David Howell - The Japan Times

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David Howell

COMMENTARY

Feb 9, 2006

'British' identity in the EU

LONDON -- British Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) Gordon Brown has been calling for a national debate on the subject of British identity and what he terms "Britishness."

COMMENTARY

Jan 30, 2006

Iran highlights EU failings

LONDON -- The battle for Europe's soul continues. Austria now holds the presidency of the European Union until July, and the Austrians see themselves very much as being at the heart of an integrated European state.

COMMENTARY

Jan 13, 2006

Gas as a weapon of choice

LONDON -- What did the Russians hope to achieve? Their threat two weeks ago, now happily averted, to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine unless it immediately paid four times the current contract price was bound from the start to backfire.

COMMENTARY

Dec 23, 2005

Britain's new political setup

LONDON -- Just as commentators have been writing about a fundamentally new political "setup" in Japan, following Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's overwhelming election victory, so also the same language is being used about British politics.

COMMENTARY

Nov 17, 2005

Making sense of the senseless

LONDON -- How can sense be made out of the senseless? How are the prolonged outbursts of mindless street violence and car-burning in town after town throughout France to be explained?

COMMENTARY

Oct 31, 2005

EU must win grassroots trust

LONDON, PARIS and ROME-- European leaders have been holding a special meeting at the invitation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss what he calls "the strategic issues facing Europe in the years ahead."

COMMENTARY

Oct 19, 2005

Building a 21st-century Commonwealth

LONDON -- On the historic Mediterranean island of Malta there will take place in a few weeks time a meeting of nations with colossal potential significance for world peace and development.

COMMENTARY

Sep 22, 2005

Japan's 'Thatcher' moment?

LONDON -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koziumi's smashing election victory could give him the same kind of political power as that which fell into the hands of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Should he therefore follow the Thatcher recipes and methods for structural economic reform,...

COMMENTARY

Sep 9, 2005

Give Lebanon space to heal

BEIRUT -- The tragic assassination of Rafik Hariri, both former and prospective Lebanon Prime Minister, on St. Valentine's Day (Feb. 14) set in motion a chain of events that gave the world hope in Lebanon's future.

COMMENTARY

Aug 25, 2005

Know when not to apologize

LONDON -- Here is a telling statistic about Japan's foreign policy that is little known in the West, and may not be widely known even in Japan itself.

COMMENTARY

Aug 15, 2005

Energy myths and illusions

LONDON/OSLO -- People like to discuss whether the world is running out of oil and gas, and the big oil companies round the world have now joined in with warnings about energy shortages and the need to retool our economies on a more energy-efficient basis. And to emphasize their dire warnings, they are...

COMMENTARY

Jul 27, 2005

Calculating the costs of climate change

LONDON -- People who arrive at parties that are in full swing, and then ask who is paying and how much the party costs, are usually regarded as party poopers who should either keep their views to themselves or withdraw.

COMMENTARY

Jul 14, 2005

Unraveling motives of terror

LONDON -- After months of careful planning, it has been the turn of London to suffer the carnage already familiar to the people of Madrid, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Istanbul, New York (although not on the same scale) and many other world cities.

COMMENTARY

Jul 2, 2005

What about the billions given?

LONDON — The popular pressure being mobilized and brought to bear on the Group of Eight countries, including both Britain and Japan, to increase aid substantially to Africa and cancel poorer countries' debt, is certainly having an impact. But it is not quite the one at which the campaigners were...

COMMENTARY

Jun 21, 2005

The euro's legs are shaking

LONDON -- Now that the proposed European Union Constitution has been well and truly sunk (although parts may be salvaged), could the same fate happen to the euro currency?

COMMENTARY

Jun 1, 2005

French lessons for the European Union

LONDON -- So the French have voted down the proposed EU Constitution decisively. What now? Will the European Union fall apart? Certainly not. Does it mean that the attempt to impose a single "top-down" constitution on all 25 member states is dead? Probably -- especially if the Netherlands also votes...

COMMENTARY

May 20, 2005

The right leader for Britain

LONDON -- British politics is now in a fluid state. The May 5 general election, which should have settled things, at least for four or five years, has unsettled everything in a very puzzling way.

COMMENTARY

May 8, 2005

A 'Eurasian Union' on deck

LONDON -- Where does Europe end and Asia begin? The question is of more than academic interest because the answer will determine what sort of entity the European Union is to be. There are those who talk about "the final completion" of the EU as though a line can be carefully drawn between the states...

COMMENTARY

Apr 24, 2005

A provincial pitch for votes

LONDON -- Britain is now in the grip of a general election campaign with voting due May 5. As with political campaigns generally in the modern world, this one is heavily oriented toward domestic issues and disputes. Globalization and the worldwide information revolution seem to have had the opposite...

COMMENTARY

Apr 11, 2005

EU Constitution in trouble

LONDON -- It is possible, even probable, that the French people will reject the European Union's proposed new constitution in their referendum on May 31.

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.

The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

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