-Best of the Japan Observer

All the below are here:

http://www.zmag.org/japanwatch/archive.html

Alternatives / Ethical Investment

Ethical Investment Comes to Japan. . . Slowly (Apr. 1999)
Radish Boya (Dec. 1999)
Anti-Semitism

Review: The Secret of the Jews’ 450-Year Invasion of Japan, by Ota Ryu
The Ancient Jews Will Arise Again in Japan, the Hushing Up of Mt. Tsurugi Will End, and Japan’s Age Will Begin (By Uno Masami)
Constitution

The Constitution of Japan
The New Push for Constitutional Revision (Mar. 2000)
Non-Violence and Peace-making: A Case for Rethinking Article 9? (Oct. 2001)

Disabled People

Fighting for the Rights of the Disabled (Tokyo Observer 18)

Economy/Trade

Balancing the Tax System? The 5% Consumption Tax (The Tokyo Observer 1)
The Search for Labor, the Search for Work (The Tokyo Observer 1)
Bank Scams (The Tokyo Observer 9)
The Cosmo Credit Bank Scandal (The Tokyo Observer 9)
The New Politics of Foreign Exchange (Jul. 1998)
Lock-Out: Unemployment in Japan (Feb. 1999)
Youth and the Economy (Mar. 1999)
How Should We Who Live in Japan Handle the WTO? (Summer 2002)
Doha: More Bodies Buried in the Desert (Summer 2002)
Education/Language

Language Minorities in Japanese Schools (Aug. 1998)
Language Reform on the Kitchen Table (Nov. 1998)
Emperor System

Crisis in the Monarchy (The Tokyo Observer 20)
REVIEW: HIROHITO AND THE MAKING OF MODERN JAPAN (Jan. 2001)
Environment / Ecology

The Greens in the Summer Elections (The Tokyo Observer 9)
A Regional Vision for the Kiso River (Mar. 1999)
Mt. Takao versus the Ministry of Construction (Mar. 2001)
Beyond the Concrete Mountains: Permaculture in Japan (Jan. 2001)

Foreigners (Crime)

A Look Behind the Statistics (The Tokyo Observer 22)
Is the Foreign Population a Hotbet of Criminals? (Jan. 2001)
Foreigners (Discrimination)

Alien Registration: Racism and the TV Commercial (Sept. 1997)
Cultural Discrimination: Foreigners Banned from the National Sports Festival (Summer 2003)

Foreigners (Labor, Human Rights, Parents’ Rights)

Trafficking in Women and Girls – A View from Japan (Summer 2002)
Tales from Japan’s Abandoned Foreign Parents (Autumn 2003)

Hemp/Marijuana

Hemp and the Japanese (The Tokyo Observer 15)
Cannabis in Japan: Fall From Grace (Jul. 1999)

Homelessness

Shinjuku’s Homeless (The Tokyo Observer 2)
The Homeless: Villains, or Victims? (Aug. 1999)

Immigration (The Immigration Gulag/Violence)

A History of Abuse (The Tokyo Observer 2)
Abuse in Detention (Feb. 1999)
A Gay Iranian’s Struggle for Refugee Status (Sept. 2000)
Japan’s Afghani Refugees (Nov. 2001)
Japan Treats its Refugees Like Criminals (Summer 2003)

Immigration (Policy)

Movement for Residence Rights of Undocumented Workers Begins (Nov. 1999)
Taking Every Opportunity: Ministry Plans to Stiffen Immigration Control (Oct. 2001)
The Political Significance of the 2001 Revision of the Immigration Control Law (Spring 2002)
Korea

Hypocrisy Over the Senkaku Islands (The Tokyo Observer 23)
Japan/North Korea Relations: Their Place in North-East Asia (Winter 2002)
Labor/Teaching in Japan

Foreign Teachers’ Union Firings Overturned by Court (April 2001)
NUGW Tokyo South Annual Policy for 2002 (Winter 2002)
No Expansion of Fixed Term Contract System (Summer 2003)
Weakening the Labor Standards Law (Autumn 2003)

Medical

The O-157 Cover-Up: Yet Another Public Health Scandal
Why Can’t We Get the Pill in Japan? (Tokyo Observer 19)
Before You Sign That Organ Donor Card (Mar. 1999)
Alzheimer Riddles: Murders, Indictments, and a Medical Mystery (Sep. 2001)
Throwing Away the Key on the Mentally Ill (Winter 2002)
Feminism, Autonomic Imbalance, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Autumn 2003)

