Tag - union

 
 

UNION

Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2015
Europe's unending crisis
The European economic crisis refuses to go gently into the night because of the danger that Greece and its creditors can't agree and because of meager economic growth in the eurozone.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2014
Is the European Union too rigid to survive?
Uncompromising attempts to bind Europe together may instead hasten its abrupt and unmanageable dissolution, with unknown consequences.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 30, 2014
Voters tiring of status quo
Voters in Britain and other European countries are increasingly fed up with their established political parties and looking for alternatives.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2014
EU should encourage Ukraine's aspirations
The European Union should strive to turn Ukraine into a success story that can serve as an example for Russians who now see no alternative to Vladimir Putin.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2014
Putin's defense of Hitler pact should worry all
The fact that — in 2014 — Russian President Vladimir Putin is openly prepared to defend the 1939 Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact — an archetype of cynical, totalitarian politics — should concern us all.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2014
Optimize the troubled eurozone
Europe's leaders must recognize that the eurozone, as currently constituted, is larger than Europe's optimal currency area. Some member countries — certainly Greece, and probably Italy and Spain — need an independent monetary policy.
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 1, 2014
Commemorating wartime Soviet spy Sorge
Seventy years ago on Nov. 7, the Japanese authorities executed Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy who became a member of the Nazi Party and was operating as a journalist in wartime Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2014
The Cold War and the cold shoulder
From the current Russian regime's perspective, declarations that EU and NATO expansion is about spreading values, accountable institutions and good governance — not military or economic competition — is beyond hypocritical.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2014
Sanctions on Russia will backfire on U.S. and EU
As things stand now, Russia, the U.S. and the EU are being hurt by the West's sanctions on Russia. It is a truly no-win situation for all those involved.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Oct 4, 2014
Mao Tse-tung seeks to quell internal friction; Shinkansen starts operations; Tokyo Olympics open; America's No. 1 threat?
The XVIII Olympiad, the first to be held in Asia, opened Saturday afternoon amid a profusion of pomp and youthful enthusiasm at the National Stadium before an over-capacity crowd of 80,000 spectators.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2014
Is Berlin driving Paris to the brink?
President Franu00e7ois Hollande has instructed his prime minister to form a new government — without those troublemakers who want to stop the economic austerity in Europe, or at least apply some flexibility, before it is too late.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014
U.K. should stay in EU until they beg it to leave
The European Union moves under a seemingly irresistible momentum to strengthen its institutions even as it fails to integrate in ways that a well-run single-currency area needs. The best course for Britain is to continue as an EU member for the economic benefits until other members beg it to leave.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014
How vodka limits hastened the USSR's demise
When the Soviet Union finally disintegrated at the end of 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the new Russian leader, decided not to repeat Mikhail Gorbachev's error of restricting access to vodka. Some say it was Gorbachev's sober way of life — and his attempt to impose it on his countrymen — that makes Russians dislike him in retrospect.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014
The silver fox of dictatorship and democracy
The reality of the times was that Eduard Shevardnadze was both a democrat and a despot. His death brings closer to the end the Gorbachev generation of reform communists who presented a stark contrast to the dour Brezhnev-era hard-liners, spurring (mostly inadvertently) the collapse of the Soviet empire and the long transition to democracy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2014
U.K. could learn from Canada about destiny
Depending on how it's done, leaving the EU spans a range of outcomes for the United Kingdom, running from 'terrible' all the way up to 'better than remaining a member.'
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2014
Shevardnadze's lessons for the West
Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister and Georgian president who died Monday at 86, was not an effective leader, but if Western leaders had paid closer attention to what he said when he was alive, they would have been better prepared for today's crisis in Ukraine.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2014
Is the U.K.-Europe marriage beyond salvation?
The nomination of a 'federalist' to head the European Commission shows that the EU is institutionally dedicated to the idea of ever closer union, regardless of what its citizens, especially Britons, actually want.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.