More Opinion Articles - The Japan Times

November 27, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Apr 19, 2002

China puts growth before 'reunification'

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- The launching of the U.S. Congressional Taiwan Caucus on April 9, which already includes 85 members of the House of Representatives, is but the latest sign of Washington's moving inexorably closer to Taiwan, 30 years after the signing of the Shanghai communique. So far, China has shown remarkable...

COMMENTARY

Apr 19, 2002

West's terror goes unpunished

By Gregory Clark

Call me old-fashioned, but was not the deliberate use of force by one nation against another nation once labeled as aggression? And was not aggression once seen as a war crime? Certainly a large number of Japanese and German leaders once were hanged for just that kind of behavior. Yet today's U.S. and...

EDITORIALS

Apr 19, 2002

Tyrants: be afraid

The complaint against international law has been that it lacks teeth. Absent enforcement authority, the norms and principles that govern international behavior are merely exhortations -- even though they can have sufficient precedence to be considered binding. That changed April 11 when 10 countries...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 18, 2002

Israeli offensive shakes Jordanian society

By Russell Working

GAZA REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan -- Gloom hung over the house where Amin's adult daughter had died of an unknown disease. Rain was leaking through the tarpaulin that served as a roof in half of the two-room structure of mud brick and cinder blocks where 15 people live.

EDITORIALS

Apr 18, 2002

Emergency bills need consensus

After a quarter century of government discussion of security policy, the Diet is set to debate legislation designed to deal with emergencies directly affecting the security of Japan -- namely, military attacks from abroad. At stake is a set of three bills, adopted by the Cabinet on Tuesday and submitted...

COMMENTARY

Apr 18, 2002

Turkey's Mideast peace role

By David Howell

LONDON/ISTANBUL -- The only possible way of exerting outside influence on the ever-worsening conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is through a visibly balanced approach.

COMMENTARY

Apr 17, 2002

Politicization of charity

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- There seems to be no bill for which U.S. taxpayers are not responsible. Charity as well as welfare has become a government responsibility.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 17, 2002

Working for a safer world

By Ramesh Thakur

BEIJING -- "Weapons of mass destruction," or WMD, refer to biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. During a recent three-day conference in Beijing, organized jointly by the United Nations Department of Disarmament Affairs and the Chinese government, it became clear that we have to choose from a menu...

EDITORIALS

Apr 17, 2002

Mr. Chavez's second chance

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has often courted confusion, but even by his standards this has been a tumultuous week. Days after he was overthrown by a military coup and a successor government sworn in, the firebrand leader was restored to power by loyalists within his government and popular protests....

EDITORIALS

Apr 16, 2002

Tip of the 'bad debt' iceberg

The results of special bank audits announced last week by the Financial Services Agency confirm that Japan's banking sector is still saddled with large amounts of bad debt. The message is that banks remain heavily exposed to the risks of default despite stepped-up efforts to improve the situation.

EDITORIALS

Apr 14, 2002

Beyond Oprah's book club

Last week, U.S. fiction publishers heard to their dismay that they are about to lose the single biggest booster their industry has known in the past six years: television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey's astonishingly influential monthly book club. True, the same period also saw the advent of "Harry Potter"...

COMMENTARY

Apr 14, 2002

Mideast legacy could spread militancy

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- When terrorists struck the United States last September, many people were keen to downplay suggestions that the attack on the World Trade center had grown out of the anger generated by Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.

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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