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COMMENTARY

Nov 28, 2012

Failures in market economies

By Hugh Cortazzi

The eurozone has not yet collapsed and all countries not in the zone must hope that it will survive. If it did fall apart and new currencies were established, there would be serious threats not only to international trade but also to economic growth and prosperity. Competitive devaluations would exacerbate...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 28, 2012

Making the most of Russia's European prospects

In 1966, French President Charles de Gaulle's vision of a Europe "that stretched from the Atlantic to the Urals" was provocative. Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin has advanced an even more ambitious goal: "a common market stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific."

COMMENTARY

Nov 28, 2012

Japan's university education crisis

By Gregory Clark

Education minister Makiko Tanaka has apologized for trying to cancel approvals given by her ministry bureaucrats for three institutions seeking to operate as fully fledged four-year universities providing undergraduate degrees. But should she have apologized?

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 27, 2012

Something new for China?

By Michael Boskin

Political leadership transitions typically signal either a change in direction or continuity. But the mere prospect of such a transition usually postpones some important political decisions and freezes some economic activity, pending the resolution of the accompanying uncertainty.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 27, 2012

Heed history in East Asian territorial disputes

By Han Seung Soo

Chinese, South Korean and Japanese diplomats recently took to the podium of the United Nations General Assembly to reassert their countries' positions on the territorial issues surrounding several small islands in the seas of East Asia.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Nov 26, 2012

Punchy party names hark back to ignominy

By Hiroaki Sato

So, Shintaro Ishihara, who had abruptly quit the Tokyo governorship in October, set up a political party named Taiyo no To, then merged it with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's political party that doesn't sound like one, Nippon Ishin no Kai. Another political party that doesn't sound like one, Tachiagare...

COMMENTARY

Nov 26, 2012

Anti-nuclear madness doesn't jibe with concern about global warming

By Gwynne Dyer

After the loss of 10 million American lives in the Three-Mile Island calamity in 1979, the death of 2 billion in the Chernobyl holocaust in 1986, and now the abandonment of all of northern Japan following the death of millions in last year's Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, it is hardly surprising that...

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Nov 26, 2012

Municipal nuclear addiction

Municipalities hosting nuclear power plants throughout Japan have received large amounts of central government subsidies, donations from utilities and lucrative business contracts.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 26, 2012

You may need less sleep than you think, or not

By Till Roenneberg

If holiday shopping leaves you exhausted, a long weekend should offer an opportunity for some serious shut-eye. We spend between a quarter and a third of our lives asleep, but that doesn't make us experts on how much is too much, how little is too little, or how many hours of rest the kids need to be...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Nov 25, 2012

First love no use when the last hope for Japan is the chance to marry

By Roger Pulvers

Boy meets girl. They fall in love. What happens after that ... well, it depends on the individuals, the mores of their generation and the availability of a few square meters of private space.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 24, 2012

Age of financial repression

By Edin Mujagic and Sylvester Eijffinger

Following his re-election, U.S. President Barack Obama almost immediately turned his attention to reining in America's rising national debt. In fact, almost all Western countries are implementing policies aimed at reducing — or at least arresting the growth of — the volume of public debt.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 24, 2012

America through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin

By Walter Isaacson

When he was a young man, Benjamin Franklin wired together a set of batteries he had just invented and used them to shock turkeys slated for a Thanksgiving feast. Thus he added yet another invention to his list: the fried turkey. "The birds killed in this manner eat uncommonly tender," he wrote.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.

As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Cainz enriches lives and communities through DIY

Cainz enriches lives and communities through DIY

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