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COMMENTARY

Jun 26, 2006

End of the oil age in sight?

By David Howell

LONDON -- First there was wood. Then it was replaced by coal. Then coal was replaced by oil. Is it now the turn of oil -- which currently accounts for some two-thirds of the world's primary energy -- to be pushed aside by other energy sources and devices?

COMMENTARY

Jun 26, 2006

U.S.-dependent to what end?

By Kiroku Hanai

At a Cabinet meeting May 30, the government finalized its basic policy on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan. The action followed a final Japan-U.S. agreement May 1 on realignment aimed at strengthening deterrents and reducing Japan's burden of hosting U.S. military installations.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jun 25, 2006

What's in it for them to return us to 'prewar values'?

By Roger Pulvers

The leaders of many countries evoke their nation's history as if it were an idyll of virtue and civility. They gaze into the mirror of the past and see no dark blemish, only purity, goodness and light.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 24, 2006

Japan heats up whaling wars

By Jeff Kingston

The battle over whaling has grown more acrimonious in recent years principally because Japan has become a more vociferous and belligerent advocate for a resumption of commercial whaling. In the recently concluded meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), Japan's representative browbeat and...

COMMENTARY

Jun 22, 2006

Freedoms and responsibilities

By Kazuo Ogoura

The international community has been watching the rise of China and India with interest, and two recent events symbolize the growing stature of these two countries. One was the so-called Google incident. In the course of its entry into China's Internet services market, Google Inc., a major American corporation,...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 22, 2006

Time to reconsider the ethics of eating

By Peter Singer

PRINCETON, New Jersey -- Global meat consumption is predicted to double by 2020. Yet in Europe and North America, there is growing concern about the ethics of the way meat and eggs are produced. The consumption of veal has fallen sharply since it became widely known that to produce "white" -- actually...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 19, 2006

Business at Beijing's pleasure

By Hisahiko Okazaki

In a May 30 Wall Street Journal article, former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Charles W. Freeman III expressed doubts about the prospects of a free-trade agreement between the United States and Taiwan: "Given its almost obsessive antipathy for President Chen (Shui-bian), Beijing will do almost anything...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 19, 2006

The radicalization of Western Muslims

By Mai Yamani

LONDON -- What is it that makes young Muslims in the West susceptible to radicalism? What is it about the experience of the West's rising generation of Muslims that leads a small minority to see violence as a solution to their economic and political dilemmas, and suicide as their reward and salvation?...

COMMENTARY

Jun 19, 2006

Tokyo's hard line slowing solution to abduction issue

By Gregory Clark

Japan is understandably upset over past abductions of its citizens by North Korea. But rightwing pressure has made a solution almost impossible. It is a good example of how emotional nationalism and Tokyo's manipulations can damage sensible foreign policies.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 19, 2006

China's monetary surge dooms its boom

By Christopher Lingle

ATLANTA -- Chinese monetary authorities raised their one-year benchmark rate by 27 basis points while allowing the deposit rate to remain unchanged at 2.25 percent. This move was mostly greeted with praise, but the change is trivial and will have little discernible impact on the Chinese economy or the...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jun 18, 2006

To whom it may concern:

By Roger Pulvers

Something exceedingly tragic is occurring in Japan today, something it falls to me to reveal now on these pages. It is, simply, that the Japanese people are becoming invisible before our very eyes. At the present rate, by my rough estimate, not one single identifiable Japanese individual will be living...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 16, 2006

Zarqawi myth proved useful

By Ramzy Baroud

LONDON -- The convenient emergence and sudden disappearance of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi signals the end of an era. Although Washington and London insist on telling us that the "good news" of his death doesn't necessary mean an end to Iraq's bloodshed, the giddiness in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's...

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

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