More Commentary Articles - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 26, 2006

Has America's conscience fallen victim to 9/11?

By Roger Pulvers

On the 15th of this month, the Australian television station SBS broadcast one of the most awful and horrendous programs I have ever seen. The images aired -- many for the first time anywhere -- were still photographs and raw videos of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These were abuses committed...

COMMENTARY

Feb 24, 2006

Insults reserved for Islam

By Gregory Clark

Recently, when a Danish newspaper published cartoons offensive to Muslims, Muslim protests met claims that our Western democracies had to uphold the sacred principle of free speech. Under no circumstances could we Westerners be expected to give up that important right simply because others objected to...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 23, 2006

PLA officers get a whiff of the right stuff

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- The U.S. Pacific Command and the People's Liberation Army of China have quietly begun an exchange of military officers that is intended to reduce the chances of a miscalculation leading to hostilities between the established power in the Pacific and the rising power of East Asia.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 22, 2006

It's not right for the West and Israel to isolate Hamas, the Palestinians' best hope

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- As the son of a Lebanese pacifist, I am dismayed by the widening gap between Palestinians and Israelis that make a possible solution to the con- flict between them seem even more distant.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 21, 2006

Empire of debt has its limits

By Kevin Rafferty

HONG KONG -- Recent news about U.S. current-account deficits with the rest of the world gives grim pause for thought from Beijing and Tokyo to London, and especially in Washington, for it shows the United States approaching the financial equivalent of a nuclear meltdown.

COMMENTARY

Feb 20, 2006

New demands, more delays

By Keizo Nabeshima

Japan and North Korea made little progress toward solving their problems in five days of bilateral talks that ended early this month in Beijing. The only agreement was to continue to talk.

COMMENTARY

Feb 20, 2006

The 'freedom' to disrespect

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The furor over cartoons published in a Danish paper last September mocking Islam has not yet ended. One was of the prophet Muhammad wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb, implying that Islam was a terrorist organization. Muslims were outraged because they saw a false image of Islam conveyed...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Feb 19, 2006

On your own in the Ice Age

By Constantine Pleshakov

MOSCOW -- If scientists are bent on calling the overall weather mayhem of the past few years "global warming," more power to them, but this winter the term looked like a huge misnomer to the population of Eurasia -- from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 19, 2006

Winners are losers, too, in the lingering ledger of war

By Roger Pulvers

Ex-soldiers, dressed entirely in white hospital-like attire, some without an arm or a leg, stood or sat in the precincts of a shrine. Some played plaintive tunes on concertinas. Others had a little dog beside them to garner the sympathy of passersby. Often the dog wore a little beanie or sported cheap...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 16, 2006

From shame to governance

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- Asia has been hit by three recent scandals involving a renown scientist, an upstart IT entrepreneur and a national charity in South Korea, Japan and Singapore, respectively -- Asia's three most developed economies. What lessons can one draw from them? What repercussions will they have on...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 16, 2006

At least no new wars began

By Ramesh Thakur

The Davos-based World Economic Forum has just published the third annual report of its Global Governance Initiative. The past year was rated slightly less dangerous than 2004 but still a long way from being safe and secure. The United Nation's 60th Anniversary World Summit in September, a once-in-a-generation...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 15, 2006

Ignored epidemic: violence against women in Russia

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- It is under-recognized and under-reported. It is also one of the most significant epidemics in the Russian Federation today. It is gender violence, manifested essentially as violence against women. A recent report by Amnesty International, "Russian Federation: Nowhere to Turn to: Violence...

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