More Commentary Articles - The Japan Times

January 17, 2025

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Nov 2, 2000

Kim's diplomatic slam dunk

By Constantine Pleshakov

Good news from North Korea. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il with a basketball autographed by Michael Jordan; the dictator treated the diplomat to a spectacular theatrical performance. Rejoice: Peace in East Asia is at hand.

COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE

Nov 2, 2000

The closest U.S. presidential election in 40 years

By Bob Keefe

WASHINGTON --The latest polls show that the U.S. presidential candidates are very close, with a slight edge for Texas Gov. George W. Bush. The Electoral College is also evenly divided, although Vice President Al Gore had maintained a small advantage for weeks. Now it is also within the statistical margins...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 2, 2000

Cooperation is key to ending Northern Territories impasse

By Mark J. Valencia

Russia and Japan appear to be creeping toward an interim solution to the Northern Territories imbroglio. There are two possibilities being discussed -- joint administration and control of some or all four islands, and a two-stage agreement in which Russia gives up or shares Shikotan and the Habomai group...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 1, 2000

Russia's back window onto North Korea

By Russell Working

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- In the Davydova neighborhood in the northern part of town, one apartment block after another has been under construction for years. Thus, there are always North Korean laborers around.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 31, 2000

Japan's visionless politics

By Takeshi Sasaki

Many Japanese watched on television at least part of the face-to-face debates between U.S. presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush. Both candidates are said to be more or less middle-of-the-road types,with no defining differ ences in political philosophy. In my view, however, Bush showed himself...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 31, 2000

A lonely voice calls for shared values

By Brad Glosserman

It is one of the ironies of our time that the very process that is tying the world's disparate peoples together is at the same time generating friction between them. Globalization may be spinning a vast web of relationships as it builds a single world market, but as it does so, citizens are accentuating...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 30, 2000

West Papua: Indonesia's next East Timor?

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON -- The biggest single taxpayer in Indonesia is the U.S. firm Freeport McMoran. The money comes mostly from its Grasberg mine in the mountains of West Papua, which sits on the largest gold deposit in the world. That is why Jakarta, which used every dirty trick in the book to hang onto East Timor...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 30, 2000

Team effort beats polio in Western Pacific

By Shigeru Omi

Over the centuries, polio has crippled and killed millions of victims, most of them children. Today there is hope that no more children will be stricken with this debilitating disease.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Oct 30, 2000

U.S. reporter misses the mark on Japan

By Hiroaki Sato

"Given America's willingness to avert its eyes from the most troubling chapters of its history and to resist critical self-evaluation and discussion of the country's atrocities against native Americans and African Americans . . ."

COMMENTARY

Oct 30, 2000

Zhu puts relations to rights

By Keizo Nabeshima

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to Tokyo this month marked a turning point in Sino-Japanese relations, which have been strained for the past two years as a result of disagreements over wartime history. In a Tokyo news conference Oct. 16, Zhu said the Japanese people, as well as the Chinese, were "victims...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 29, 2000

Sexism remains a rampant social disease

By Roger Pulvers

I am fortunate to be able to count among my relatives a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter. Felix, appointed to the court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a cousin on my mother's side of the family and, needless to say, far removed from me in age.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 28, 2000

What price NATO's new philosophy?

By David Wall

CAMBRIDGE, England -- While you were on the beaches of Hawaii or Hainan or wherever else you spent the summer, the secretary general of NATO, or U.S.-led NATO as Beijing calls it, spelled out the new philosophy of that organization, as it was expressed in the Kosovo war. Referring to Kosovo in a speech...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

It's back to the classroom for some residents as municipal governments across the country conduct lessons to learn how to use new technologies.

Can aging Japan go digital without leaving anyone behind?

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports