David Howell - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Meta

David Howell

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

COMMENTARY

Aug 28, 2008

How to handle an angry bear

Experts and commentators have been pouring out books, pamphlets and articles in recent times telling us that conventional wars between states are a thing of the past and that all nations now instead face a kind of globalized, nihilistic terrorism requiring entirely new responses. Unfortunately the Russians...

COMMENTARY

Aug 14, 2008

Growing energy disarray

The energy policies of European nations, and of Britain in particular, are in disarray. Admittedly the ferocious rise in crude oil prices has eased, but how long the present dip will last, with the Russians bombing one of the main oil transit pipelines from the Caspian region through Georgia and the...

COMMENTARY

Jul 31, 2008

An outbreak of nationalism

The issue of Scottish nationalism has again come to a head, and is raising serious political issues for all of Britain. The situation has been sparked by the outcome of a recent parliamentary by-election which, to general surprise, the Scottish Nationalist candidate won.

COMMENTARY

Jul 17, 2008

Let's hope it's over soon

The world is now in the grip of a first-class financial crisis. Some will be hit harder than others, but no one is going to escape. Final confirmation of this has arrived with the news that the two giant mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pillars of American life that underwrite, or insure,...

Japan Times

JAPAN

Jul 6, 2008

Still 'efficient' G8 faces new realities

The 19th-century historian and political analyst Walter Bagehot divided affairs of state between what he called the dignified and the efficient. In the dignified category were great formal meetings of state, the pomp and ceremony surrounding heads of state and monarchs, and all the symbolic parades and...

COMMENTARY

Jul 3, 2008

Iraq's petroleum dilemmas

An intense debate is going on inside Iraq about the future of its oil industry. That such a debate should be going on at all is encouraging and a sign that at last the security situation may be getting better and the government more established.

COMMENTARY

Jun 19, 2008

What's Europe's next move?

The Irish have spoiled the party. By decisively voting down in a referendum the proposed Lisbon Treaty on the future organization and governance of the European Union, the Irish have brought the whole process of EU reform to a dead halt.

COMMENTARY

Jun 4, 2008

Energy-cost issue boils over

Is the green party over? Is the ferocious rise in energy costs worldwide, driven by the soaring price of oil, undermining all the enthusiasm for saving the planet in the longer term via cutting carbon emissions and penalizing all forms of fossil-fuel consumption?

COMMENTARY / World

May 22, 2008

Remember the black swans

The great global economic establishment is once again divided as to what is going to happen next. Half say we are lurching toward a new bout of world inflation. Half say the danger is deflation and world recession, even depression.

COMMENTARY

May 10, 2008

Britain's next government must beat mood of retreat

LONDON — Has the political tide in Britain now turned? And is the Labour Party under Prime Minister Gordon Brown now heading for defeat?

COMMENTARY

Apr 24, 2008

Now it's food versus fuel

What is the next great global problem we have to fear? The answer is not climate change and global warming, but food shortage and starvation. Suddenly, and in ways largely unforeseen by experts, a serious shortage of food supplies, especially corn and rice, has crept up on the world. The result has been...

COMMENTARY

Apr 2, 2008

U.K.'s ongoing EU headache

LONDON — What is a constitution? The question may seem to be a rarefied and abstruse one for lawyers and academics, but just at the moment it lies at the very heart of British politics and strategy.

COMMENTARY

Mar 20, 2008

Brace for the Arctic oil rush

LONDON — For decades the world's major oil companies and their engineering experts have been eyeing the Arctic region and wondering how to get at the oil and gas deposits that are said to lie, in almost legendary quantities, beneath the vast expanses of ice. With the price of crude oil now well...

COMMENTARY

Mar 5, 2008

Sovereign funds rescue West

LONDON — Ten years ago some commentators, including myself, were forecasting that the age of Westernization was over and that the age of Easternization was about to begin. Capital and technology that had flowed from the West to the East for several centuries past was now about to start flowing...

COMMENTARY

Feb 20, 2008

Chasing out rich foreigners

LONDON — Of all the unwise policies of recent years that have steadily undermined the Thatcher legacy of British economic dynamism and enterprise, perhaps the worst and most ill-judged is the current attempt to drive out the super-rich foreigners who have hitherto found Britain such an attractive...

COMMENTARY

Feb 7, 2008

Russia disappoints the world

LONDON — What are we to do about Russia?

COMMENTARY

Jan 22, 2008

An idea whose time has gone

LONDON — Back in the 1970s a political idea became very fashionable in Western Europe, and especially in Britain. This was the concept of multiculturalism — the belief that different immigrant and ethnic groupings, who were then pouring into the region, should be left to their own devices...

COMMENTARY

Jan 4, 2008

Global 'war' waged in vain

LONDON — The tragic killing of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan has sent a raft of shock-wave messages round the world. Most of these have been carefully and lengthily noted and analyzed — such as the concern that Pakistan, labeled a frontline state in the fight against terrorism, could now collapse...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 22, 2007

Wrong approach to Africa

LONDON — An acrimonious summit meeting between EU leaders and the leaders of African countries ended last week in Lisbon. The EU was trying to offer the Africans a new trade deal, but many of the African representatives argued that the deal would make them worse off, not better off. They denounced...

COMMENTARY

Dec 3, 2007

When we let machines down

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

Spotlighting a Niigata castle town through sushi

Spotlighting a Niigata castle town through sushi

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports