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January 18, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY
Apr 18, 2001
Mistaken cures for the Japanese economy
By Gregory Clark
The debate over economic reform in Japan, especially the alleged need to force banks to dispose of bad loans, resembles the story about the hospital patient on life support because of a serious blood-circulation problem. One result of that problem is badly swollen feet. But the doctors can only focus...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 2001
Hopes for peace are fading
By Marcus Noland
WASHINGTON -- Last year, U.S. President Bill Clinton spent his final months in office trying to cobble together a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Today, the Middle East teeters on the edge of the largest-scale violence since the Persian Gulf War and the greatest involving...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2001
Understanding the message in the madness
By Dan Considine
Human history is rife with examples of natural phenomenon radically changing his existence — the ice ages and smallpox, to name two. The AIDS virus has had a profound effect on the sexual behavior of many people the world over. Now, a mysterious protein, the prion, is about to change the eating habits...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2001
The worst is yet to come in Macedonia
By Micah Zenko and Michael O'Hanlon
WASHINGTON -- While the world's eyes were fixed on Hainan Island off the coast of China, Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebels were completing a tactical retreat after an offensive by government forces. Some hope that Macedonia's government will now, as expected, offer greater political rights to its ethnic...
COMMENTARY
Apr 16, 2001
The curse of 'shikata ga nai'
By Hugh Cortazzi
"The Japanese phrase that I particularly hate is 'shikata ga nai,' (it can't be helped)" said a friend who had spent some years teaching in Japan. I responded that it was surely appropriate if you were driving a car and the traffic lights turned red just when you got to them. She accepted that in such...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2001
Shared interests bolster Sino-Pakistani ties
By Farhan Bokhari
ISLAMABAD -- As the United States and China were trying to resolve their standoff over the downing of a Chinese plane and the subsequent landing of a U.S. surveillance aircraft on Hainan Island, Pakistan was preparing to welcome Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2001
Bush's Spanish narrows gap with Latinos
By Domenico Maceri
In the late 1800s, U.S. President James Garfield, a former classics professor, amused friends by translating simultaneously an English document into Greek with his left hand and Latin with his right hand. President George W. Bush cannot match this linguistic ability, but his use of Spanish and his family...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2001
Russia's dark clouds have silver linings
By Gwynne Dyer
LONDON -- Forty years ago Thursday, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to go into space. Last month, the decrepit space station Mir plunged back into the atmosphere, incinerating among other things the photograph of a youthful, happy Gagarin (he died in a plane crash in 1968) that had hung on...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2001
A Japanese PM as seen from abroad
By George Sioris
CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- It is beyond the parameters of this column to plunge into the murky waters of Japanese domestic politics. But the case of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori -- and the ways this case has generally been reported in the foreign media -- calls for some scrutiny, especially since it automatically...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2001
Korean impasse is U.S.' fault
By Ronald Meinardus
SEOUL -- "Sooner or later, the North Koreans will return to the negotiating table," said South Korea's former Foreign Minister Lee Joung Binn in an interview on the eve of his resignation. At this moment, political realities on the Korean Peninsula don't seem to justify his optimism. As the government...
COMMENTARY
Apr 14, 2001
Clinton's shadow over India
By Brahma Chellaney
NEW DELHI -- Scarred by his ignominious final acts in office, former U.S. President Bill Clinton stepped out of the shadow of scandal to try and be a healer during his just-completed tour of the earthquake-ravaged western Indian state of Gujarat. In New Delhi this week, Clinton was welcomed by another...
COMMENTARY
Apr 13, 2001
Media guilty of hounding Mori from office
By Ryuichiro Hosokawa
Since political parties by definition seek to attain control of government, it is only natural that the Democratic Party and other opposition groups should have demanded Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's resignation in unison. On the other hand, it is incumbent upon journalists to comment on government policies...
Possibility of Nankai Trough megaquake now 80%, government panel reports
A map of the hypocentral region of an anticipated Nankai Trough earthquake
Crashed Jeju jet’s black box failure shows decadeslong gap in power rules
The flight data recorder retrieved from Jeju Air flight 2216, which crashed killing 179 people in December. Black boxes holding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders for the flight stopped recording four minutes before the disaster, South Korea's transport ministry said Saturday.
Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go
Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.
Tokyo police arrest dentists and others over ¥20 million medical fraud
According to Tokyo police, a group of seven people, including dentists, submitted falsified claims in June 2023 for the treatment of 62 foreign students and technical trainees from Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, fraudulently obtaining around ¥2.87 million ($18,500) in medical fees.
30th anniversary of Hanshin quake marked with desire to pass on lessons
Children pray for the victims of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake during an early morning ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of the quake, in Kobe on Friday.
The efforts to bridge the disaster information gap, 30 years on
Roxana Oshiro and her husband gather their belongings in front of their house in Furukawacho, in Kobe's Suma Ward, after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.
Japan looks to up the ante with more money and partners in military aid program
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Philippine Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo hold a joint news conference in Taguig City, Metro Manila, the Philippines, on Wednesday.
Possibility of Nankai Trough megaquake now 80%, government panel reports
A map of the hypocentral region of an anticipated Nankai Trough earthquake
With new regional party, Shinji Ishimaru touts rebirth
Shinji Ishimaru announces details of his new regional party at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.

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

Longform

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.
Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go
By Kazuaki Nagata and Richard Meyer

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