author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 22, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
David McNeill

Meta

Twitter

@DavidMcNeill3

David McNeill
David McNeill is a Tokyo-based writer from Ireland. He writes for several international publications and teaches political science at Sophia University. His new co-authored book is "Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster."
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008
Justice Minister talks in death-penalty riddles
What does Japan's justice minister, Kunio Hatoyama think of the looming introduction of citizens' juries, also known as the lay-judge system — which is potentially the most revolutionary change set to affect Japan's trial system since World War II?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 13, 2007
'What is Hollywood anyway?'
Ken Watanabe's latest film opens with an image of a polar bear resurfacing into the brilliant spring sunlight after months living underground. It's tempting to see the scene as a metaphor for a career that has alternated between stretches of intense, highly acclaimed work and long periods of hibernation....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 6, 2007
Look back in anger
One way to learn what happened in one of history's most noxious but disputed episodes is to ask Satoru Mizushima. After what he calls "exhaustive research" on the seizure of the then Chinese capital Nanjing by Japanese troops in 1937, estimated to have cost anywhere from 20,000 to 300,000 lives, Mizushima...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 3, 2007
Wild orangutans 'facing extinction within 15 years'
PANGKALAN BUN, Borneo — Homeless, semiparalyzed and blind in one eye, Montana faces an uncertain future. Even if his human friends find somewhere for him to live, the 15-year-old has been weakened by years in assisted care. The lethal dangers of readjustment to life in his natural habitat include not...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 3, 2007
Eight-year ordeal nears end for Kurdish family
Visitors to the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau can't miss a giant banner strung over the main hall of Shinagawa JR Station. Sponsored by the bureau, the sign implores those who pass under it to obey the rules as Japan globalizes. In the household of Erdal Dogan, it provokes hollow laughs.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 12, 2007
Media scream 'yellow peril'
Days after the broken body of British teacher Lindsay Hawker was discovered in a fourth-floor flat in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, when the media feeding frenzy was at its most intense, a newspaper editor called me from London.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
May 30, 2007
Japan refutes 'marine Darth Vader' charges
ANCHORAGE, Alaska Transformed by oil money from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and boasting probably more gas-guzzling SUVs per person than any other American city, on a bad day Anchorage can resemble a giant foggy parking lot.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 6, 2007
Karel Van Wolferen: Insights into the new world disorder
When Karel Van Wolferen released his seminal book "The Enigma of Japanese Power" in the dying months of the bubble economy, the normally staid monthly magazine Chuo Koron described its impact as akin to being struck by a bolt of lightning. For once, the hype was merited. Little before had matched the...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 8, 2007
'Killing people won't cut crime; there's no data to prove this'
The gallows, like much of the rest of Japan's prison system, are shrouded in thick veils of government secrecy.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 8, 2007
Japan's way of judicial killing
Japan's application of the death penalty is cruel, secretive and out of step with much of the developed world, say its opponents. As a record 102 inmates now wait on death row for the hangman's noose, in this JT review of the capital-punishment system, the one man alive and free who knows the true horrors...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 8, 2007
One who has lived to tell the tale
When his body isn't groaning under the weight of its 81 years, and the sun is shining in the skies over his native Kyushu, Sakae Menda sometimes forgets the ordeal he suffered and knows he is lucky to be alive.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 21, 2007
The Samurai Dolphin Man
Ric O'Barry is one of the world's best-known environmentalists. A former U.S. Navy diver, he later trained the five dolphins that played Flipper in the hit 1960s TV series of that name, before turning against dolphin captivity in 1970.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007
Resentments sustain a moribund meat trade
Many environmentalists around the world hope that the whaling issue in Japan will simply fade with the now moribund industry. In Japan, though, the political prowhaling lobby has never been stronger.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007
Vitriol vies with science
For journalists used to the smooth diplomatic hum of the global conference circuit, covering the poisonous annual meetings of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is akin to being slapped in the face with a slab of week-old minke bacon.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007
The price of stalemate
One of the most controversial elements of Japan's campaign to overturn the International Whaling Commission's 1986 commercial whaling ban is the alleged use of official Overseas Development Aid to "buy" the votes of poorer IWC member-countries. That is an allegation vehemently denied by fisheries bureaucrats....
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007
From the inside looking out . . .
'There are a number of factors, both biological and economic, which led the industry to destroy one whale species after another, even though the industry was dependent on their survival. Thus, the commercial whaling ban should be kept and not mixed up with the idea of preserving tradition and/or culture....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007
Siege mentality fuels 'sustainability' claims
At the government's Fisheries Agency in Tokyo, which drives the prowhaling campaign in Japan, there is thinly disguised contempt for the antiwhaling finger-wagging of New Zealand, a country with boundless rich farmland and a tiny population to support.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007
Deadlock is dominant in whaling's 'petty parlor game'
In light of the entrenched positions involved, the whaling issue appears hopelessly deadlocked as the prowhaling nations led by Japan, Iceland and Norway demand the right to return to commercial whaling from countries equally determined to resist them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 6, 2007
Dispute over police actions compounds traffic tragedy
On March 25 last year, Michael Laws was driving a minivan full of children for an English-language playschool in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, when he hit a scooter. The rider was another foreigner, Patrick Alford, who died at the scene.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 3, 2006
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Japan's expat rebel with many causes blends music and a wider world view
Former Japanese pop heart-throb and musical pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto talks about music, the state of the planet — and why he still reluctantly lives in New York City.
Ishiba delays meeting with Trump, citing legal restrictions
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waves upon arrival for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in Callao, Peru, on Friday.
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.
Rising sex tourism exposes loopholes in Japan's anti-prostitution law
While financial misfortunes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have driven some women to work the streets, others simply want more money to spend — or want to pay off their debts — at host clubs.
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.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER