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March 04, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 2012
A white flag in Latin America's war on drugs
By Mary Speck
The retired general who won Guatemala's presidency in November seems an unlikely advocate of a kinder approach toward counternarcotics policy. Otto Perez — whose party's symbol is a clenched fist — campaigned on the promise that his government would crack down on the crime ravaging parts of the country....
COMMENTARY
Apr 18, 2012
Dam-building disputes roil Asia
By Brahma Chellaney
Dam building on shared rivers has emerged as the leading source of water disputes and tensions in Asia, the world's driest continent whose freshwater availability is less than half the global annual average of 6,380 cubic meters per inhabitant. Dam-building activities by China and Central, South and...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 2012
The ECB's lethal monetary inhibition
By Barry Eichengreen
Europe's financial system on the brink of disaster, the European Central Bank stunned the markets with an unprecedented intervention, offering banks across the eurozone essentially unlimited liquidity against any and all collateral for an exceptional period of three years.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 2012
The lives of boys devalued in U.S. and Afghanistan
By Colbert I. King
What is a boy's life worth? The answer may depend on who is asking. It also may matter where the question is being raised.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 2012
Too little outcry over Palestinian censorship
By David Keyes
A university lecturer and single mother of two, Ismat Abdul-Khaleq, was arrested in the West Bank on March 28 for criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Facebook. Perhaps this is what Abbas meant when he said during a recent interview with al-Jazeera that his party, Fatah, was a political...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Apr 16, 2012
U.S. digs in to hold Futenma
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has asserted that a Japan-U.S. agreement struck in February will help resolve the issue of relocating U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which now sits in the middle of densely populated Ginowan City in the central part of Okinawa Island.
COMMENTARY
Apr 16, 2012
Look at Social Security for what it is: welfare
By Robert Samuelson
Would Franklin Roosevelt (the 32nd U.S. president) approve of Social Security? The question seems absurd. After all, Social Security is considered the New Deal's signature achievement. It distributes nearly $800 billion a year to 56 million retirees, survivors and disabled beneficiaries.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 15, 2012
Is Putin's 'roof ' going to keep out the hard rains of his falling popularity?
By Roger Pulvers
Putin's in a pickle and Russia's in the soup. At least that's what many who write about the "Dear Leader" and his country seem to be saying. But is it so? Certainly there is disruption, the kind of disruption that sits just below the skin, breaks out into turmoil, then all but disappears from sight —...
COMMENTARY
Apr 13, 2012
Russia's 'shadow market'
By Andrey Borodaevskiy
We should keep in mind that Russia is a country that has spent 70 years in an inhuman experiment aimed at arranging all sides of socioeconomic life within a giant centrally planned system. Even if this time is over, many features of today's life go on reminding us of this heavy and in many ways onerous...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2012
Just bring the troops home from Afghanistan
By George Masters
I'm driving.
COMMENTARY
Apr 12, 2012
Blame West for Mali's mess
By Ramzy Baroud
The intentional misreading of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's violent, though predictable, Operation Odyssey in Libya last year. Not only did the action cost many thousands of lives and untold destruction; it also paved the way for perpetual...
COMMENTARY
Apr 11, 2012
Why Japan and U.S. should ban the death penalty
By Cesar Chelala
Japan's decision to hang three prisoners after nearly two years without executions has been severely criticized by Amnesty International, which calls it a "retrograde step." Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa authorized the executions of three men, stating that this was his "duty" as minister. "Justifying...
Seven & I and Nissan deal fallout leaves Japan companies vulnerable
The rapid collapse of the plan to take Seven & I private reflects how personal egos and domestic competitiveness ultimately outweighed the nationalistic desire to fend off Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard, whose pursuit of the Japanese retailer emerged last August.
China’s military puts Pacific on notice as U.S. priorities shift
A photo released by the Australia Defense Force showed an Australian Navy ship in the foreground and two Chinese navy ships in the Tasman Sea in February.
Not even Japan is safe from counterfeit luxury goods
While Japan's luxury goods market remains strong, its seconhand resale market is proving just as much a draw for tourists searching for great bargains — as long as they can manage to get their hands on the real deal.
Japan struggles to fend off a world without enough matcha
Once a boon to tea farmers' bottom lines, the global matcha craze is now pushing producers and distributors to their limits with few options to adequately meet demand.
7-Eleven owner to appoint first foreign CEO, report says
Seven & I Holdings CEO Ryuichi Isaka is stepping down from his position, the Nikkei newspaper has reported.
Japanese stocks stalled at 1989 levels as investors weigh tariffs and rates
An electronic sign displays the benchmark Nikkei stock average on a street in Tokyo. The stock average has been range-bound between about 38,000 and 40,000 since hitting a new all-time high in July last year.
Redevelopment and resistance in historic Nishiogikubo
Tsuyoshi Mizukoshi, owner of a pub in Nishiogi’s commercial area, is a community organizer who is rallying local residents against the road development plan.
Why the latest Iwate wildfire is so difficult to extinguish
Firefighters work to extinguish the forest fire in the city of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, in this screenshot of a video footage from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency on Friday.
Japan’s climate heroes show potential and limits of local initiatives
Hidetaka Ishii, an official at the Chiba Municipal Government, says close coordination with private-sector operators is key for regional decarbonization efforts.
Aboard Japan’s most luxurious train, the journey is the destination
The luxury Seven Stars in Kyushu train trades the hyper-efficiency of typical rail travel in Japan for a slower, more decadent version.

Podcast

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

Longform

Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.
As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows
By Alex K.T. Martin

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