Kevin Rafferty - The Japan Times

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Kevin Rafferty

For Kevin Rafferty's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 13, 2010

Kan must rediscover Japan

HONG KONG — The looming indictment of Ichiro Ozawa for false reporting of political funds leaves Prime Minister Naoto Kan in a tricky spot about what to do about the still powerful shadow shogun of Japanese politics.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 11, 2010

Don't count Thai Prime Minister Abhisit out

BANGKOK — For a man who has faced seemingly endless efforts to oust him by both parliamentary ballot and by bullet, by the slippery devious machinations that are meat and drink to Thai politicians and by street protesters who took over the commercial heart of Bangkok for more than two months, Prime...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 8, 2010

China debates economy, while U.S. tempts disaster

HONG KONG — The world's financial leaders are gathering in Washington this weekend for crucial annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Never has the world so needed leadership, imagination and creative thinking, yet never has it been so lacking, with leaders sticking...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 4, 2010

Back to class for Summers after the free-market lunch

LONDON — Larry Summers was snatching lunch during the African Development Bank annual meeting while I interviewed him. Under no circumstances, his minder said, were we to take pictures while he was eating — a wise precaution as it spared our cameras from the backlash of presenting him chomping...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 27, 2010

Metamorphosis in Britain reveals empathizing pope

HONG KONG — Pope Benedict XVI is the antithesis of a pop star, elderly, shy, set in his ways, even finding it hard to hold a note. Yet in the United Kingdom the week before last, he received massive pop-starlike adulation, with successive crowds of 120,000 lining the streets of Edinburgh merely...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 25, 2010

The Icarus of currencies?

HONG KONG — My old friend Yoh Kurosawa just threw his head back and laughed: "How can you say that the rising yen is a danger. It proves we are strong, the world regards us as best."

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 21, 2010

Megalomania is airborne, business sense grounded

HONG KONG — What is it about aircraft that can induce a serious bout of megalomania?

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 17, 2010

Medical care shoppers bet on diagnosis, benign bugs

HONG KONG — The reception area is welcoming, open and airy with tropical green trees and plants. The rooms have sofas, tables and chairs, well-chosen paintings, as well as the bed. Menus are prepared by international chefs who compete for the privilege of being chosen for a month at a time. But...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 2010

Potash holds lessons for China on how to grow its economy

HONG KONG — The hostile takeover bid by Australia's BHP Billiton for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Canada, is worthy of a case study by Harvard Business Review, but it is also a fascinating example of the adventures and misadventures, opportunities, and considerable failings of global capitalism...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 8, 2010

Earth over a barrel of oil

HONG KONG — Oil prices continue to fluctuate nervously with every report or rumor that the world economy is either on the mend or heading for double dip recession. They slithered again when it became clear that the U.S. economy is still in trouble. Ben Bernanke, the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman,...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 3, 2010

Failings of Indian infrastructure

NEW DELHI — New Delhi at last has its proud defining modern monument at the very point of entry to India — a massive, sparkling new Terminal 3, which alone is the sixth-largest airport in the world. Remarkably, too, it was built on time, in three years by a public-private partnership, and...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 27, 2010

Downside of a yen haven

HONG KONG — Is the world economy about to enter the second part of a double dip, or is it merely bumping along the extended bottom of what will eventually be a U-shaped recovery, or is it a long L with no real upturn in sight? Or is there no clear pattern of who's up and who's down?

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 15, 2010

SOS for world disaster victims

HONG KONG — Television pictures tell terrible stories of the week: swirling floodwaters gobbling up people, cattle, homes, bridges, communications systems and threatening up to 20 million people in Pakistan; torrential rains triggering landslides in northwestern China; while dense smog suffocates...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 10, 2010

IMF barks at China over currency, account surplus

HONG KONG — The report by the International Monetary Fund on China published the week before last got less attention than it deserved, yet it is worth looking at what the IMF said.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 4, 2010

$1 trillion wasted on wars

HONG KONG — The calculator busily counting out how much money the United States has spent on wars since 2001 has raced past $1 trillion — $1,024 billion plus at the start of August. There is little point in trying to give a more refined figure since the clock ticks remorselessly on,...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 3, 2010

China's economic pride

HONG KONG — In international business and finance, no less than in politics, diplomacy, defense and control of tiny strategic islands and islets in the seas around it, China is showing an increasingly assertive tendency with the clear message that it will not allow itself to be pushed around by...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 28, 2010

Pedal faster, not slower

LONDON — Memo to Naoto Kan, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, and Hu Jintao and Manmohan Singh: Running an economy is like riding a bicycle — if you maintain a good speed, you can make progress; but if you reduce your speed, there is always the danger of losing...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 25, 2010

Claims of U.S. financial reform presuppose great leap of hope

LONDON — Champagne cork headlines were popping all over the United States the week before last when the Senate passed financial reform measures variously described as "a sweeping overhaul of the big banks" . . . "the biggest changes for generations" . . . "the greatest cleanup since the Great Depression"...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 22, 2010

Immelt's China meltdown

HONG KONG — General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt has certainly stirred up a hornet's nest in China with his words of wisdom about doing business there. In the most publicized supposedly private speech of the year, Immelt grumbled that it was getting very difficult for big companies...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 16, 2010

FIFA vs. the Cheating Heart

BARCELONA, Spain — The World Cup proved a triumph for the predictions of Paul the Octopus, which accurately forecast the rise and fall of Germany and the ultimate victory of Spain, after football pundits and the quants with their battery of supercomputers had tipped Brazil, Argentina, Germany or...

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Things may look perfect to the outside world, but today's mom is fine with some imperfection at home.

How 'Reiwa moms' are reshaping motherhood in Japan

By Mai Yoshikawa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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