Jonathan Fenby - The Japan Times

November 22, 2024

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Jonathan Fenby

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 15, 2010

A year to recall what made de Gaulle great

LONDON — By coincidence, this is a busy year for round-number anniversaries for France's greatest leader since Napoleon. Charles de Gaulle was born 120 years ago in Lille. He died 40 years ago at his home in Colombey-les-deux-eglises, expiring of a heart attack as he played solitaire one evening. Seventy...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 31, 2004

Fistful of troubles for Chirac

PARIS — Ever since French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's entry into the European Common Market and took his country out of the integrated military structure of the NATO alliance, France has had a reputation as a country that knows how to say "no" — a reputation greatly bolstered by...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 13, 2004

EU leaders face voters' wrath

LONDON -- George Orwell once called soccer a substitute for war. Looking at the recently finished European Championship held in Lisbon, one might well call it a political metaphor. What happened on the pitch during the monthlong tournament was an uncanny reflection of what is happening on a wider and...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 27, 2004

Tony Blair loses his touch

LONDON -- When he led the reformed British Labour Party to two overwhelming general election victories in 1997 and 2001, Tony Blair epitomized a new political generation that would sweep away both the cobwebs of traditional socialist policy and the increasingly incoherent, sleaze-tainted performance...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 20, 2004

Bombs and the ballot box

LONDON -- The defeat of the government in Spain that backed the war in Iraq is being widely seen in Europe as one of the most crucial events since the 9/11 attacks in New York set off the current war on terror. But the result of the election on March 14, which followed the bombings in Madrid that killed...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 28, 2004

Troubles cast a shadow on EU future

LONDON -- Europe's currency has never been stronger. The European Union has been portrayed as a "post modern" association of states that have moved beyond the use of force to a more rational organization of their relations. Though still hobbled by inflexibilities, its economies are forecast to show stronger...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 10, 2003

Winds of pragmatism blow in Beijing

LONDON -- Like many religions, communism does not admit that it -- or those that represent it at the head of governments -- can make mistakes. Historical inevitability means that the party must be correct. To acknowledge anything else would be to undermine the basic certainties upon which Marxism rests....

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 1, 2003

Japan's lesson for Europe

LONDON -- At some point last year, it became fashionable to compare the economic plight of Germany and, by extension, the euro zone as a whole with the situation in Japan. As recession bit into the country that used to be Europe's motor and as the 12-nation euro area began recording declining growth...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 18, 2003

Discontent runs deep in Hong Kong

LONDON -- The way in which the administration in Hong Kong was forced to pull back from its proposed antisubversion legislation has rightly been hailed as a rare example of popular feeling making its impact on the unelected government of the former British colony. But it raises more fundamental questions...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 26, 2003

U.S.-EU axis of divergence

LONDON -- When the war in Iraq ended, politicians, diplomats and commentators in Europe stressed the need to repair the rift that had grown up between the United States and countries led by France and Germany, which had opposed the invasion. There was a general anticipation that relations would revert...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 18, 2003

Blair may be down but he's far from out

LONDON -- Since the European community of nations began to take shape 52 years ago, Britain has taken an ambivalent view of the Continent's moves toward greater unity. It did not join the coal and steel community that began the process in 1951, and, six years later, did not sign the Treaty of Rome that...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 8, 2003

The ebb and flow of the Group summit

LONDON — When then-French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing organized the first meeting of world leaders in the form of the Group of Seven in 1975, the idea was that they would conduct a relaxed private dialogue about settling major problems facing the world, with the emphasis on joint economic programs....

COMMENTARY / World

May 22, 2003

Euro's supporters face uphill battle in Britain

LONDON -- If a strong economy and a strong currency are meant to go hand in hand, the 12-nation euro zone is disproving conventional wisdom, and posing stiff challenges for policymakers with implications for the wider world economy.

COMMENTARY / World

May 7, 2003

Careworn Blair turns 50

LONDON -- As British Prime Minister Tony Blair passes his 50th birthday, the almost boyish bounce that characterized him in the years when he got to the top of the Labour Party, reformed it and then won two crushing general election victories has been replaced by a more careworn appearance. This may...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 27, 2003

A shorter leash on China's Communists

LONDON -- Governments and political parties habitually find it hard to admit to having made mistakes. Ministers and party officials who resign after getting things wrong cover their tracks with talk of seeking new horizons or spending more time with their families. The more authoritarian a regime, the...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 21, 2003

EU troubles will also expand

LONDON -- The symbolism could hardly have been better. Against a background of the columns of ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy, 25 government leaders signed documents that will bring into the European Union countries that spent much of their postwar existence under communist dictatorship....

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 3, 2003

U.S. confidence not enough

LONDON -- America's notion of its national sense of "manifest destiny" has been a mainstay of its internal expansion and then its involvement with the world in the past century. This has frequently been of enormous benefit to the rest of the globe. But it can lead the most powerful nation on Earth into...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 29, 2003

Age of shifting coalitions

LONDON -- Despite the failure to gain backing from the United Nations, the war on Iraq has brought together a growing "coalition of the willing," as Washington dubs those who support the attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It may have few active military members -- the United States, Britain plus...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 16, 2003

Post-1945 order may have run its course

LONDON -- It is unlikely that the split over whether to go to war with Iraq will do Iraqi President Saddam Hussein much good, as U.S. President George W. Bush appears intent on unleashing hostilities however widespread the opposition to conflict. But it will certainly do the new world order which was...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 24, 2003

Shifting fortunes for France's 'bulldozer'

LONDON -- A year ago, he was dropping in the polls as he faced a tough re-election fight. Allegations of political and financial scandal surrounded him. His rival for the presidency accused him of being old and tired. Five years of having ruled with a government of the opposing party had marginalized...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

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