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March 14, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2010
Political meddling hurts corporate value
By Lucian Bebchuk
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down limits on the freedom of companies to spend money on political elections. Large, publicly traded companies in other countries also often have a loose rein on their use of corporate resources to influence political outcomes, fueling fears...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2010
Former POW rejects idea that DPJ is anti-American
By Lester Tenney
CARLSBAD, Calif. — As a survivor of Imperial Japan's infamous prisoner-of-war camps, forced labor at a Mitsui coal mine in Fukuoka and the horrors of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines, I know anti-Americanism when I see it. Some say the ruling Democratic Party of Japan is anti-American. I know...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2010
Redressing incentives for executives to fail
By Lucian Bebchuk, Alma Cohen and Holger Spamann
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In a report just filed with the U.S. court that is overseeing the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, a court-appointed examiner described how Lehman's executives made deliberate decisions to pursue an aggressive investment strategy, take on greater risks and substantially increase leverage....
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 22, 2010
A haphazard approach to making foreign policy
"I wonder to what extent the Hatoyama administration relies on bureaucrats for its foreign policy," a diplomat from a Middle Eastern country said recently. "It has not expressed its own messages on issues such as Iran's nuclear weapons programs and the Mideast peace process. That makes me wonder who...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2010
Trial by crisis for future growth
By Leszek Balcerowicz
WARSAW — Episodes like the current financial crisis seriously disrupt economic growth. But the question that we should be asking concerns such episodes' impact on longer-term development. And that question has attracted surprisingly little interest.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2010
Let 'occupation tax' make the settlers pay
By Ezzedine Choukri Fishere
CAIRO — Arab intellectuals and policymakers have often accused Europe of using financial generosity to cover up its political impotence over the Arab-Israeli conflict. If Europe is to be taken seriously as a global player, they argue, it must also flex some muscle when it delivers the money.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 21, 2010
Who ever could make war if they saw it through children's eyes?
By Roger Pulvers
The misery of war remains for many long years as scar tissue in the minds of children deeply traumatized by it. And yet, there are not many works of fiction or nonfiction that have conveyed the confusion and pain felt by such children.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2010
Let the clean water flow
By Caroline Boin
LONDON — The 18th annual World Water Day (March 22) offers the same old problems and rejects the practical solutions. On Monday, 1 billion people will, as usual, spend the day without clean water and a third of humanity without adequate sanitation. As usual, some 3.5 million men, women and children...
COMMENTARY
Mar 19, 2010
Revising the art of defense
By David Howell
LONDON — How much should a nation spend on defense and its armed forces?
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2010
Afghanistan lost without better governance
By Jamie F. Metzl
NEW YORK — The United States and its Afghan and NATO allies have demonstrated unmistakable progress in Afghanistan this year. The ongoing Marjah campaign, the arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and two Taliban "shadow governors" in Pakistan, and the recent drone strike hitting top leaders of the...
COMMENTARY
Mar 18, 2010
China's hollow constitution
By Frank Ching
In many ways, the Chinese Constitution is a marvelous document. It guarantees Chinese citizens a host of rights, including "freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2010
Wishful thinking fuels Kremlin's temptation
By Dominique Moisi
PARIS — What is the significance of France's recent sale of four powerful Mistral-class landing assault ships to Russia? Was it business as usual or an irresponsible move contributing to a dangerous shift in the balance of power in the Baltic and Black Seas?
The U.S. says Japan has a 700% tariff on American rice. Is that the case?
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up a piece of paper with information about tariff rates at the White House on Tuesday.
Man arrested in Tokyo stabbing tracked victim through livestream
Kenichi Takano leaves a police station in Tokyo on Thursday to be sent over to prosecutors.
Concerns grow over possible U.S. tariffs on Japan's auto sector
Toyota vehicles are loaded onto a ship at the Port of Nagoya in June last year.
U.S. steered Syrian Kurds toward Damascus deal, sources say
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa (right) and Syrian Democratic Forces commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi signing an agreement to integrate the SDF into the state institutions, in Damascus on Monday.
China deploys food as a high-impact, low-cost weapon in tariff fight
Boxes of imported pork from the U.S. at a cold storage warehouse in Shanghai
Japan to get tough on businesses not taking heatstroke countermeasures
A construction site in Tokyo in July 2018. Businesses failing to take measures to prevent severe heatstroke among employees will be subjected to criminal punishment from June.
How Upper House pressure led to Ishiba's stunning reversal on medical cost caps
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attends an Upper House Budget Committee session in Tokyo on Monday.
Taiwan’s No. 2 diplomat seeks higher-level ‘unofficial’ Japan meetings as ties grow
Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu told The Japan Times in an interview last week in Taipei that he hopes with the island democracy can strengthen ties with Japan and other like-minded nations “at every level.”
14 years after 3/11 disasters, Fukushima vies to become a startup hub
Aizawa Concrete employees work in the Namie factory in Fukushima Prefecture in January.
Tokyo’s vinyl experts say overseas buyers are ‘sustaining the scene’
Rintaro Sekizuka runs a record store in both London and Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high
Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high

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