More Commentary Articles - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 27, 2009

Promise and peril of global change

By Hans-Werner Sinn

MUNICH — Panta rhei. Everything flows.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 27, 2009

Time to reject tyranny and health insecurity

By Yoshi Tsurumi

NEW YORK — Since 2001, under the guise of "reforms," the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has adopted Bush's undemocratic dogma of market fundamentalism — dysfunctional deregulation, privatization and corporate money games. Such dogma destroyed America's financial systems, social safety net and manufacturing,...

COMMENTARY

Aug 27, 2009

Are green shoots sprouting?

By David Howell

Is recovery from the global recession already under way? In Germany, France and the United States, authoritative voices are declaring the recession over and telling us that growth has resumed. And now the same view is heard in Japan. Yes, if you take a magnifying glass you can see tiny little specks...

COMMENTARY

Aug 26, 2009

First ban the hawks, then the bomb

By Gregory Clark

This year's Hiroshima atomic bombing anniversary saw more demands for the abolition of nuclear weapons. It is a worthy goal. But does it make sense? People genuinely keen to rid the world of nuclear weapons need first do something about the hawks and hardliners whose actions often make nuclear weapons...

COMMENTARY

Aug 26, 2009

Drawing key lessons from the failure of Obamacare

By TED RALL

"What worries me: time and time again," writes Brendan Skwire in the Philadelphia Weekly about the circuses that are currently passing for Democrats' town hall meetings on health care, "[is that] the needs of the stupid and disingenuous are not only treated as valid concerns, but as the greatest concerns."...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 25, 2009

Opening a regulated market for kidney sales

By Peter Singer

PRINCETON, N.J. — The arrest in New York last month of Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, a Brooklyn businessman whom police allege tried to broker a deal to buy a kidney for $160,000, coincided with the passage of a law in Singapore that some say will open the way for organ trading there.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 25, 2009

Japan ready for 'no nukes'

By Hiromichi Umebayashi and Shingo Fukuyama

As the Obama administration contemplates major reductions to its nuclear arsenal, Japan's commitment to nuclear disarmament is being tested as never before.

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Aug 24, 2009

Party shakeouts unlikely if the DPJ wins big-time

The latest major opinion polls seem to indicate that the general election on Aug. 30 will bring about a change of government in Japan, with the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) unseating the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Prime Minister Taro Aso as the predominant force in the Lower House. One is left...

COMMENTARY

Aug 24, 2009

Afghan health crisis defies aid efforts so far

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK — Afghanistan is going through a serious public health emergency, exacerbated by the unstable political situation in the region. Food shortages could leave 8 million Afghans — 30 percent of the population — on the brink of starvation, unless more effective aid is provided soon. Lack of...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Aug 23, 2009

Obama hails Lincoln — but is he on course to fail the LBJ way?

By Roger Pulvers

"Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people's funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans. . . . It was the government's job to straighten out this situation and do it as quickly as possible, and the job...

COMMENTARY

Aug 23, 2009

Japan has plenty of work to do in transforming how it governs

By Shinji Fukukawa

The world is changing dramatically and political governance is at stake.

COMMENTARY

Aug 23, 2009

Scrutinizing the Chinese threat to Taiwan

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — In the United States we refer to it as the Powell Doctrine. And it helps unravel a bit of mystery about what China is up to these days. Remember Colin Powell? Before Barack Obama rode into the U.S. scene on his white horse, Powell was America's most admired black public political figure....

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.

Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Supporting women’s social participation is Cartier’s commitment

Supporting women’s social participation is Cartier’s commitment

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports