Glyn Ford - The Japan Times

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Glyn Ford

For Glyn Ford's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 3, 2000

2002 World Cup: Soccer without fear?

BRUSSELS -- The first world cup of the new millennium is to be staged in Japan and South Korea in the summer of 2002. Both countries want to use this billion-dollar sporting showpiece as a global shop window allowing those watching, both in the stadiums and on TV, to see the real Japan and the real South Korea. This is a laudable aim that can easily turn sour. The thrills, drama and excitement need to be restricted to the pitch rather than the streets around the stadium or the local bars.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 27, 2000

Shaky finances threaten to sink KEDO

Sinp'o is a quiet coastal town on the edge of the Japan Sea in North Korea, almost two hours by helicopter from the capital Pyongyang. There is a beautiful swath of unspoiled beach, edged with bushes and shrubs typical of marine margins, and clusters of shabby houses and farms littered across the landscape.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 20, 2000

Is Pyongyang coming in from the cold?

The Huichon Children's Hospital is cold and damp. It is the only hospital in this city 200 kilometers north of Pyongyang. It has had no heating since floods in 1995 ruined the boiler. Along with no heat, there is no medicine and no food. Huddled listlessly in the small communal rooms that serve as wards are mothers with their emaciated children in advanced stages of malnutrition, too weak to cry, too strong yet to die.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 12, 2000

In Labor's moment of crisis, Blair delivers

The recent Labor Party conference in Brighton saw Prime Minister Tony Blair in an unprecedented position. Set against a backdrop of enormous public discontent, evident in the response to the fuel strike by the major oil companies, the Labor Party staged its centenary conference. The phony peace that had reigned since Labor's general election victory had produced an electoral honeymoon that seemed to many as if it would last forever. The events prior to the conference had meant it was well and truly over, however. For the first time since 1994, Labor trailed in the opinion polls.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 7, 2000

Britain's future is at the heart of Europe

Britain is still on course to join the euro despite the narrow rejection of formal membership by Denmark in last week's referendum. Denmark is Europe's second-smallest country, represents only 2 percent of European gross national product, and anyway has already tied its currency, the krone, to the euro. Whether this will continue when the currency speculators pounce and the European central banks rightly stand aside is another matter.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 16, 2000

Shining a light on global 'Big Brother'

Perhaps more appropriately to the world of James Bond than to the European Union, Echelon -- an international spying network in which governments covertly cooperate to intercept global communications -- is causing a stir in the European Parliament.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 19, 2000

Socialist International surveys the scene

The Socialist International's Asia Pacific Committee met Aug. 7-8 in Wellington, New Zealand, at the invitation of Helen Clark, the Labor prime minister. The urgent issue on the agenda was Fiji. Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, the Fiji Labor Party leader who had been overthrown, explained the background.

CULTURE / Books

Aug 16, 2000

The 'third way' goes via Japan

CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN JAPAN, edited by Ian Inkster and Fumihiko Satofuka. 2000, I.B. Tauris, 39.50 British pounds / St. Martin's Press, $59.50. THE JAPANESE AND EUROPE: Images and Perceptions, by Bert Edstrom. Japan Library, 35 British pounds / $55. In less than 150 years, Japan has changed from a peripheral feudal state into the second-most-powerful industrial nation in the world. This is no accident. When Commander Matthew C. Perry forcibly unlocked Japan from its self-imposed isolation by triggering the Meiji Restoration of 1868, it quickly became clear that Japan's only choice was a forced march to modernization.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 30, 2000

Enlist currency speculators in poverty war

BRUSSELS -- How can we eradicate world poverty? This is a question all developed nations have a responsibility to consider. At the beginning of the new millennium, we may have found the answer -- a global tax on capital transfers.

COMMENTARY / World

May 7, 2000

European sports play by their own rules

It is said that the military is always prepared to fight the last war and never the next. In the economic domain the same is true of politicians, who are generally at least a generation or two out of date. In Britain in 1913, there were 1.3 million miners, meaning that almost one in 10 men were working in the coal industry. By the early 1980s, there were less coal miners than people employed by Japanese inward investors in Britain, yet in terms of the political debate it would have been impossible to tell.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 2, 2000

High-tech juggernaut is a dangerous ride

Apparently, sales of dog food by the U.S. shopping giant Wal-Mart were bigger than the worldwide sales chalked up by e-commerce last year. Even if that is true, the current media frenzy about e-commerce makes it hard to countenance. There is a danger that this current fashion for one particular technology and its commercialization will impede rational thinking.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 26, 1999

Causes of Tokai disaster not so simple

In November, I visited JCO Co.'s nuclear fuel-processing plant -- a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. -- where Sept. 30 a level-5 nuclear incident took place. The plant is located 110 km from Tokyo in the small town of Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture. The plant is in an area that is a blend of residences and light industry. The nearest industry is less than 80 meters from the site of the accident and the nearest residential housing only 20 meters further away. There is a school in the vicinity, and when I stood outside the small, concrete building where the accident took place, I could hear children's shrill voices from the nearby playground.

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

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.

The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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