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May 06, 2024
 

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Eli Lake
For Eli Lake's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2016
China's 'little green boats' have Japan on alert
Chinese activity near the Senkakus is another example of the rise of ambiguous warfare, where a state uses irregular forces or nonmilitary means to advance its territorial goals.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2016
Why Obama let Iran's 'Green Movement' fail
President Barack Obama missed a golden opportunity when he refused to prove U.S. support for Iran's pro-democracy movement in 2009.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2016
Is Donald Trump a Democratic Party plant?
Who in the end really gains from Donald Trump's paranoid, fact-free campaign style. A lot of people are saying it's Hillary Clinton.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2016
Trump adviser outlines an all-out war on terror
A former U.S. general who is advising Donald Trump argues the next president should go big and try to win the fight against radical Islam.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2016
The Palestinian incentive program for killing Jews
The killers of Israeli Jews are considered 'martyrs' and their families are paid for the service these murderers have done for the Palestinian cause.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2016
U.S. may stop subsidizing Israeli defense firms
U.S. President Barack Obama would like to phase out the agreement that allows Israel to spend 26 percent of U.S. annual aid at home.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 21, 2016
Israeli prophet of freedom gives in to reality
Noted Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky says Israel's cooperation with Egyptian leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in the Sinai is a matter of physical survival.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2016
Obama's foreign policy guru is the 'Blob' he says he hates
The idea that Barack Obama's chief foreign policy message guru is somehow independent of, or in opposition to, the foreign policy establishment is delusion. He embodies that establishment.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2016
Why Obama invests in the Saudi ally he disdains
The United States and Saudi Arabia today share a common enemy in the terrorists whom the Saudis once allowed to fester.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2016
The terms of the Iran nuclear deal keep changing
U.S. President Barack Obama accepted an agreement in July that allowed Iran to keep in place the industrial-sized nuclear program it had built in defiance of the United Nations. This gives Iran a loaded gun with which to blackmail the rest of the world.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2015
Iran's poison-penned peace letter to Obama
A letter that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is reported to have sent to President Barack Obama, saying Iran was open to a more direct alliance against the Islamic State group if negotiators could iron out a deal on Tehran's nuclear program, should be viewed as coming from a poison pen.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2015
Islamic State's best recruiting tool is boredom
Many of the young people drawn to the Islamic State group, particularly those born far away from the Middle East and North Africa, are just plain bored, and no amount of education and political reform will curb the temptation to be part of a movement that claims to be changing history.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 13, 2015
Foreign recruits are Islamic State's cannon fodder
Aspiring jihadists looking to join the Islamic State army are often lured to the front lines with promises of changing the course of history, but at least for less-skilled foreign recruits, especially those from Central Asia, the experience of fighting for the new caliphate is oftren brief and bloody.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2015
Obama's Middle East fantasy
For all of the problems posed by significant U.S. ground forces in the Middle East, it is the only option right now if President Barack Obama wishes to stop the advance of the Islamic State group without aiding the advance of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
COMMENTARY
Jan 20, 2015
Why the U.S. president can't say 'radical Islam'
Don't expect the U.S. to publicly speak of a war against radical Islam, even as it continues to kill radical Muslims throughout the Islamic world.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2014
North Korea's nukes are much scarier than its hacks
While the world's attention focuses on North Korea's cyberwar with Sony Pictures, the Hermit Kingdom is rapidly increasing its stockpile of nuclear weapons material, with real little pushback from the U.S.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2014
Pakistan's new war on the Taliban may ensnare U.S.
The massacre earlier this week at a school in Pakistan not only is likely to set off a new round of fighting between the country's army and the Taliban but also may push U.S. President Barack Obama to renew the counter-terrorism partnership with Pakistan that has deteriorated since the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Japan says Biden's description of nation as xenophobic is 'unfortunate'
The National Diet building in Tokyo
As visitors surge, Japan seeks ways to make tourism eco-friendly
Much like other hot spots across Okinawa, Onna has diligently strived to captivate both domestic and international tourists, while at the same time grappling with the environmental strain induced by the influx of visitors.
G7 eyes plan on U.S.-led $50 billion aid package for Ukraine
A local resident visits the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Thursday. The U.S. is in talks with close partners to lead a group of allies that would give as much as $50 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Japan drops to 70th in press freedom rankings
A businessman reads a newspaper outside a train station in Tokyo.
Kishida talks up bolstered Latin American ties as China cements position
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida holds a news conference in Sao Paulo on Saturday.
As visitors surge, Japan seeks ways to make tourism eco-friendly
Much like other hot spots across Okinawa, Onna has diligently strived to captivate both domestic and international tourists, while at the same time grappling with the environmental strain induced by the influx of visitors.
'Monster' Inoue ready to tear down Luis Nery in title defense at Tokyo Dome
Naoya Inoue (left) and Luis Nery following a pre-fight news conference in Yokohama on Saturday, two days ahead of their super bantamweight title fight.
Debate on constitutional revision at a standstill despite Kishida's pledges
With less than two months left before the conclusion of the current session of parliament, any possibility that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can deliver constitutional reform before the end of his term as Liberal Democratic Party president in late September, as he has promised, appears remote.
Sapporo court ruling on Ainu fishing rights presents tough questions
A traditional Ainu preserved food called <i>satchep</i> (dried fish) being made at the government-run National Ainu Museum and Park, nicknamed Upopoy, in the town of Shiraoi, Hokkaido, on Dec. 25. The Sapporo District Court ruled last month that the Raporo Ainu Nation's rights as an Indigenous people did not extend to having an inherent right to fish for commercial reasons.
With eye on China, defense chiefs agree to bolster interoperability
From left: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian defense chief Richard Marles, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro hold a joint news conference in Honolulu on Thursday.

Podcast

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

Longform

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

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