Search - opinion

 
 
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2004

Fog of politics obscures war

For most Americans, World War II began Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. Europeans date the beginning of the war to the 1939 invasion of Poland. Few Westerners appreciate the length and savagery of the Sino-Japanese war that was already in full force even by then.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2004

Wise choice for the judgment of Hussein

Last May U.S. President George W. Bush declared the Iraq war over, although the resistance movement showed no signs of abating. Even the arrest of former President Saddam Hussein in December has brought no fundamental change in the situation.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 25, 2004

To give proves easier said than done

JAPAN'S "CULTURE OF GIVING" AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS, by Akira Matsubara and Hiroko Todoroki, translated by Richard Forrest. Tokyo: Coalition for Legislation to Support Citizen's Organizations, 2003, 45 pp., free (paper). Japan's transformation is proceeding quietly, slipping beneath media radar screens...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2004

Kan tells Koizumi to resign over Iraq

Democratic Party of Japan leader Naoto Kan urged Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday to step down, claiming he has violated the Constitution by dispatching the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq.
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2004

Washington-Seoul: tough times ahead?

HONOLULU -- Is the U.S.-South Korea relationship in for some tough times? The answer is "yes," but not because of the recent forced resignation of "pro-American" Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan (whose wise council and steady, mature leadership will be sorely missed).
EDITORIALS
Jan 19, 2004

Cracking down on crime groups

The National Police Agency is going all out to crack down on organized crime groups, or yakuza. The latest drive calls for legislative changes to allow victims who have gotten caught up in a yakuza conflict to sue for damages against yakuza leaders rather than the gangsters directly involved.
COMMENTARY
Jan 18, 2004

Authoritarian threat grows

LONDON -- The real threat from terrorists is being used as a pretext for growing authoritarian tendencies in democratic countries. On the grounds that every possible step must be taken to prevent terrorist attacks, suspects are being imprisoned without trial or access to lawyers, and Draconian controls...
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2004

Iraq likely to dominate next Diet session

As former deputy chief Cabinet secretary and House of Councilors member Kosei Ueno prepares for the Upper House election scheduled for mid-July, he is nagged by one major concern: the security situation in Iraq.
EDITORIALS
Jan 14, 2004

Mr. Bush sets his sights on Mars

For as long as humankind has been capable of wonder, men and women have looked to the stars and dreamed. For centuries, they had to be content with just that. Only a mere half century ago, we first escaped the Earth's atmosphere; a decade later an American astronaut lowered himself to the lunar surface....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 11, 2004

Discriminating professor takes provincial view of Izumo

IZUMO-JIN: The People of Izumo, by Daisetsu Fujioka, translated by Caroline E. Kano and Toshiko Yamakuse. Matsue: Harvest Publications, 2002, 138 pp., with maps. 1200 yen (paper).
BUSINESS
Jan 9, 2004

Japan, U.S. plan to restore faith in beef

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman ended a meeting here Wednesday without discussing concrete steps toward lifting Japan's ban on imported American beef.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2004

Fukuda cool on specter of secular alternative to Yasukuni

It is premature for the government to establish a secular memorial as an alternative to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the nation's war dead, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jan 7, 2004

Dean shows green is still king in American politics

WASHINGTON -- Things look a little rosier in the U.S. economy at the moment, with the stock market roaring at last. You may remember that 2002 was the worst year for the stock market for 25 years. The Dow closed in 2002 at 8,341.63, down 16.8 percent. In 2003 it closed at 10,453.92, the highest in almost...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2004

Japan needs to emerge from behind America's apron: Wolferen

Japan may be the world's No. 2 economic power, but where diplomacy is concerned, Karel G. van Wolferen likens it to a boy who has to ask his parents (i.e. the United States) if he can go outside to play.
JAPAN
Dec 27, 2003

Japan officially slaps ban on U.S. beef over BSE scare

Japan, the biggest importer of U.S. beef, said Friday it will ban imports of the meat and order a recall of meat already in the country after a laboratory in Britain confirmed a cow from Washington state has tested positive for mad cow disease.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 26, 2003

It's time for Premier League players to grow up

LONDON -- A former footballer once confided to me that after his retirement he and his wife decided to go on the dream holiday they had never been able to take while he was a leading international.
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2003

Privatizing the highway corporations

Finally the stage has been set for the privatization of the debt-ridden highway corporations. The government plans to send related bills to the next Diet session, which opens in January. If the package is approved as scheduled, a new tollway system will go into operation in fiscal 2005 under the management...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2003

Top court rules against ex-JNR workers

The long legal battle over the fate of former employees of the now-defunct Japanese National Railways seeking to be hired by the successor carriers created with JNR's 1987 privatization ended in their defeat Monday at the hands of the Supreme Court.
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2003

Time to revise unequal SOFA

A group of lawmakers of the governing Liberal Democratic Party is campaigning for the drastic revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. The group, headed by Lower House member Toshio Kojima, has come up with a proposal for revising SOFA in cooperation with a council of governors of 14 prefectures,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2003

Lame explanations for SDF dispatch

The Diet, although in recess, discussed the Iraq issue on Monday and Tuesday. The debate followed the government's decision last week to send ground troops to Iraq and, of course, Sunday's breaking news of the capture of Saddam Hussein. The government's answers, however, proved mostly unconvincing.
Events
Dec 18, 2003

Question of SDF being sent to Iraq divides panelists

The British journalists taking part in the Keizai Koho Center symposium had the opportunity to meet with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi during their one-week visit to Japan, with the issue of the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq one matter that came up in their discussions.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2003

Conservatives smell an upset

LONDON -- A transformation has taken place on the British political scene, and it is one that could have profound effects on the wider European landscape as well as on trans-Atlantic relations. The nature of this change can be summed up in two words -- Michael Howard. This is the man who has now emerged...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 17, 2003

'50s cannibal masterpiece offers plenty to chew on

Down by Tokyo Bay, most people think of the industrial wasteland of Hamamatsucho merely as a convenient stop on the Yamanote Line, a station for changing onto the Haneda-bound monorail en route to faraway places. Theatergoers, though, and especially lovers of big, slick, Western-style productions, know...
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2003

Japan, ASEAN trio plan FTA talks but hurdles seen

Japan formally agreed Thursday to enter government-level negotiations on bilateral free-trade agreements with Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, raising its tally of ongoing FTA talks to five.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2003

Dispatch foes grope to find, let alone sway, opinion

OSAKA -- Japanese against the war in Iraq and the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces troops to help rebuild the nation may not be as vocal as their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe, but they are trying to sway public sentiment in an equally determined manner.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2003

Pressures push Pakistan toward ceasefire

MADRAS, India -- According to an old Persian proverb, the man who digs a well ends up at the bottom of it. Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, may well be such a gravedigger.
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2003

'Basic plan' for Iraq dispatch to omit specifics

The basic plan for sending Japanese ground troops to Iraq for reconstruction assistance, which the Cabinet is expected to approve Tuesday, will omit specifics such as a time frame for the dispatch, Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said Sunday.
BUSINESS
Dec 6, 2003

LDP panel eyes consumption tax hike in future

The government should raise the consumption tax to support the ailing public pension system in future, senior members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's tax panel agreed Friday.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?