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January 16, 2025

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COMMENTARY / World

Jul 10, 1999

Tasting the politics of food

By Gerald Segal

LONDON -- There are international trade disputes about steel or telecommunications, but as the gathering debate about trade in genetically modified food makes clear, there is nothing quite as intense as an argument about food. Similarly, there are domestic political scandals about money or sex, but as...

COMMENTARY

Jul 9, 1999

National symbols deserve legal recognition

By Ryuichiro Hosokawa

The percentage of those who approve the performance of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's government has been rising, reaching 47.8 percent according to one of the media's opinion surveys. Compared to a similar survey taken at the time of the inauguration of the government, the percentage those who do not...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 7, 1999

Numbers shape U.S. political landscape

By Bob Keefe

WASHINGTON -- For the past two decades, Americans have been living in the shadow of the "twin towers of debt" that overhung the federal government and threatened the economic well-being of future generations: the national debt and the international balance of payments. Both grew geometrically during...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 6, 1999

Resist steel industry's call for protection

By Doug Bandow

The U.S. steel industry brought America to the brink of protectionism with its vigorous campaign for tough new restrictions on steel imports. But the U.S. Senate, showing an unusual combination of economic sense and political courage, refused to jump off the policy cliff.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 6, 1999

Chinese nuclear threat is real

By Shigeo Hiramatsu

After years of delay, China signed the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, stirring speculation about its motives. Some pundits said China yielded to international pressure for nuclear nonproliferation in the post-Cold War world. Oth ers said China took into account Japanese moves for partial suspension...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 4, 1999

A paler shade of Green hurts Germany

By Albrecht Schnabel

The German Green party is in the midst of a major identity crisis -- struggling between the ideals that have been the motor of its very existence and the pragmatism required of a junior coalition partner of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's (barely) left of center government. A new generation of Greens,...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 4, 1999

Promise of autonomy fades in Hong Kong

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- Right from the start, the current legal and political case concerning "right of abode" in Hong Kong has been a journalist's nightmare. Highly complex, profoundly nuanced, and containing contradictory strands, the case was impervious to easy simplification. Both sides to the dispute could...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 4, 1999

To buy or not to buy Russian?

Advertising is the third oldest profession after prostitution and journalism. Pyramids of ancient Egypt sold the promise of afterlife. Alexander the Great kept founding one Alexandria after another. Roman palaces advertised state authority. The multicolor banners of kings and princes promoted the glory...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 1, 1999

East Timorese exile recounts the horrors of Indonesia's quarter-century occupation

By Rick Mercier

Special to The Japan Times When Bella Galhos packed up her Indonesian military youth-corps uniform and shipped it off to the Indonesian government from Canada, she was saying goodbye to a dangerous double life and was beginning her crusade to inform people about a genocide that has largely been hidden...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 1, 1999

France's right on the run

By Andre Fontaine

PARIS -- The French political scene is presently -- and probably for sometime to come -- dominated by the results of the European parliamentary election held June 13. Many commentators spoke of an earthquake. Here are the reasons why.

COMMENTARY

Jun 29, 1999

Japan presses Asia's agenda

By Keizo Nabeshima

In a strong warning to North Korea, the Group of Eight leaders who met in Cologne, Germany, earlier this month said in a declaration that they "are deeply concerned about recent missile flight tests and developments in missile proliferation, such as actions by North Korea."

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 20, 1999

Y2K: The liability millennium

By Doug Bandow

The coming new millennium means different things to different people. Some fatalists believe it presages the end of the world. Some religious people believe it portends the return of Christ. Some lawyers believe it promises yet another financial cornucopia.

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’

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