More Commentary Articles - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 27, 2006

Latin Americans lose fear of the formerly radical left

By Rodrigo Pardo

PRAGUE -- The death of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Chile's former military dictator, provides perhaps an appropriate end for a year that saw the Latin American left return to glory, a revival that President Hugo Chavez's overwhelming re-election in Venezuela is but the strongest sign. For unlike in the days...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 26, 2006

Compelling antiwar images

By Kiroku Hanai

Clint Eastwood has turned out a pair of outstanding movies based on stories about Iwo Jima, the scene of an internecine battle between U.S. and Japanese forces during the Pacific War.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 25, 2006

Enabling Islamic science to be born again

WASHINGTON -- For a few hundred years, when science and mathematics were enjoying a period of great invention, one region of the world stood out. Masters of these disciplines were revered, medicine advanced quickly and the average person was curious about how nature worked. Not surprisingly, this region...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Dec 25, 2006

Relativity of greatness in a lawless world

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- Americans love to rank their own greats. One recent example is "the 100 most influential Americans of all time" that The Atlantic monthly compiled from the views of 10 historians. The list appears in its December issue, with a brief summary of what distinguishes each person.

COMMENTARY

Dec 25, 2006

No rush to divide the north

By Keizo Nabeshima

In a recent appearance before the Diet, Foreign Minister Taro Aso floated the idea of settling the long-standing feud with Russia over the sovereignty of the Northern Territories (four islands off Hokkaido) by evenly dividing the total area of dispute. In September, Aso sug gested the possibility of...

COMMENTARY

Dec 24, 2006

Next to the Iraq catastrophe, minor dramas marked 2006

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON -- In hard news terms, it's been one of the slower years: no great events, few surprises and no real shocks. But as the little events accumulated during 2006, the shape of the future gradually became clearer in three important dimensions.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Dec 24, 2006

Ongoing Vietnam tragedy revives ghosts of a Christmas past

By Roger Pulvers

Christmas brings to mind many wonderful memories for most of us. But history has bequeathed to some of us a most awful little two-word phrase blackening those memories like a stain. That phrase is "Christmas bombing."

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 23, 2006

Postpone the full operation of Rokkasho

By Tadahiro Katsuta

December 18 was the 50th anniversary of Japan's affiliation with the United Nations. At the ceremony Secretary General Koffi Annan called on Japan to stick to its ban on nuclear weapons. His message seems to have been prompted by the nuclear-arms argument in Japan that has emerged since North Korea's...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 22, 2006

No payoff in dialogue with Iran, Syria

By Ammar Abdulhamid

PRAGUE -- Despite frequent claims to the contrary, the fundamental problem in the Middle East is not intervention by the West but rather the apparent inability of the Western powers to conduct either war or dialogue. This leaves everyone in the region at the mercy of the Middle East's oppressive regimes...

COMMENTARY

Dec 22, 2006

New base for reconciliation

By Kazuo Ogoura

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China in early October was important for several reasons. In the short term, it represented a significant contribution to easing tensions between Tokyo and Beijing. From a long-term perspective, it helped to lay the foundations for a stronger bilateral relationship....

COMMENTARY

Dec 21, 2006

Fresh leadership at the United Nations

By Tom Plate

NEW YORK -- The world has no sure idea of what it may be getting with its newly designated United Nations secretary general. Ban Ki Moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, is more or less an enigma except to a small population engaged in international diplomacy.

COMMENTARY

Dec 21, 2006

Kremlin fears for its Far East

By David Wall

LONDON -- I don't suppose you read the piece in the Russian newspapers about customs officials' activities in the Russian Far East, at the Poltvaka customs checkpoint in Oktyabrsky County in southern Primorski krai on the Chinese border? It was a very interesting article about how a truck, which had...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports