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The consumption tax increase next April will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people's financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the impact of the hike, experts say.
Every parent is all too familiar with The Tantrum. The screaming, the flailing arms, the angry head butting — and the timing (normally in the most inconvenient public place possible).
International events undermine Japan's democracy. Shame on the International Olympic Committee for being a party to it.
Tucked away behind the main museums in Ueno, the Tokyo University Art Museum may not be on most people’s radar, but it is definitely one of the city’s top museums in terms of curatorial quality. Whenever I go there, I am always delighted by ...
Francisco Liriano showed up at PNC Park on Tuesday afternoon in a suit with his suitcase packed for a trip St. Louis. The message reverberated through the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse. After 21 years away from the playoffs, it was time for the best story ...
Ramesh Thakur is Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; adjunct professor, Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, Griffith University, and editor-in-chief of Global Governance from Jan. 1, 2013. He began writing for The Japan Times in 1998 as Vice Rector of the United Nations University.
For Ramesh Thakur's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
The twin crises involving Syria and Iran demonstrate the continuing utility of the United Nations as the Security Council remains the cockpit for addressing geopolitical upheavals.
It's harder for the U.S. to claim legitimacy for circumventing U.N. paralysis, it has used the veto more often than China and Russia combined since the end of the Cold War.
For the Australian Labor Party, a crushing defeat on Saturday night was the finale of a tragedy in five acts.
When Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush as U.S. president, the world heaved a collective sigh of relief. How ironic then that Obama risks making the U.S. the biggest international outlaw of our times.
Assertions that Syrian President Bashar Assad is guilty of chemical weapons use without hard evidence presented to the international community will not do, not after the dodgy dossiers fiasco on Iraq in 2003.
lmost half a century after the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed, the world is still perched precariously on the edge of the nuclear precipice.
How long will the United Nations division of labor last in which Westerners are the norm setters and enforcers while the rest are norm takers
Mohamed Morsi and his camp certainly erred and were not inclusive, but their martyrdom has dealt a big setback to the cause of democracy and the rule of law in Egypt.
Even by the standards of a sports-mad country in which politics is a blood-sport, the events leading to the comeback of Kevin Rudd have been extraordinary.
Sooner or later North Korea must be brought back into negotiations. Some now call denuclearization a pipe dream, preferring to focus on arms control.
North Korea's nuclear and missile programs are a source of instability and tension in a region vital to global security and economic prosperity.
A terrible tragedy is unfolding in (fill in the name of your favorite trouble spot). Something must be done. This (choose from sending troops, air strikes, enforcing a no fly zone, arming rebels) is something. Therefore it must be done. Such is what passes ...