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November 26, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Apr 30, 2001

A real chance for change?

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- Is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi so different from other Japanese politicians that he can succeed in enforcing radical change in the political and economic system of the country?

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 30, 2001

A high price for textbook flap

By Brad Glosserman

Japan ignores the history-textbook controversy at its peril. While many Japanese dismiss the tempest -- exaggerated attention, they say, given to a small group of nostalgic conservatives or a freedom-of-speech issue best left to constitutional scholars -- South Koreans see the new history textbook as...

EDITORIALS

Apr 29, 2001

Going somewhere in Golden Week?

If it's Golden Week, it must be time to dust off those travel statistics again. Every year, government and tourist-industry number-crunchers tell us the score on the number of Japanese traveling abroad in the madcap first week of May, as opposed to those who travel inside Japan or, most sensibly of all,...

EDITORIALS

Apr 28, 2001

Fit punishment for tragic error

Cmdr. Scott Waddle, skipper of the USS Greeneville, the nuclear submarine that collided with the Japanese fisheries training vessel Ehime Maru, resulting in the loss of nine lives, has been found guilty of violating military law. Offered a choice between retiring or explaining his actions at another...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 28, 2001

Jospin still far from the top

By Andre Fontaine

PARIS -- Created 43 years ago by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, France's Fifth Republic has had 14 prime ministers but only five presidents. Most of these premiers have harbored an ambition to become head of state, but only two of them managed to fulfill this dream. Will Lionel Jospin be the third?

EDITORIALS

Apr 27, 2001

Koizumi's uphill battle begins

Quixotic or not, Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, the newly elected prime minister of Japan, has largely succeeded in sticking to his maverick goal of forming a Cabinet untainted by factional politics. Both in his selection of executive officers of the Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday and in his appointments...

COMMENTARY

Apr 27, 2001

Calls for change heeded

By Minoru Tada

In his year as prime minister, Yoshiro Mori caused public disillusionment with the Liberal Democratic Party through his gaffes and incompetence. The LDP's presidential election Tuesday, in which former Health and Welfare Minister Junichiro Koizumi beat former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto by a wide...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 27, 2001

Is Asia's little dragon awakening at last?

By David Wall

CAMBRIDGE, England -- When Vietnam set out on the path of economic liberalization in the early 1990s, everyone expected another Asian miracle, Chinese-style. The liberalization program adopted by the country, known as Doi Moi, was expected to bring about the same radical reforms of economic policy that...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 27, 2001

India can't afford another border enemy

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

NEW DELHI -- India helped liberate Bangladesh from the tyrannical rule of Pakistan some three decades ago, but ties between the two neighbors have often been marked by suspicion, even hostility. This animosity have its roots in a boundary dispute and a smuggling issue, as well as illegal migration by...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 26, 2001

Parliamentary democracy isn't perfect but it's the best form of government we have

By Ramesh Thakur

The persistent weakness of prime ministerial leadership in India begs the question of whether it would be better off with presidential government. Does the latter offer a better solution to the chaotic spectrum of splinter parties, the debilitating hold of caste politics and the cancer of corruption?...

EDITORIALS

Apr 26, 2001

A bold new start for the LDP

Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, who has long been regarded as an eccentric but reform-minded politician, has been elected president of the governing Liberal Democratic Party. When the four-way race started, former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto was the front-runner and odds-on favorite. Yet Mr. Koizumi caught...

COMMENTARY

Apr 26, 2001

Antiglobalism guarantees poverty for all

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Despite the worst efforts of violent protesters in Quebec, Canada, leaders of countries throughout the Western hemisphere concluded their Summit of the Americas by proposing a broad free-trade agreement. Bringing more of the world's poor into the global economy is the best hope for raising...

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

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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