Search - article

 
 
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 5, 2008

Truly, it's a jungle out there!

While the rest of the brave world is out fighting terrorism, on my island we are fighting a different kind of evil: age, sickness, and most recently, weeds.
Reader Mail
Jul 3, 2008

Home stay with a working family

Regarding the June 26 article "Retirees start hosting home stays": I would like to offer my experience as an American student currently studying in Tokyo at Sophia University. My host family fits the description of a "nuclear family of the working generation." But contrary to Succeo Co. director Chitose...
Reader Mail
Jul 3, 2008

Wisdom in the gold standard

I was encouraged to see professor Noriko Hama's June 30 article, "What gold is telling us about global economy" — about returning to the gold standard: This is one of the first such pieces I have seen out of Japan and I hope the government takes her studies and advice into consideration.
Reader Mail
Jul 3, 2008

Effects of rate manipulation

It was refreshing to see Noriko Hama's article, especially in these times of disappointing economic performance. There is still more to be said, though. Hama suggests that growth under a gold system is slower or worse than under a fiat money system. It's worth pointing out, though, that growth spurned...
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2008

Puzzle awaits G8 delegates

Spare a thought for the puzzle that will meet foreign delegations to the Group of Eight Summit in Hokkaido on July 7. On the one hand they will find a nation that organizes itself with clockwork perfection. Indeed, the summit organization will almost certainly be over-perfection, with every detail scripted...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2008

Fukuda's heart for G8 leadership

This fragile earth of about 6.5 billion souls faces grave and unprecedented challenges: soaring prices of oil and basic commodities that fuel daily life; price increases that make staple foods like rice and wheat too expensive for millions of poor people; a savage profusion of natural and man-made disasters...
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2008

Prime ministers should serve four-year terms, Nakagawa says

The prime minister should serve a four-year term instead of the current situation in which the post sometimes seems like a revolving door, Hidenao Nakagawa, former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Monday.
COMMENTARY
Jun 30, 2008

Taiwan's way with dignity

The inaugural address that Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou gave was titled "Taiwan's Renaissance." It was well-composed, reflecting the president's views clearly while not evoking excessive alarm or expectations on complex and sensitive issues. These include the future of Taiwan's democracy, relations...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 30, 2008

Justices made right call on habeas corpus

Among the commentaries I've read about a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, the one from George F. Will (The Japan Times, June 24) surprised me. The conservative columnist for The Washington Post upbraided Sen. John McCain for condemning Boumediene v. Bush — which upheld the right of habeas corpus...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2008

Get biotechnology on the agenda for Africa

Leaders at the Group of Eight industrialized nations' summit in Hokkaido next month need to take strong measures to promote cooperation in using biotechnology to address Africa's food challenges. At present there is resistance from Europe, and even Japan is dragging its feet on this vital issue.
Reader Mail
Jun 29, 2008

Theory full of logical fallacies

I was quite surprised to see John Spiri's June 17 Zeit Gist article, "Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global," because, despite Yukihisa Fujita's credentials as a Diet member, he is simply repeating the tired intonations of completely discredited theories regarding the events of 9/11.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2008

'In the Valley of Elah'

Iraq War movies are dying at the box office one after another. It doesn't matter if they're brutal expose ("Redacted"), touching family story ("Grace Is Gone"), or high-firepower entertainment ("The Kingdom") — nobody's buying.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2008

Balancing act across Taiwan Strait

WASHINGTON — So far, events have proven the optimists to be correct. The dialogue between Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) has resumed. As the basis, the Taiwan side only pledged adherence to the "1992 consensus," and...
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

Youth unemployment in the EU

I wonder if anyone else caught the contradiction in Giles Merritt's June 17 article "A Vanishing Europe and lifestyle." In paragraph 7, Merritt notes a looming labor shortage in the countries of the European Union, but several paragraphs down, he mentions "stubbornly high youth unemployment."
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

Antiforeign attitude unchanged

Regarding the June 21 article "Fukuda gets report on boosting immigrants": Most wealthy advanced countries have a long, open history of allowing immigration because they accept it as their international duty. Although the trend has more recently been to try to curtail this, the percentage of immigration...
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

The real risks from mad cows

The June 21 feature "South Korean Netizens mad over mad cow" wastes a great deal of space detailing the more ridiculous fears of South Koreans while ignoring the very real threat that does exist, not only to Koreans but to Japanese alike.
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

What attack on Christianity?

What attack on Christianity?
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

Military ships 'safer' than tankers

Kiroku Hanai's June 23 article, "Flattop can forget about a haven from controversy," is another example of selective journalism attempting to discredit the U.S. military or unreasonably worry citizens here.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 25, 2008

All hail capitalism, mendacious destroyer of life on Earth

If you're hoping that the representatives of the world's richest nations meeting in Hokkaido for the G8 Summit next month will take action on climate change, you're in for a disappointment.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jun 24, 2008

Silver-spoon politicians who rule

A growing number of politicians in Japan have "inherited" their parliamentary seats from their fathers. Unless this "hereditary" system is reversed, Japanese politics in all likelihood will continue on a path of decline.
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2008

Flattop can forget about a haven from controversy

A dispute over whether to accept a plan to let the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington use Yokosuka as its home port seemed to have been settled when the municipal assembly rejected a proposal to hold a referendum on the subject.
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Witness to 9/11 flight debris

Regarding John Spiri's June 17 Zeit Gist article, "(Japanese) Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global": The plane (Flight 767) did not "vaporize" as some say. The plane broke into thousands of small and large pieces and were clearly visible to all of us there that day. They were collected piece by piece in...
EDITORIALS
Jun 22, 2008

Uphold disabled people's rights

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities took effect May 3 — 30 days after it received its 20th ratification (April 3). So far, 27 countries have ratified the convention, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and promotes their social participation.
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

India, China do not act alone

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's June 18 article, Is the India and China hype true?": India and China do not act alone in challenging the two-century-old Western domination of the world. Indeed, they have history on their side, but they also have strong, dynamic partners. They belong to the BRIC (Brazil,...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 22, 2008

The many different ways Japan spells 'nationalism'

A HISTORY OF NATIONALISM IN MODERN JAPAN: Placing the People, by Kevin M. Doak. Leiden: Brill, 2006, 292 pp., $93 (cloth) There is no shortage of writing about nationalism in modern Japanese history. Nonetheless, the object of investigation has not always been clear, and until recently the term "nationalism"...
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Deplorable claim about Bhutto

Regarding the June 2 Washington Post article "Bhutto gave key nuclear data to Pyongyang" (which is based on conversations that London-based Indian journalist Shyam Bhatia claims to have had with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2003): It is illogical to believe that an international...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 22, 2008

Has Japan's dogged idealism of '68 become truly poodled?

On June 7, The New York Times' op-ed columnist Bob Herbert wrote an intriguing piece about the United States in 1968, recalling the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy exactly 40 years ago, and also referring to Sen. Barack Obama clinching the 2008 Democratic Party nomination for the presidency....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 22, 2008

How can the press be free if it's used as a public-relations tool?

The Supreme Court's decision on June 12 to reverse a lower-court ruling that had found in favor of a women's group received a fair share of concerned media coverage. The suit involved a program NHK had produced about a 2001 citizens' tribunal, which prosecuted Japan's wartime leaders on behalf of sex...
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2008

The confines of Darwin's writing

Regarding Rowan Hooper's June 11 article, "Of Darwin and Mishima . . . ," which reviews Charles Darwin's scientific ideas and their impact: Hooper says Darwin rebelled against his father when, at 22, he set off on the HSM Beagle for a voyage around the world but that "the greater rebellion -- mounted,...

Longform

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