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COMMENTARY / World

Aug 15, 2005

Scholar troubled by Japan's direction

By Nobuko Hara

Few intellectuals in Japan today are as deeply committed to peace and democracy as Rokuro Hidaka is. The 88-year-old sociologist is a witness to Japan's aggression in China and, during the war, even went as far as proposing that Japan withdraw its troops from China, return its colonies and lay down foundations...

COMMENTARY

Aug 14, 2005

Reform mantra mesmerizes

By Gregory Clark

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's decision to call a Diet Lower House election Sept. 11 solely on the question of post office privatization is curious.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Aug 14, 2005

Chiune Sugihara: His conscience gleams out of the darkness

By Roger Pulvers

Exactly 60 years ago, during the evening of Aug. 14, 1945, Emperor Hirohito recorded the speech of surrender to be broadcast to the Japanese nation the next day at noon.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 14, 2005

Just a slab of cold peace after 60 years

By Jing-dong Yuan

MONTEREY, Calif. — Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. In Asia, it is an especially critical milestone as China, South Korea and many Southeast Asian countries recall their struggle against the Japanese invasions, valuing peace all the more today. Time is supposed to heal...

COMMENTARY

Aug 12, 2005

Dreams drive the nightmare

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel is again pushing legislation to reintroduce a draft in America. He first did so in 2003 to slow the Bush administration's rush to war. Now he says conscription is necessary to provide the bodies necessary for Iraq's occupation.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 11, 2005

Put everything on the table

By Michael O'Hanlon and Michael Horowitz

WASHINGTON -- North Korea's return to six-party negotiations in Beijing has been accompanied by greater civility and seriousness than many expected. Further, the frequent and direct bilateral contacts that have taken place between the U.S. and North Korean delegations -- a softening of the Bush administration's...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 11, 2005

Long-term value of new peace memorial

By Masamichi Hanabusa

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine have unduly been compounded as a diplomatic issue in Japan's relations with China and South Korea. It seems that Chinese and Korean leaders consider the visits supportive of moves by some Japanese to "legitimize the wrongs of the past."

COMMENTARY

Aug 10, 2005

No rationalization for Nagasaki attack

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI -- History is written by victors and thus abounds in well-cultivated rationalizations for the winners' actions, however unjustifiable or gory they might be. Vanquishers are rarely burdened by guilt. Sometimes the rationalization stops with their first major slaughter in a war, as if their willful...

COMMENTARY

Aug 10, 2005

When it comes to American policy, Tokyo and Beijing have something in common

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- In two recent decisions involving the two major powers of East Asia, the United States revealed that it is still ungenerous about sharing power, even with a close ally like Japan, and that it is still so paranoid about China that it is willing to risk antagonizing it by acting as if it...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 9, 2005

The power of empathy

By Daisaku Ikeda

August is a time when questions of war and peace seem to hang in the heavy summer air like the feverish trilling of the cicadas -- this year, in particular, as it marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, which came to a close with Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.

COMMENTARY

Aug 7, 2005

Legacy of tepid leadership

By Keizo Nabeshima

For Japanese, August is a gloomy month. In the Pacific War, which ended in August 60 years ago, more than 3 million Japanese troops died. In the final days of the war, U.S. forces dropped history's first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki following indiscriminate carpet bombings of Japanese cities...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 7, 2005

Nepalese children caught in the crossfire

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- The armed conflict in Nepal between the government and Maoist guerrillas is making victims of an increasing number of children, who have been subjected to a wide array of human-rights violations. Over the past several years, the U.N. Security Council has worked to develop a body of law intended...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.

What comes after 100?

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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