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COMMENTARY
Jul 5, 2004

Genuine educational reform

As part of the government-proposed trilogy of reform, a review will be made of having the national treasury pay the costs of compulsory education. Present plans call for transferring some government revenues generated by the consumption tax and other sources to local autonomies and abolishing various...
COMMENTARY
Jun 1, 2004

Koizumi took the right risks

The success or failure of summit diplomacy depends primarily on whether it promotes the pursuit of medium- and long-term national interests -- not on whether it yields short-term, specific results. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's May 22 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il should be evaluated...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 3, 2004

Public gradually more accepting of constitutional change

Revising the war-renouncing Constitution, which has not seen a single change since it was introduced in 1947, is increasingly becoming a possibility, although a public consensus is still elusive on the most sensitive issue of what to do with Article 9.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 25, 2004

Shame lies with government and media over Iraq hostage crisis

Last week, the Asahi Shimbun ran an opinion piece by writer Genichiro Takahashi that was in the form of an advice column. The anonymous advice-seeker professed to having suffered the same fate as the three Japanese hostages who returned from Iraq to a chorus of derision. After all I went through, said...
BUSINESS
Apr 17, 2004

Nancy Baker steps into beef-testing fray

WASHINGTON (Kyodo)Former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker, the wife of Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker, has sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture asking it to reconsider its refusal to allow meatpackers to test all slaughtered cattle for mad cow disease, a copy of the letter obtained Thursday...
COMMENTARY
Mar 31, 2004

Madrid attack redefines EU

LONDON -- The bomb outrage and mass slaughter of train commuters in Madrid on March 11 has changed the face of European politics in more ways than one.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 28, 2004

The Iraq war in retrospect

The question that crops up repeatedly when we register our opposition to the Iraq war is: Would you rather then have Saddam Hussein still in power? It's a fair question that deserves a serious answer. Unlike in 1990, when Hussein did have a few admirers, last year he had none. This makes the failure...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Mar 21, 2004

Bush morphs into a scrappy candidate

WASHINGTON -- Mid-March is a time of significant anniversaries:
EDITORIALS
Mar 20, 2004

Time to readjust foreign policy

A year after the United States went to war against Iraq, Japanese people are asking themselves what it really meant to Japan. All questions begin with a central fact that underscores Japanese foreign policy: Japan and the U.S. are bound closely together under a bilateral security treaty. Yet many are...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2004

The obstruction to Sri Lanka's evolution

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The continuous conflict between Sri Lanka's two main leaders has been covered from nearl every angle. What have been largely ignored, though, are the complications and contradictions arising on that beautiful island from a political system of "cohabitation." At present, public...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 5, 2004

An insider's take on why Bonds may have turned to steroids

Did jealousy prompt Barry Bonds to become involved with steroids?
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2004

Changing security situation may alter collective defense stance: Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi hinted Tuesday that the government might alter its constitutional interpretation of the nation's right to collective self-defense as it deals with future changes in the security situation.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 8, 2004

For better or worse

Exactly 100 years ago this week, Japan embarked on its first war with a major Western power. Though Emperor Meiji's forces scored a technical knockout the following year, the outcome was to shape Japan's destiny through to the A-bombs and beyond
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2004

A place for 'judicial positivism'

In a representative democracy, the value of one vote is supposed to be more or less equal. In the 2001 Upper House election, however, one vote in rural districts carried much greater weight than it did in urban districts; in an extreme case, one ballot in Tottori Prefecture was worth 5.06 ballots in...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2004

51.6% oppose SDF dispatch to Iraq but Cabinet support up

People opposing the dispatch of Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq for humanitarian operations outnumbered those supporting it in a Kyodo News opinion poll taken over the weekend.
COMMENTARY
Jan 14, 2004

Japan blind to Chinese reality

A recent tour of Chinese universities took me to Changchun, the capital of the puppet Manchukuo state that Japan tried to set up in the 1930s in China's remote northeast region. Today it is a sprawling conurbation of more than 6 million people, broad highways and high-rise apartments and a key player...
JAPAN
Jan 8, 2004

LDP mulls openness, primaries for candidates

A Liberal Democratic Party reform committee wants to adopt an open system for recruiting candidates to run in national elections, according to a draft of the plan made available to Kyodo News.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2004

SDF dispatch decision like a double-edged sword

When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi voiced his unequivocal support of the U.S.-led war on Iraq in March, he was left with little choice but to commit Self-Defense Forces troops to the country's postwar reconstruction effort.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2004

Tokyo can aid key ally by luring it back into multilateral fold

It is often said that 9/11 has changed the world. Certainly, the world being swayed by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of that event appears to prove the saying correct.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2004

Decision to dispatch SDF troops to Iraq a watershed for defense, security policy

Japan's decision to send Self-Defense Forces troops to Iraq, coupled with the decision to introduce a missile defense system, marks a major turning point for the nation's defense and security policy. Never in its 50-year history has the SDF been mobilized for noncombat duties in a foreign country in...
EDITORIALS
Dec 31, 2003

Assault on the established order

The concluding year will be remembered for the many ways it undermined the building blocks of the world as we know it. Globally, regionally and even here at home, the events of 2003 posed a direct challenge to the most basic ways in which states and societies act. While change is inevitable, it is by...
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2003

Courageous decision on Iraq

LONDON -- The Japanese government's decision to send members of the Self-Defense Forces to take part in humanitarian efforts in Iraq was a courageous one.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2003

Canberra's silly season of politics

SYDNEY -- Midsummer madness is already upon us. Australians can always tell when the silly season strikes by the antics of Canberra politicians. This time it's come early -- and they're playing their games with comic vengeance.
COMMENTARY
Nov 9, 2003

Iraq changes U.S. presidential scenarios

HONG KONG -- Seen from East Asia, American politics appear to be undergoing a sea-change. Mainly under the pressure of events in Iraq, President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004 has become much more uncertain, and it has become easier to see some of the Democratic Party's potential candidates becoming...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 30, 2003

Our oceans' ecology is all at sea

For many years, I have been attempting to inform people that our life-supporting oceanic wildlife is being rapidly destroyed by human misuse and overuse.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2003

Farmers win round vs. TV Asahi

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a high court's rejection of a suit filed by Saitama Prefecture farmers seeking damages from TV Asahi Corp. for a report on vegetable dioxin contamination.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2003

Winds of pragmatism blow in Beijing

LONDON -- Like many religions, communism does not admit that it -- or those that represent it at the head of governments -- can make mistakes. Historical inevitability means that the party must be correct. To acknowledge anything else would be to undermine the basic certainties upon which Marxism rests....
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2003

Merger of opposition parties may bring grand reform era

On July 24, lawmakers of the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Party approved an agreement for the two opposition parties to merge before the end of September. Some pundits criticized the scheduled merger as "unprincipled," but I disagree. I believe it has major significance for the nation.
COMMENTARY
Jul 28, 2003

More transparency needed in investigations of suspects

Little progress is reported in Japan-U.S. talks on legal proceedings in the alleged rape of an Okinawan woman by a U.S. serviceman. A hitch has developed over the demand by U.S. authorities for greater protection of the suspect's rights.
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2003

Japanese-style management deserves updated appraisal

Japanese-style management was once widely acclaimed as ideal. Since the collapse of the bubble economy, though, it has been discarded as a model for its incompatibility with reform. Now the system is being revaluated, and active debate is going on in the business community on how to adapt it to changing...

Longform

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