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November 26, 2024

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EDITORIALS

Mar 28, 2001

Mr. Bush's 'new thinking'

The U.S. decision to expel 50 Russians for "activities incompatible with their status as diplomats" -- spying to the layman -- is being roundly decried as a sign of the Cold War mentality that dominates the administration of President George W. Bush. But it is far from it. The suspicions of those days...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 28, 2001

Australians try to sort good economic news from bad

By Alan Goodall

SYDNEY -- With the government of Prime Minister John Howard still reeling from a by-election humiliation, along comes a morale booster -- a corporate deal that makes Australia the dominant player in global-resources trade. Comeback Kid Howard has done it again, although his chances of staying prime minister...

COMMENTARY

Mar 28, 2001

Understanding 'leadership' in Japan

By Glen S. Fukushima

An American scholar who recently proposed writing a book about leadership in Japan was told by his colleagues, "A book? You'll be lucky to find enough material to write a chapter, or more likely a newspaper article, on the subject!"

COMMENTARY

Mar 27, 2001

The limits of public opinion

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- Speaking to the House of Commons on Nov. 11, 1947, Winston Churchill said, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

EDITORIALS

Mar 27, 2001

A small step forward in Irkutsk

Both Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the achievements made at their talks Sunday in Irkutsk, Siberia. Assessing the same meeting, however, the two leaders inadvertently acknowledged publicly that they were giving different interpretations of the talks on the...

EDITORIALS

Mar 26, 2001

Act now to save Macedonia

Once again, there is the threat of war in the Balkans. This time, Macedonia is at risk. Once again, Albanian guerrillas are to blame. Their aim is to redraw the borders of the region. There is no need. They can be stopped; to avoid a wider war, the West should do just that.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Mar 26, 2001

Russians living 'la vida loca'

By Constantine Pleshakov

This semester I am teaching a Dostoevsky course. Implausible plots, stumbling dialogues, everybody in love with everybody, romantic triangles overlap like mating frogs, passions mount, money changes hands and is thrown into the fire -- the normal Dostoevsky stuff.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 26, 2001

Never say you've apologized too much

By Hiroaki Sato

When Ursula Smith, my publisher friend up in Vermont, wrote to say, "I can't close without offering some (futile) form of apology, as one national to another, for that unfortunate accident off Hawaii," I said there was no need to apologize to me. It was an accident, and I wasn't too clear about the meaning...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 26, 2001

Bush's crash course in global diplomacy

By Brad Glosserman

U.S. President George W. Bush has just concluded a crash course in Northeast Asian politics. In the past three weeks, he has hosted South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen. Now Bush has to make sense of those visits, digest the various messages...

COMMENTARY

Mar 26, 2001

Too little too late for reform?

By Yukio Suzuki

In a dramatic policy reversal, the Bank of Japan has shifted its priority from cutting interest rates to expanding the money supply. The shift involves changing the key target for monetary adjustment from uncollateralized call-money rates to private banks' demand-deposit balances in the central bank....

EDITORIALS

Mar 25, 2001

Ghosts on the loose

You may have thought that the big story out of Hong Kong last week was the slumping Hang Seng Index or continuing pressure from Beijing to crack down on the Falun Gong. But no, something much more fascinating was going on, and it was going on right inside one of the places that break, but don't usually...

COMMENTARY

Mar 25, 2001

Campaign-finance reforms stifle free speech

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- In opening the U.S. Senate debate on campaign-finance reform, Republican John McCain asked his colleagues to "take a risk for our country." But his proposals would stifle, not expand, political debate in America. Congress should instead relax election controls, thereby encouraging more...

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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