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November 22, 2024
 

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Kevin Rafferty
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2010
Kan must rediscover Japan
HONG KONG — The looming indictment of Ichiro Ozawa for false reporting of political funds leaves Prime Minister Naoto Kan in a tricky spot about what to do about the still powerful shadow shogun of Japanese politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2010
Don't count Thai Prime Minister Abhisit out
BANGKOK — For a man who has faced seemingly endless efforts to oust him by both parliamentary ballot and by bullet, by the slippery devious machinations that are meat and drink to Thai politicians and by street protesters who took over the commercial heart of Bangkok for more than two months, Prime...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2010
China debates economy, while U.S. tempts disaster
HONG KONG — The world's financial leaders are gathering in Washington this weekend for crucial annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Never has the world so needed leadership, imagination and creative thinking, yet never has it been so lacking, with leaders sticking their...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2010
Back to class for Summers after the free-market lunch
LONDON — Larry Summers was snatching lunch during the African Development Bank annual meeting while I interviewed him. Under no circumstances, his minder said, were we to take pictures while he was eating — a wise precaution as it spared our cameras from the backlash of presenting him chomping greedily...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 27, 2010
Metamorphosis in Britain reveals empathizing pope
HONG KONG — Pope Benedict XVI is the antithesis of a pop star, elderly, shy, set in his ways, even finding it hard to hold a note. Yet in the United Kingdom the week before last, he received massive pop-starlike adulation, with successive crowds of 120,000 lining the streets of Edinburgh merely to...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 25, 2010
The Icarus of currencies?
HONG KONG — My old friend Yoh Kurosawa just threw his head back and laughed: "How can you say that the rising yen is a danger. It proves we are strong, the world regards us as best."
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2010
Megalomania is airborne, business sense grounded
HONG KONG — What is it about aircraft that can induce a serious bout of megalomania?
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2010
Medical care shoppers bet on diagnosis, benign bugs
HONG KONG — The reception area is welcoming, open and airy with tropical green trees and plants. The rooms have sofas, tables and chairs, well-chosen paintings, as well as the bed. Menus are prepared by international chefs who compete for the privilege of being chosen for a month at a time. But you...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 12, 2010
Potash holds lessons for China on how to grow its economy
HONG KONG — The hostile takeover bid by Australia's BHP Billiton for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Canada, is worthy of a case study by Harvard Business Review, but it is also a fascinating example of the adventures and misadventures, opportunities, and considerable failings of global capitalism at...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2010
Earth over a barrel of oil
HONG KONG — Oil prices continue to fluctuate nervously with every report or rumor that the world economy is either on the mend or heading for double dip recession. They slithered again when it became clear that the U.S. economy is still in trouble. Ben Bernanke, the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, and...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2010
Failings of Indian infrastructure
NEW DELHI — New Delhi at last has its proud defining modern monument at the very point of entry to India — a massive, sparkling new Terminal 3, which alone is the sixth-largest airport in the world. Remarkably, too, it was built on time, in three years by a public-private partnership, and on a $3...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2010
Downside of a yen haven
HONG KONG — Is the world economy about to enter the second part of a double dip, or is it merely bumping along the extended bottom of what will eventually be a U-shaped recovery, or is it a long L with no real upturn in sight? Or is there no clear pattern of who's up and who's down?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2010
SOS for world disaster victims
HONG KONG — Television pictures tell terrible stories of the week: swirling floodwaters gobbling up people, cattle, homes, bridges, communications systems and threatening up to 20 million people in Pakistan; torrential rains triggering landslides in northwestern China; while dense smog suffocates Moscow,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2010
IMF barks at China over currency, account surplus
HONG KONG — The report by the International Monetary Fund on China published the week before last got less attention than it deserved, yet it is worth looking at what the IMF said.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2010
$1 trillion wasted on wars
HONG KONG — The calculator busily counting out how much money the United States has spent on wars since 2001 has raced past $1 trillion — $1,024 billion plus at the start of August. There is little point in trying to give a more refined figure since the clock ticks remorselessly on, mesmerizingly...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2010
China's economic pride
HONG KONG — In international business and finance, no less than in politics, diplomacy, defense and control of tiny strategic islands and islets in the seas around it, China is showing an increasingly assertive tendency with the clear message that it will not allow itself to be pushed around by anyone....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2010
Pedal faster, not slower
LONDON — Memo to Naoto Kan, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, and Hu Jintao and Manmohan Singh: Running an economy is like riding a bicycle — if you maintain a good speed, you can make progress; but if you reduce your speed, there is always the danger of losing your balance,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2010
Claims of U.S. financial reform presuppose great leap of hope
LONDON — Champagne cork headlines were popping all over the United States the week before last when the Senate passed financial reform measures variously described as "a sweeping overhaul of the big banks" . . . "the biggest changes for generations" . . . "the greatest cleanup since the Great Depression"...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2010
Immelt's China meltdown
HONG KONG — General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt has certainly stirred up a hornet's nest in China with his words of wisdom about doing business there. In the most publicized supposedly private speech of the year, Immelt grumbled that it was getting very difficult for big companies...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2010
FIFA vs. the Cheating Heart
BARCELONA, Spain — The World Cup proved a triumph for the predictions of Paul the Octopus, which accurately forecast the rise and fall of Germany and the ultimate victory of Spain, after football pundits and the quants with their battery of supercomputers had tipped Brazil, Argentina, Germany or even...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Russia launched intercontinental ballistic missile during attack on Ukraine, Kyiv says
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is launched during a test from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Northern Arkhangelsk region of Russia, in this still image captured from video released on Oct. 29.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world
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