More Opinion Articles - The Japan Times

November 26, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Jul 16, 2001

Avoid temptation of populism

By Keizo Nabeshima

The July 29 Upper House election is effectively a national referendum on the "reform without sacred cows" program of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration. The central question is whether "Koizumi reform" will jump-start Japan's stalled economy and put it back on the long-term recovery course....

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 15, 2001

Can China's private sector be co-opted?

By David Wall

CAMBRIDGE, England -- President Jiang Zemin of China, who is also general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, made a remarkable speech last week to a handpicked audience of party faithful. The audience had been called to the Great Hall of the People to celebrate the 80th birthday party of the CCP....

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 15, 2001

U.S. fear of bilingualism is unfounded

By Domenico Maceri

In Quebec, French signs by law have to be twice as big as their English translations. The top spot in the Los Angeles radio market belongs to KSCA-FM, a Spanish language station.

EDITORIALS

Jul 15, 2001

What's in a domain name?

As children, we were told that names could not affect us. Words were not instruments of power; sticks and stones were. "What's in a name?" Shakespeare scoffed. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." As we grew up, though, we learned better. The act of naming, or controlling the assignation...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 15, 2001

Heading off the MD disaster

By Glyn Ford

BRUSSELS -- The argument for missile defense is based on a series of misunderstandings and exaggerations. The claimed threat is neither real nor credible. Yet U.S. President George W. Bush is using it to underpin the United States' deployment of MD in the interests of the arms industry and to the detriment...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 14, 2001

Vipassana spirituality a refreshing breeze

By George Sioris

BANGKOK -- There was recently a cultural event in Bangkok that deserves to be singled out. It was a special Dhamma talk given by the foremost Vipassana meditation teacher of our times, Satya Narayan Goenka, to a select audience presided over by Princess Galyani, the sister of the King of Thailand.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 14, 2001

Turning talk of free trade into policy

By Jonathan Fenby

LONDON — Japan's trade sanctions joust with China is small beer in world terms — or even in the context of the overall commerce between the two nations. But it sounds a warning bell — all the more so since it is just one of a series of challenges to free and open trade that could throw into doubt...

COMMENTARY

Jul 14, 2001

Now it's North Korea's turn

By Ralph Cossa

It was with some trepidation that Koreans on both sides of the demilitarized zone watched the Bush administration come to power, given the more "hardline" position many Congressional Republicans had taken over the years regarding North Korea. However, the outcome of the administration's finally completed...

EDITORIALS

Jul 14, 2001

The U.N. fails to get smart

The United Nations Security Council failed last week in its attempt to impose "smart sanctions" against Iraq. Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members agreed on a new scheme to monitor imports to Iraq. Unfortunately, the holdout was Russia, and Moscow used its threat of a veto to torpedo the new program....

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 13, 2001

Indonesian human-rights law wide open to manipulation by military and its allies

By Stephanie Coop

When a law clearing the way for ad hoc courts to try human-rights violations was passed in Indonesia last November, some saw it as a sign that high-ranking military officers would finally be punished for the many abuses committed by the nation's armed forces.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 13, 2001

Injustice across borders?

By Ramesh Thakur

The arrest and transfer of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to the international tribunal at The Hague is but the latest of several dramatic twists and turns in the last few years in the search for universal justice. Just as the indictment issued against him during the NATO war in Kosovo was...

EDITORIALS

Jul 13, 2001

A bandwagon election begins

Japanese voters will pass a verdict on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's structural reforms in the July 29 Upper House election, campaigning for which officially started on Thursday. The poll comes at a critical moment for Japan's beleaguered economy, which is still struggling to recover from a decade-long...

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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