More Opinion Articles - The Japan Times

November 25, 2024

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY

Mar 4, 2001

The media close in on Mori

By Gregory Clark

Media vilification of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, to the point of virtually forcing his resignation, shows just how easily the major press and TV outlets here can control events in this emotional nation.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 3, 2001

South Korea's media and transparency

By Ronald Meinardus

SEOUL -- As so often, one opinion stands against another: South Korea's opposition party has leveled an accusation against the government that by launching a tax investigation of the media it is in effect waging a war against the press. The government retorts that the tax investigation is a routine matter,...

EDITORIALS

Mar 3, 2001

Breaking stones and hearts

Of all the treasures in Afghanistan, the most famous by far are the two colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan Province. Carved out of a rocky cliff-face in the fourth or fifth centuries A.D., the statues have gazed out benevolently over the old Silk Road route below for centuries. According to scholars, the Bamiyan...

COMMENTARY

Mar 3, 2001

Two unloved bureaucratic behemoths

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- With the free-market Bush administration settling into power, what's to become of those controversial twin pillars of the world economic system, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank? Those two institutions -- both based in Washington, D.C. and sharing reputations for arrogance...

COMMENTARY

Mar 3, 2001

No quick fixes for Japan's ills

By David Howell

TOKYO and LONDON -- The 17th annual meeting of the U.K.-Japan 21st Century Group -- the bilateral think tank set up by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher way back in the '80s -- took place this year on Awaji Island in Kobe Bay, island of gods and puppets and,...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 3, 2001

Tightening the noose on war criminals

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON -- For years, former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic lived openly in Belgrade at 119 Vlagoja Parovica Street. He treated with utter contempt his indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia for directing the slaughter of 7,045 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July,...

COMMENTARY

Mar 2, 2001

Mori's time is running out

By Minoru Tada

There is an increasing likelihood that Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, lambasted at home and abroad as a symbol of political incompetence, will announce a decision sometime this month to step down to end the leadership crisis. This is hardly surprising, given Mori's abysmal performance since he was appointed...

EDITORIALS

Mar 2, 2001

The challenge facing Turkey

Turkey teeters on the brink of a financial and economic crisis. A political feud sparked the troubles, the effects of which have been felt far beyond the country's borders. The Turkish government has moved quickly, but some of its new policies may well create their own difficulties. International support...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 2, 2001

Fear, obsession hold back Japan-China ties

By Zhu Jianrong

In recent years, Japan-China relations have been marked by almost incessant friction over issues ranging from historical questions to more mundane problems.

EDITORIALS

Mar 1, 2001

Truth of scandal remains buried

There is always something very frustrating about Diet questioning of legislators involved in corruption scandals. So it was with Monday's inquiry of Mr. Fukushiro Nukaga, former economics minister, at a Lower House Council on Political Ethics. As expected, Mr. Nukaga, a Liberal Democrat, denied allegations...

COMMENTARY

Mar 1, 2001

Lessons of failed Iraq policy elude Bush

By Doug Bandow

"We bomb, therefore we bomb," seems to be Washington's policy toward Iraq. Ten years of sanctions and military strikes have failed to tame or oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Yet the Bush administration thinks only of doing more of the same.

COMMENTARY

Mar 1, 2001

Bush presidency, Ehime Maru tragedy bring national security issues to the fore

By Ronald Morse

The issue for 2001 is whether Japan's leaders will take responsibility for their own national security. The stage is set for them to make this choice and the United States is ready to cooperate no matter what decision they make.

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’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports