Search - opinion

 
 
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Dec 7, 2000

Traditions found anew

"It's only recently that the great mass of Indians have begun to feel that rising in the world and becoming rich was a good thing, a valuable thing," says Asha Amemiya.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Dec 5, 2000

Audio Active beams down the space dub

Masa of Audio Active has gone AWOL. I'm at the new offices of his management company, Beatink, in Shibuya. Tae, who arranged the interview, is refilling my coffee cup and apologizing, telling me that the main man is not answering his keitai and nobody knows where the hell he is.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2000

Miyake islanders may have long wait

Miyake Island, which was fully evacuated in September due to the volcanic activity of Mount Oyama, may not be safe enough to return to for another three months to a year, a leading expert said Sunday.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Fight the spread of small arms

The United Nations General Assembly has decided to hold the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Aspects in New York in July 2001. The trade involves a broad range of hand-carried arms from automatic rifles to portable missiles.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000

Korean democracy suffers growing pains

SEOUL -- You don't have to consult opinion polls to understand that in general terms South Koreans are not happy with their government. It is enough to occasionally read editorials or to engage in political discussions with Korean friends, colleagues and neighbors. Then you detect a very basic disenchantment...
EDITORIALS
Dec 2, 2000

Mr. Barak's bold gamble

One odd fact has hung over the violence that has descended upon the Middle East: The current Israeli government is more committed to a peaceful settlement than any that might replace it. Prime Minister Ehud Barak genuinely wants to make peace. The question is whether the Israeli people are behind him....
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Nov 30, 2000

Ignore the skipper and go west, young men

What on earth has Bobby Valentine been smoking these days? The guy is a great manager and he keeps us sportswriters in business with witty quotes and humorous antics. But this time he's gone too far. We're talking Siberia here. In a recent interview with the Boston Herald, Valentine expressed his feelings...
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2000

Foreigners progress toward suffrage

After his three-year campaign to abolish mandatory fingerprinting of foreign residents bore fruit in 1992, Lee Young Hwa decided more needed to be done to address the larger, more fundamental human rights issues they face.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2000

U.S. blocks the road to a greener planet

LONDON -- The Canadians and the Australians were just as bad, really, and the Saudi Arabians were outrageous: They want the world to compensate them for every barrel of oil they don't sell if it cuts back on burning fossil fuels to slow global warming. But the Americans were the real reason that the...
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2000

State adopts national info-tech strategy

The government adopted a national strategy Monday to turn Japan into the world's most advanced country in the area of information technology within the next five years.
JAPAN / FREEDOM OF PRESS IN THE BALANCE
Nov 28, 2000

Media 'self-discipline' lacking: politicians

It was like a kangaroo court when the House of Representatives Communications Committee in March 1999 grilled the president and chief news editor of Asahi National Broadcasting Network about the contents of a popular news show, said Taizo Fukudomea, who was on the committee.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2000

Shaky finances threaten to sink KEDO

Sinp'o is a quiet coastal town on the edge of the Japan Sea in North Korea, almost two hours by helicopter from the capital Pyongyang. There is a beautiful swath of unspoiled beach, edged with bushes and shrubs typical of marine margins, and clusters of shabby houses and farms littered across the landscape....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2000

Asia debates the merit of political debates

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- I don't want to add to the endless debate over the chances of the two U.S. presidential contenders. Rather, I want to focus on the debates and some possible corollaries for Asia.
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2000

EU treaty anything but nice

LONDON -- A new treaty is being born in Europe, and it looks as though the birth will be a difficult one.
COMMENTARY
Nov 25, 2000

Can the system be salvaged?

LONDON -- Reading the accounts in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Financial Times of the shenanigans inside and outside the Japanese House of Representatives over the no-confidence motion against the Mori government, I could not help laughing, but I also felt despair about the future of parliamentary...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2000

Kato made the wrong choice

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori survived a no-confidence motion against his Cabinet early Tuesday when the governing coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party voted down the motion in the Lower House. Mori's rivals -- former LDP Secretary General Koichi Kato and...
EDITORIALS
Nov 22, 2000

Mori survives, for the moment

The administration of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori managed to survive its greatest crisis Monday night when the governing parties barely voted down a no-confidence motion sponsored by the opposition parties. Tension was mounting toward a final showdown over the motion late Monday night because two LDP...
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2000

Kato's momentous rebellion leaves Mori in charge -- for the moment

The failure of Koichi Kato's revolt against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori leaves the unpopular leader at the nation's helm -- at least for the moment.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2000

Japan needs to abandon the 'image game'

Domestic politics is not my specialty, but I am so disturbed by recent developments that I am prompted to write down some of my thoughts. First, newspaper comments and articles suggest that the opposition parties and the media have succeeded in establishing a public image of Yoshiro Mori as an incompetent...
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2000

Mr. Kato throws down the gauntlet

Infighting in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is intensifying. Former Secretary General Koichi Kato is demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, citing his low approval ratings. Tension is also building outside the LDP now that major opposition parties are set to present a no-confidence...
EDITORIALS
Nov 19, 2000

The real danger to democracy

Schadenfreude: a feeling of glee at someone else's misfortune. That sums up a considerable portion of international sentiment as the world watches the tortured proceedings of the U.S. election. Nearly two weeks after the vote to select the president of the United States -- the most powerful man in the...
EDITORIALS
Nov 16, 2000

The Middle East loses a lioness

The Middle East has lost a passionate advocate of peace. Ms. Leah Rabin, the widow of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, died of cancer this week at the age of 72. For some, Ms. Rabin was a meddlesome, divisive figure. For many more, she was a tireless campaigner for peace and friendship...
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2000

Kato stands by call for Mori to step down

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party was plunged into further turmoil Saturday, only one day after party heavyweight Koichi Kato intensified the pressure on embattled Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori by saying he has no plans to defend Mori in the event of a no-confidence motion.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2000

Japan's not-so-silent media conspiracy

Some months ago I went up to Tohoku to give a public lecture sponsored by a television station. After the talk there was a delightful, informal dinner, during which I chatted with an old friend, a producer at the station.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 12, 2000

On taking the eightfold path to environmental awareness

Environmentalists are a hard breed to pin down, much less to classify. They come in all shapes and sizes, and some even reject the name.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 11, 2000

Love, oil and Bangkok traffic jams

If you've ever been caught in a Bangkok traffic jam, it's a fair bet that "beautiful" would not be a word you'd use to describe the scene. But asurvey of Takanobu Kobayashi's new paintings gives the impression that the 40-year-old painter loves the buses and big trucks and little tuk tuks that choke...
COMMENTARY
Nov 10, 2000

Mori's nine lives are almost used up

The coalition government of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is clearly in a delicate situation. Should he make another serious mistake, Mori will be forced to resign. I had some hopes for Mori as prime minister, since the late Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe, a friend of mine, had praised his political acumen....
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2000

Ministry calls for expanded health food labeling system

A subcommittee of an advisory panel to the Health and Welfare Ministry proposed Wednesday the creation of a new system for labeling health foods in a bid to provide correct information on such products amid a plethora of advertisements.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 9, 2000

Smoke gets in your eyes

A scar on her arm reminds Kyoko Saito (not her real name) of an unpleasant experience she had a month ago. The Tokyo office worker was hurrying home one night after working three hours overtime, when she overtook three men chatting as they sauntered along the crowded sidewalk to the nearby station.
EDITORIALS
Nov 8, 2000

Reform is key to winning IT race

The world is gripped with IT fever. Despite linguistic differences, IT, shorthand for information technology, is a buzzword even here. It is believed to hold the key to the future development of the Japanese economy. That is why Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is leading the drive for an IT revolution. ...

Longform

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