More Opinion Articles - The Japan Times

November 30, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Oct 6, 2003

China girds for wider influence in Asia

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- China's efforts to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis have been trumpeted in headlines around the world, but it has been just as active in other parts of the region, a reflection of its increasing regional influence.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 5, 2003

World holds vested interest in a successful South Africa

By Ramesh Thakur

PRETORIA -- The last 10 to 15 years have not been the best advertisement for the human species. Our brutality toward fellow human beings, including children and women, seems to plumb ever-lower depths. The positive side of identifying with fellow members of a particular religion, race, tribe or ethnic...

COMMENTARY

Oct 5, 2003

Sea of lies driveling through the dikes

By Gregory Clark

The Hutton inquiry in Britain into the recent death of the government's expert on Iraqi weapons, James Kelly, has shown up only too clearly the extent to which our much-vaunted Westminster system of democratic government has decayed. At the inquiry, a BBC reporter was dragged over the coals for a single...

EDITORIALS

Oct 5, 2003

Freedom from the fear of chaos

Anyone idly browsing the Internet recently might well have come across the following mysterious passage: "Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen't mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision....

COMMENTARY

Oct 4, 2003

Angst builds over next round with North

By Kenzo Uchida

Japanese diplomacy appears to be in a lull with the situation in Asia centered on the problem with North Korea. Immediately after the six-nation talks were held in the first half of September, reports from Moscow suggested that the next round of six-nation talks would take place in Beijing in early November....

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 4, 2003

Only recourse is to negotiate

By Nyunt Shwe

Will Myanmar (also known as Burma) be banned from the summit meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations next week? That's not likely, but Myanmar's new prime minister, Gen. Khin Nyunt, could utterly lose face unless the regime frees prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi before the...

EDITORIALS

Oct 4, 2003

A checkered economic recovery

During an economic recovery, it often happens that disparities in business performance between companies that are doing better and those that are not become more apparent. That is the case with Japanese companies today, as shown clearly by the Bank of Japan's latest survey of business sentiment. While...

EDITORIALS

Oct 3, 2003

Saving a Japanese monument

Japan still has an entry on the World Monuments Fund's biennial "watch list" of the planet's 100 most endangered cultural sites, according to the 2004 update released last week. It is time to ensure that the historic port town of Tomonoura, which was first included in the 2002 list, is not on it two...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 3, 2003

Israeli debate over soldiers' duty deepens

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- The recent refusal by 27 high-ranking Israeli Air Force officers to follow superiors' orders that would involve attacking Palestinian civilians signifies a rebuke of the Israeli government's policy of "targeted liquidations." What makes the pilots' decision particularly important is that...

EDITORIALS

Oct 2, 2003

Plenty of rice despite poor harvest

Low temperatures and a shortage of sunlight during the summer months have made it certain that this year's rice harvest will be the poorest in a decade. Yet, even with the lean harvest, there will be no problem on the supply side because the government's stock of rice is more than adequate.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 2, 2003

Few know but many fear where the U.S. 'road map' leads

By David Hirst

BEIRUT -- By the summer of 2002, U.S. President George Bush had firmly set his new course: "regime change" and reform in the Muslim and Arab worlds, and, where necessary, American military intervention to achieve it.

COMMENTARY

Oct 2, 2003

Book fight turns up a Beijing weak spot

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- Love her or loathe her, Hillary Clinton is something else. In 1995, for instance, the then-first lady stood on a Beijing dais and delivered a tough speech that denounced violations of women's rights worldwide. With steely passion she said: "Human rights are women's rights."

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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