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November 30, 2024

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EDITORIALS

Jan 15, 2004

DPJ needs a clearer identity

The Democratic Party of Japan's latest annual convention, which ended Tuesday, was an occasion to renew its quest for power. That was only to be expected, given that the largest opposition party, emboldened by its dramatic gains in last November's general election, is determined to take over from the...

COMMENTARY

Jan 15, 2004

China more open, at least on medical front

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- Last year, after China was caught suppressing information about the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, it dismissed the minister of health and the mayor of Beijing and dramatically opened its health-care system up to international scrutiny. There was much hope then that the...

EDITORIALS

Jan 14, 2004

Mr. Bush sets his sights on Mars

For as long as humankind has been capable of wonder, men and women have looked to the stars and dreamed. For centuries, they had to be content with just that. Only a mere half century ago, we first escaped the Earth's atmosphere; a decade later an American astronaut lowered himself to the lunar surface....

COMMENTARY

Jan 14, 2004

Japan blind to Chinese reality

By Gregory Clark

A recent tour of Chinese universities took me to Changchun, the capital of the puppet Manchukuo state that Japan tried to set up in the 1930s in China's remote northeast region. Today it is a sprawling conurbation of more than 6 million people, broad highways and high-rise apartments and a key player...

EDITORIALS

Jan 13, 2004

Prospects dim for wage round

Japan's economy is showing increasing signs of recovery, yet there is nothing to cheer about concerning the job situation as labor and management brace for what promises to be yet another difficult bargaining season. Once again, wage restraint will be the main theme of negotiation in spring 2004.

EDITORIALS

Jan 12, 2004

Falling behind in the FTA race

Free trade is taking a new shape. With the World Trade Organization's new round of multilateral talks on the rocks, countries around the world are taking increasingly to bilateral and regional free trade agreements, or FTAs. Japan is falling far behind in this race, largely because of its protected agriculture....

COMMENTARY

Jan 12, 2004

Koizumi flaunts propensity to curtail 'drastic' reforms

By Keizo Nabeshima

Japan is at a historic turning point, both domestically and internationally. Symbolic of this are pension reform, highway system privatization and the troop dispatch to Iraq. But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "structural reform" initiative appears to have lost momentum since he took office in April...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 12, 2004

China lights Vietnam's path

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- Profound similarities bind China and Vietnam together today more than ever. Twelve years after their brief border war in 1979, Hanoi and Beijing normalized relations in 1991 after resolving the "Cambodian problem" at the Paris Peace Conference. This normalization of relations put to rest...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 12, 2004

Let the Saudis choose their revolution

By Amir Butler

SYDNEY -- In November 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush described what he termed the third pillar of America's security: "global democratic revolution." If Iraq and Afghanistan were the first "beneficiaries" of this revolution, then it seems almost certain that Saudi Arabia will feature somewhere in...

EDITORIALS

Jan 11, 2004

A bid for peace in South Asia

Welcome though it is, it is hard to be optimistic about the surprise announcement that India and Pakistan are ready to resume peace talks. The three wars the two neighbors have fought are reasons to both applaud the two governments' readiness to talk peace and to be skeptical about the prospects. Last...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 11, 2004

Comparison underscores stark contrasts

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld likes to point to the American occupation of Japan after World War II to assert that America is moving faster to rebuild and reform Iraq than the Americans did in seven years of remaking Japan, starting in 1945. Therefore, he says, Americans and critics...

EDITORIALS

Jan 10, 2004

Postcards from the red planet

We Earthlings have been to Mars before, of course. Dozens of times we've visited it in our imaginations, giving it special status as a far-off symbol of our own lust for war and the focus of all our fears and fantasies of extraterrestrial invasion -- Mars as the original red menace.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.

Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat

By Greg Dvorak

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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