Militarism / Peace Movement / Self-Defense Forces

Rearming Japan (May 1999)
An Anti-War Soldier’s Story (May 1998)
The Japanese in Indonesia: An Artificial Panic? (June 1998)
Is There Depleted Uranium in Japan’s Future? (Mar 2001)
Japan and the “Bush Push” on Missile Defense (Jun. 2001)
September 11, 2001: When the World Changed for the Worse: Genocidal Volunteerism, the Sins of Empire, and Japan (October 2001)
Non-Violence and Peace-making: A Case for Rethinking Article 9? (October 2001)
The U.S. Colossus and the Koizumi Agenda (Spring 2002)
Militarism and Koizumi’s Emergency Contingency Bills (Summer 2002)
Japan’s Emergency Measures Legislation: Altering the Role of the Armed Forces? (Spring 2003)
Bringing Bush, Blair and Koizumi to Trial (Spring 2003)
The Imperial Prime Minister? Koizumi’s Support for Bush’s War on Iraq (Spring 2003)

Mysteries

Asaki Akiyo’s “Suicide”: A Death Foretold? (The Tokyo Observer 11)
Okinawa’s Undersea Ziggurats (May 1998)
Narita Airport

Betrayal at Narita (Oct. 1999)
North Korea

Hot Spot: North Korea (The Tokyo Observer 18)

Nuclear Plants

Questions on the Tokaimura Accident (Nov. 1999)
Genpatsu Gypsies (Oct. 2000)
A Dangerous Mix: Earthquakes and Nuclear Power Plants (Dec. 2000)

Nuclear Weapons

Japan’s secret war: Japan’s race against time to build its own
atomic bomb (Jun. 1999)
Okinawa

The Nago Election (Apr. 1998)
A Few Strings Attached: Tokyo, Inamine and the Struggle for Okinawan Self-Determination (Dec. 1998)
The Poverty of Amerasian Children in Okinawa (Oct. 2000)

Personalities (Ishihara Shintaro)

The Ishihara Victory: Will They Throw Us Out of Tokyo? (June 1999)
Foreign Worker Groups Protest Gov. Ishihara’s Racist Remarks (May 2000)
Soldiers in the Subways: Ishihara’s Tokyo Wargames (Oct. 2000)
Waiting for the Big One: Tokyo’s Grand Reconstruction Plan (Nov. 2000)
Personalities (Koizumi Junichiro)

Slapstick on the Precipice: The Ascent of Koizumi Junichiro (June 2001)

Prisons / Police / Death Penalty

Toward Reform in Criminal Reporting (Dec. 1999)
Reference: Amnesty International’s Report (Not from our archives)

Politics (General)

The 1996 General Elections: Who Will Take the People Seriously?
The June 25 Elections: An Avenue to Change, or a Major Disappointment? (Aug. 2000)
Women Beat the Political Odds (Aug. 2000)
In Search of a Power Base: Koizumi and the Difficulties of Populism in Japan (August 2001)
Religion

Shinto — Instrument of Political Control or Spiritual Environmentalism? (October 2001)

Rightists

Visits to Yasukuni Shrine (Sept. 2000)
Russia

Japan-Russian Relations: Siberia (March 1998)
Scandals

Bailing Out the Banks (The Tokyo Observer 11)
The Pachinko Scam (The Tokyo Observer 18)

Sports/Olympics

Mysterious Deaths Shake Sumo (The Tokyo Observer 17)
Allegations of Anti-Foreigner Campaign Mar Nagano Olympics (Jan. 1998)
The Emperor’s Olympics (Feb. 1998)
Technology/Transportation

Review of Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World: How the Coming Tokyo Earthquake Will Wreak Worldwide Economic Devastation, by Peter Hadfield.
Life in a Cellular Paradise (Dec. 1999)
On the Streets of Fear (Spring 2002)
TNCs

Monitoring Japanese TNCs (Mar. 1999)

Trade Unions

The Japanese Labor Movement in the 1990s (Original web site material)

US-Japan Relations

The CIA in Japan (Tokyo Observer 13)
Review: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (Mar. 2000)
US Military in Japan

Flying Low: Opposition Grows to US Military Exercises (Feb. 2001)

Whaling

A Salty Tale (Dec. 1999)
Gloomy Debate on Greedy Whaling (Jul. 2001)
Wildlife/Endangered Species

Japan’s Elephant Killing Fields (Aug. 1997)
Japan: A Major Wildlife Consumer (Oct. 1998)
If It Lives Kill It: Japan Excels as Eco-Outlaw (Jul. 1999)

Women’s Issues / Domestic Violence

The Comfort Women Issue (The Tokyo Observer 8)
Domestic Violence in Japan (Nov. 1998)
Homeless Women in Japan: Reporting from HELP Asian Women’s Shelter (Feb. 2001)
Campaign Against Domestic Violence (Mar. 2001)
Trafficking in Women and Girls – A View from Japan (Feb. 2002)

World War II (Revisionism)

Movie Review: Pride (Jun. 1998)
The Politics of Amnesia: Reconstructing the Asia-Pacific War (Sep. 1999)

All of the above are here:
http://www.zmag.org/japanwatch/archive.html