in Tokyo's Kasumigaseki district in September 2012. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Efforts to tackle the tough challenges facing the Japanese system to train legal professionals should focus not on the interests of legal experts but on the benefits of...
EDITORIAL: Programs to train foreign nurses still...
Programs to accept nurses from Indonesia and the Philippines as part of Japan’s economic cooperation with these countries are struggling. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
With its rapidly aging population, Japan will need to increasingly rely on help provided by foreign health care workers.
EDITORIAL: Measures needed to ease impact of...
Senior citizens gather to eat a school lunch at an elementary school in Shiki, Saitama Prefecture. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
What will our communities look like in 2040? How should welfare and education systems be adjusted to meet the drastic changes taking place in the country's demographic...
EDITORIAL: Politicians’ only duty is to the people
Plaintiffs at a news conference in Hiroshima on March 25 call the Hiroshima High Court’s “invalidity” ruling epoch-making. (Tetsushi Yamamura)
A series of recent high court rulings on the disparity in the value of votes between some single-seat constituencies in last year’s Lower House election has come as a fresh...
EDITORIAL: New labor framework needed before rules...
A worker, left, consults a staff member of the Kyoto Rodo Sodan Center (Kyoto labor consultation center). The organization receives about 70 consultations every month on average from workers about dismissal and other issues. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Careful attention is needed during the re-examination of employment rules to prevent workers from getting the short end of the stick.
EDITORIAL: Japan should not subscribe to ‘safety...
Officials handling the issuance of government bonds at work in the Finance Ministry’s Financial Bureau (Takeshi Hatakawa)
According to the eighth-century Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), the oldest chronicle in Japan, the nation was born when the gods stirred the sea water with a pike and...
EDITORIAL: Japan should take advantage of changing...
Russian President Vladimir Putin is positive about resolving the dispute with Japan over the Northern Territories off eastern Hokkaido. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Contrary to their pledges for cooperation, China and Russia have different purposes in the Asia-Pacific region although they are in similar circumstances. Japan should calmly...
EDITORIAL: Government ignores voices of Okinawa in...
The Defense Ministry on March 22 submitted an application to Okinawa Prefecture for land reclamation off Henoko in the Okinawan city of Nago to build a new airfield to replace U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
The Defense Ministry on March 22 submitted a land reclamation application to Okinawa Prefecture to build a new airfield off Henoko, in the city of Nago, that would replace the...
EDITORIAL: Latest failure shows Fukushima crisis...
The interior of the temporary switchboard, with the charred terminal and scorch marks on the wall (Provided by TEPCO)
A power blackout at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant resulted in a long stoppage in the circulation of water that cools spent fuel in several...
EDITORIAL: Having a broader view of the past will...
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, talks in a meeting on policies for Okinawa Prefecture, held in his office in Tokyo on March 19. In the gathering, he said that the government will hold a ceremony for the “Day of Sovereignty Restoration” on April 28. Second from right is Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima. (Teruo Kashiyama)
Just as each individual regards certain dates as unforgettable, every nation or society also has particular days deeply etched in its collective memory.
EDITORIAL: Long overdue, Japan must examine its...
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi answers questions from reporters about the government's decision to support the U.S.-led war in Iraq on March 22, 2003. (Pool)
The Iraq war started on March 20 exactly 10 years ago.
EDITORIAL: Three-day stockpile of food, water...
The Tomei Expressway, National Road No. 1 and JR Tokaido railway line run along the coast in Shizuoka. The city is one of the areas that could suffer serious damage if a powerful earthquake occurs in the Nankai Trough. (Jun Kaneko)
The government’s estimates of damage from a monster earthquake occurring in the Nankai Trough off the coast of western Japan are certainly mind-boggling. But we should not...
EDITORIAL: End nuclear fuel recycling program for...
The nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, whose full-scale operation could start in October this year. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
For years, Japan, under a national policy, has been seeking to build a nuclear fuel recycling system that extracts plutonium from spent fuel through reprocessing for reuse as...