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Michael Meyer
For Michael Meyer's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2016
Brace for the coming wave of oil-crunch refugees
Oil wealth can be both a blessing and a curse.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2015
Bringing pressure on Africa's ivory poachers
Poaching for ivory is taking a horrible toll on endangered species in Africa, but there is cause for hope as well.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2009
The day that Romania's 'bears' fought back
NEW YORK — The late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu liked to hunt bear. With his retinue, he would retreat to a lodge in Transylvania and sally forth, locked and loaded. He was accustomed to good fortune, for his huntsmen took precautions. They would chain some poor beast to a tree, drug it to keep it still, and conceal themselves around the blind from which the Great Man would shoot.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2009
'Happiest' revolution of 1989 was in Prague
NEW YORK — It was early June 1989. Vaclav Havel had been released from jail only days before, yet he was full of what now seems an almost prophetic certainty. Thousands of his countrymen had written letters petitioning for his release, at a time when declaring solidarity with Czechoslovakia's most famous dissident was a clear and dangerous act of civil disobedience.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2009
Recalling the fall of the Wall 20 years later: 'Botched' press release changed the world
NEW YORK — For weeks, the scene has been re-played on TV screens around the world, as if the events were breaking news: joyous Berliners dancing atop the infamous Wall, toppled 20 years ago on Nov. 9, 1989.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2009
Tearing down the Iron Curtain
PRAGUE — A quiz for history buffs. Twenty years ago — on June 4, 1989 — three events shaped a fateful year. Which do you remember most vividly, and which most changed the world?: (a) the bloody denouement of the protests on Tiananmen Square; (b) the death of Iran's revolutionary cleric, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini; and (c) the Polish elections.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on