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November 22, 2024
 

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Kevin Rafferty
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2010
China's disturbing dam plan
LONDON — What is China up to beyond the highest Himalayas? Reports from a variety of sources, including official Chinese Web sites, say that Beijing is embarking on a series of dams and attempts to harness the waters of the Brahmaputra River. One of these alone would be a massive 38-gigawatt project,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2010
Japan's economic fantasy
HONG KONG — Belatedly, Japan's leading politicians are waking from their coma and realizing that the country's economy is in a massive mess hit by a triple whammy of low growth, heavy debts and an increasingly aging population.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2010
The G20's expensive party
HONG KONG — Leaders of the world's most powerful nations and a few less powerful hangers-on, like Canada and Italy, have just spent a few more billions of their taxpayers' money as they failed to devise a rescue plan for a world economy that is still perilously close to the cliff edge of disaster....
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2010
Appreciating the renminbi
HONG KONG — Global stock and foreign exchange markets were fast out of the blocks to lead the applause for China's decision to free the exchange rate of the renminbi. Clearly licking their lips at the prospect of greater foreign access to China's fabled market of 1.3 billion consumers, stock markets...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2010
BBC World Service's vices
HONG KONG — If there is one global voice that has a deserved reputation for truth, honesty, fairness, awareness, understanding and balance, it is the BBC, as almost everyone knows the British Broadcasting Corp., and its World Service radio programs.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 2010
A presumptuous command of oil
HONG KONG — Bosses of Big Oil have solemnly assured a U.S. congressional inquiry that they would never, ever, be as reckless or negligent as BP in causing the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2010
Quantitative analysts take on the 'Beautiful Game'
HONG KONG — Sepp Blatter and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the organizers of the World Cup, had better watch out — the quants have arrived and have put their infamous models to work in predicting the outcome of the World Cup that has just kicked off in South Africa....
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 10, 2010
Can Kan revive Japan?
HONG KONG — Naoto Kan, Japan's new prime minister, pledged to make the country's sickly economy his first priority and to pull Japan from its "quagmire of an ever- bulging debt." But that is easier said than done. It is not merely a question of when to stop the government stimulus and where to put...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2010
It'd be wise to think about Japan
HONG KONG — U.S. President Barack Obama has so many things on his plate — including a spreading oil spill that threatens America's fisheries and wildlife, Democratic Party prospects in the midterm elections, the jobless recovery, repercussions of the financial crisis, relentless war in Afghanistan,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2010
Exporters keep dreaming of a buyers' wonderland
HONG KONG — It is a measure of the nervous mess of world financial markets that when the Financial Times reported last week that China was reviewing its assets denominated in euros, the markets promptly plummeted. The very next day — when China denied any such euro-review — there was a massive...
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2010
Thailand is on the brink
HONG KONG — Graphic pictures from Bangkok last week told the grim story of bloodshed, death and destruction, of democracy challenged and mortally wounded. But they cannot convey the smell of burning, the terror of chaos in the center of a supposedly civilized modern capital city, or the human, moral...
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2010
A dangerous deficit of democracy in Britain
HONG KONG — In spite of the United Kingdom's robust and rumbustious election campaign, once the votes were counted and the winning members of Parliament (MPs) were declared, it was clear that the U.K. is suffering a dangerous and growing democratic deficit.
COMMENTARY / World
May 5, 2010
Economic meet can't hide world's growing divisions
WASHINGTON — What a difference a year makes. Spring was in the air in Washington — both physically and in the economic metaphors — at the meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank late last month. The fog of crisis that pervaded a year ago has largely been blown away. IMF predictions...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2010
Hatoyama's fate tied to Futenma
HONG KONG — Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama chose to use his 10 minutes with President Obama at a working dinner during the recent nuclear summit trying in vain to bend the president's ear on the increasingly vexing question of the relocation of U.S. military base facilities in Japan. He did this rather...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2010
King Bhumipol's last play
HONG KONG — It is not easy to see any way out from the present impasse in Thailand, which has seen successive governments at the mercy of mob rule while the security forces have failed to do their duty.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2010
High price for cheap yuan
HONG KONG — U.S. President Barack Obama decided to back off at least from an immediate direct confrontation with China over the value of the yuan. It is a sensible decision on both economic and political counts. But there is no sign yet that policymakers and noisy troublemakers in Washington, Boston,...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2010
Who should lead the IMF?
HONG KONG — With the popularity of Nicolas Sarkozy plummeting in French opinion polls and with Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) winning a good reputation as head of the International Monetary Fund, speculation is already swirling about when Strauss-Kahn will formally quit the fund to seek glory as president...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2010
The pope's Easter mystery
HONG KONG — As more than a billion Roman Catholics prepare to commemorate the most sacred mysteries of their faith culminating at Easter next Sunday, most eyes will be on the small elderly man in the Vatican palace to see whether he can steer the church through the turbulence tearing it apart.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 29, 2010
India's budget boldly exempts toy balloons from excise duty
HONG KONG — Which country is growing at close to 8 percent a year but has the potential for double digit-growth, is already in the world's top 10 industrial powers but should be in the top three or four, has the best demographic profile of almost all developing countries but faces immense social and...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 17, 2010
'Cove' mind-set harms Japan
HONG KONG — The ballyhoo, glitz and glamour of the annual Oscars awards had many people in the world waiting with baited breath to see if they could make even a tangential claim to knowing one of the winners. Newspapers cleared their front pages if someone from their town, sometimes even their country,...
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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