David Howell - The Japan Times

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David Howell

For David Howell's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY

Dec 20, 2000

The world may welcome Bush

LONDON -- While the United States adjusts to the idea of having George W. Bush as its new president, his predecessor has been treading the international stage for the last time -- at least in a presidential capacity. Bill Clinton's "final" visit to Britain received immense coverage, some of it almost adulatory.

COMMENTARY

Dec 13, 2000

Look to history for guidance

THE REICHSTAG, Berlin -- Here in this building, 68 years ago, German democracy died, ushering in the darkest period of 20th-century history.

COMMENTARY

Nov 26, 2000

EU treaty anything but nice

LONDON -- A new treaty is being born in Europe, and it looks as though the birth will be a difficult one.

COMMENTARY

Nov 18, 2000

Wired world has its limits

LONDON -- Is everything breaking down?

COMMENTARY

Oct 25, 2000

When leaders fail to lead

LONDON -- Countries and peoples that make peace after years or even generations of enmity require very strong leaders. Just as it needed a Charles de Gaulle to tell the French to stop fighting the Algerians, a Konrad Adenauer to tell the Germans to love the French, a Harry Truman or a Douglas MacArthur to tell the Americans to embrace postwar Japan, a Winston Churchill to bury British hatred of the Germans, so it will need the wisest and most respected leaders in the Middle East to bring the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Arabs together after decades, indeed centuries, of fighting.

COMMENTARY

Oct 1, 2000

Log on to network politics

Events can act often as an illuminating light. Predictions, warnings and expert forecasts of which no one took much notice suddenly become obvious to everyone.

COMMENTARY

Sep 14, 2000

Paving the road to failure

LONDON -- If good intentions could guarantee good results, the recently concluded Millennium Summit at the United Nations in New York would merit nothing but unreserved praise.

COMMENTARY

Aug 31, 2000

When silence is truly golden

LONDON -- Leading Japanese industrialists with big investments in Britain -- especially in the automobile industry -- have launched a chorus of complaints in recent weeks.

COMMENTARY

Aug 7, 2000

Updating the nuclear debate

LONDON -- Appearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary William Cohen has confirmed that he and his colleagues see the threat to the United States of long-range missile attack as growing. The intention to develop a national missile defense system against is therefore still firmly in place, despite a recent test failure.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 20, 2000

A chance for Japan to define and refocus the globalization debate

The world is in an uneasy mood.

COMMENTARY

Jul 5, 2000

Advancing smartly backward

LONDON -- It is an old American saying that "the pioneer is the one who gets the arrow in his back." So when President Jacques Chirac of France recently proposed a "pioneering" project to bring France and Germany still closer together at the political level and, as he put it, to "move further and faster ahead," there was an understandable feeling of unease among his fellow Europeans.

COMMENTARY

Jun 10, 2000

A Russian game of chess

LONDON -- U.S. President Bill Clinton has just been visiting Russia, stopping on the way in Western Europe to collect the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to European unity.

COMMENTARY

May 25, 2000

One currency, 11 masters

LONDON -- Many commentators seem genuinely surprised at the miserable performance of the euro. How, they ask, can it be that the new currency for most of Western Europe, which was billed to be the rival of the dollar and the world's alternative reserve currency, is now trading against the dollar at 25 percent below its issue value? Against the yen, the story is roughly the same and only a little better against the British pound. What has gone wrong?

COMMENTARY

Apr 19, 2000

New language for a new world

The prestigious Trilateral Commission met here in Tokyo earlier this month, bringing together some 130 influential people from three continents to focus on key world issues and offer some advice to participants in the forthcoming Okinawa Summit of world leaders. The commissioners heard speeches from Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, Peruvian novelist and activist Mario Vargas Lhosa, Softbank President Masayoshi Son and other stars and founts of wisdom. Former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi had planned to open the event with a major policy speech, but sadly was struck down by a stroke before he could attend.

COMMENTARY

Apr 3, 2000

Readying for future warfare

LONDON -- Could the Cold War be about to begin all over again? That is the gloomy question being asked by a number of defense analysts and gurus as they contemplate a possible decision this summer by outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton to give the go-ahead for a new National Missile Defense system for the United States.

COMMENTARY

Mar 2, 2000

How not to liberalize trade

LONDON -- Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once famously described -- or is alleged to have described -- the Japanese language as an unfair obstacle to trade. How, she is said to have demanded, could foreign suppliers possibly penetrate the rich Japanese market when it was protected by an impenetrable language barrier?

COMMENTARY

Feb 17, 2000

Japan sets the pace again

LONDON -- The report commissioned by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, "The Frontier Within," makes fascinating reading for Western eyes. Parts of it may be specific to the Japanese internal situation, but the key insights are highly relevant to every modern democracy, old and new, and especially to Britain.

COMMENTARY

Jan 9, 2000

Doomsayers have it wrong

LONDON -- Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, is a deeply spiritual and thoughtful man. Again and again he brings us back to the really central question of our times -- central in all societies and all religions, and becoming more so in a globalized age. What now binds us together? What are the bonds that maintain civic society, and within it, the family structure, with all its relationships, duties and obligations, upon which civil society rests? Of all Britain's religious and spiritual leaders, Sacks is the most inspiring -- and the most effective in sharing his insights.Spiritual leaders tend to come in two sorts -- the inspiring and the uninspiring, the relevant and the irrelevant, those in touch and out of touch. Sacks clearly comes in the former category -- he inspires, through his books and views; his questions and concerns are highly relevant, and he is in touch.

COMMENTARY

Dec 21, 1999

India's future prosperity lies with IT

NEW DELHI and LONDON -- The image of India that too many people still have in their minds is one of teeming millions, timeless customs, monstrous poverty and a giant, sluggish economy.

COMMENTARY

Nov 24, 1999

New Luddites at the gates

LONDON -- Ned Ludd was the leader of a mob, circa 1815, who went around smashing up new textile machinery in factories. Ludd calculated, correctly, that traditional jobs would be lost and familiar ways of life destroyed for thousands, even millions of British workers if the machines prevailed.

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

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.

The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces

By Stephen Mansfield

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

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