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July 07, 2026
 

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Eric Johnston

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Eric Johnston
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2007
Act locally on climate change, leaders urge
KYOTO -- Sharing a growing sense of crisis over climate change internationally, mayors and municipal officials met Friday in Kyoto to discuss how their local governments can cooperate to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2007
From rackets to real estate, yakuza multifaceted
The yakuza have long played a powerful, if often unseen, role in society. Romanticized in literature and film as noble outcasts replete with punch-perms, extensive tattoos and severed pinkies, the underworld is one of archaic language and secretive rituals and customs as well as extreme violence and...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2007
Kansai business titans urge leadership from Abe
KYOTO -- The annual gathering of Kansai business leaders closed Friday with calls for better corporate citizenship, including greater involvement in social and political issues affecting the nation, and for the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to show stronger leadership on a broader range of...
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2007
Kansai execs told to become better corporate citizens
KYOTO -- Elite business leaders should be concerned about Japanese society and not profits, do more to employ young people and seniors, and increase patriotism in its workers, the secretary general for the Liberal Democratic Party told the annual gathering of Kansai business leaders Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2007
U.S. man on quest to find cause of brother’s death
OSAKA -- Charles Lacey’s brother died mysteriously 2 1/2 years ago in Fukuoka and he’s still trying to learn the cause.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2007
Osaka officials forcefully evict park’s homeless, supporters
OSAKA -- About 260 officials, backed by 300 private security guards, evicted nine homeless people and about 150 of their supporters from Osaka’s Nagai Park on Monday amid protests.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2007
Osaka plans another homeless eviction
OSAKA -- The Osaka Municipal Government is once again cracking down on the homeless, preparing to clear out a small group next week from a park that will be the site of a major international sporting event in August.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2007
North Korea talks should also discuss escapees, forum told
OSAKA -- The plight of Japanese citizens and Japanese-born Koreans who voluntarily went to North Korea in the 1960s but escaped to return to Japan is a human rights issue that needs to be included in the six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea, a symposium in Osaka concluded Sunday.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 21, 2007
Dig in at this genuine cantina
OSAKA -- Osaka likes to brag that it is the kitchen of Japan, where the stomach is the most important body organ. But as the guidebooks might say, “Cheap and cheerful is the rule” when it comes to establishing a decent greasy spoon in this city, which prides itself on its working-class, merchant roots....
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2007
Cost of Kobe memorials irks some critics
KOBE -- A dozen years after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, debate is growing over how best to remember the disaster and its aftermath in a city where only 70 percent of current residents were here when the temblor struck.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2006
One bad apple set to spoil Osaka’s ‘buraku’ aid barrel
projects because the system of distributing funds could easily be abused,” he said. “Local political leaders at that time bear much of the blame for Osaka’s current scandals.” Osaka pumped billions of yen into social welfare projects run by Konishi for more than three decades in line with its policy...
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2006
One bad apple set to spoil Osaka’s ‘buraku’ aid barrel
More than six months after mobster Kunihiko Konishi was arrested for decades of embezzlement, Osaka is set to scrap two dozen city projects to aid the plight of the local ‘buraku” community of descendents of the feudal outcast class.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 10, 2006
Politics at the grass roots
Judging by the society pages of certain publications in Japan, politicians at both the local and national levels seem to spend a lot of their time being photographed with ambassadors, captains of industry, assorted aristocrats, passing film stars and all manner of other folk.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2006
JNFL’s MOX-benignity claim hit
KYOTO -- Six Japan-based peace and antinuclear groups Thursday called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to clarify comments made by the head of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. that it is impossible to remove plutonium from MOX fuel, a claim that runs counter to IAEA assertions and the consensus of international...
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2006
Okinawa economic woes trump base ills for voters
V-shaped runway plan. In other words, nearly 658,000 Okinawan voters voted against the plan. In addition, unlike the election in 2002, where (Keiichi) Inamine won by nearly 170,000 votes, this time the margin of victory for Nakaima and the conservatives was only 37,000 votes, which suggests the base...
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2006
Voters weighed both base issue and local economy
NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- It was more than just the U.S. military bases. As Okinawans went to the polls Sunday to vote in the gubernatorial election, the local economy was also on their minds.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2006
Nakaima wins Okinawa race
Hirokazu Nakaima, a ruling coalition-backed former vice governor and chairman of a power utility, was elected Sunday governor of Okinawa in a campaign closely watched for its impact on the proposed realignment of U.S. military bases in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ACCORD STILL IN LIMBO
Nov 10, 2006
Back to square one after Okinawa poll?
OSAKA -- In early 2005, senior U.S. officials had become fed up with Okinawa.
JAPAN / ACCORD STILL IN LIMBO
Nov 9, 2006
Okinawa race again base-centric
First in a series on the Nov. 19 Okinawa gubernatorial election
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2006
Son of ex-Burma leader speaks at asylum trial
OSAKA -- The son of Burma’s first prime minister testified Wednesday in Osaka District Court on behalf of a male relative fighting for political asylum in Japan, saying if the government forces him to return to the country now called Myanmar he will be executed.
Japan might be giving the currency market the silent treatment
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has issued verbal warnings recently using the same language and the same tone, saying authorities “will take appropriate action at any time, as necessary.”
Murakami says his novels are ‘different’ from AI literature
Haruki Murakami's first book in three years hit shelves in Japan on Friday.
Suspected Asian fraud ring exec served fresh warrant in Japan
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and Osaka Prefectural Police have issued arrest warrants for three people, including a suspected fraud network leader, over alleged immigration and residency violations.
Japan needs caregivers. Young Indians are answering the call.
Young people in India's northeast are increasingly studying Japanese in hopes of building new lives and careers in Japan.
Tokyo hospital baby hatch accepts 20 newborns in first year
Hitoshi Kato (left), head of San-ikukai Hospital in Tokyo's Sumida Ward, speaks during a news conference at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building on Thursday.
Japan needs caregivers. Young Indians are answering the call.
Young people in India's northeast are increasingly studying Japanese in hopes of building new lives and careers in Japan.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.
Japanese nail salons are tourists’ new obsession
Tourists in Japan have always been interested in quintessentially Japanese approaches to modern culture, and, increasingly, visits to nail salons have become the new hot thing.
Okinawa’s prized seaweed under threat as oceans warm
Local harvesters gather <i>mozuku</i> during low tide at Hyakuna Beach in the city of Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. As the planet warms, rising ocean temperatures are placing increasing pressure on the seaweed industry.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
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