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COMMENTARY / World

Nov 27, 2012

Something new for China?

By Michael Boskin

Political leadership transitions typically signal either a change in direction or continuity. But the mere prospect of such a transition usually postpones some important political decisions and freezes some economic activity, pending the resolution of the accompanying uncertainty.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 27, 2012

Heed history in East Asian territorial disputes

By Han Seung Soo

Chinese, South Korean and Japanese diplomats recently took to the podium of the United Nations General Assembly to reassert their countries' positions on the territorial issues surrounding several small islands in the seas of East Asia.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Nov 26, 2012

Punchy party names hark back to ignominy

By Hiroaki Sato

So, Shintaro Ishihara, who had abruptly quit the Tokyo governorship in October, set up a political party named Taiyo no To, then merged it with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's political party that doesn't sound like one, Nippon Ishin no Kai. Another political party that doesn't sound like one, Tachiagare...

COMMENTARY

Nov 26, 2012

Anti-nuclear madness doesn't jibe with concern about global warming

By Gwynne Dyer

After the loss of 10 million American lives in the Three-Mile Island calamity in 1979, the death of 2 billion in the Chernobyl holocaust in 1986, and now the abandonment of all of northern Japan following the death of millions in last year's Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, it is hardly surprising that...

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Nov 26, 2012

Municipal nuclear addiction

Municipalities hosting nuclear power plants throughout Japan have received large amounts of central government subsidies, donations from utilities and lucrative business contracts.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 26, 2012

You may need less sleep than you think, or not

By Till Roenneberg

If holiday shopping leaves you exhausted, a long weekend should offer an opportunity for some serious shut-eye. We spend between a quarter and a third of our lives asleep, but that doesn't make us experts on how much is too much, how little is too little, or how many hours of rest the kids need to be...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Nov 25, 2012

First love no use when the last hope for Japan is the chance to marry

By Roger Pulvers

Boy meets girl. They fall in love. What happens after that ... well, it depends on the individuals, the mores of their generation and the availability of a few square meters of private space.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 24, 2012

Age of financial repression

By Edin Mujagic and Sylvester Eijffinger

Following his re-election, U.S. President Barack Obama almost immediately turned his attention to reining in America's rising national debt. In fact, almost all Western countries are implementing policies aimed at reducing — or at least arresting the growth of — the volume of public debt.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 24, 2012

America through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin

By Walter Isaacson

When he was a young man, Benjamin Franklin wired together a set of batteries he had just invented and used them to shock turkeys slated for a Thanksgiving feast. Thus he added yet another invention to his list: the fried turkey. "The birds killed in this manner eat uncommonly tender," he wrote.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 23, 2012

Long wait for Putin's 'residential renaissance'

By Andrey Borodaevskiy

In Russia, as in many other countries, one main measure of living conditions is the number of "squares" — square meters — in a flat.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 22, 2012

U.S. pivot to Asia needed in education, business

By Curtis S. Chin

In the face of China's continued rise and increased assertiveness, strengthened U.S. engagement in Asia — as evidenced by U.S. President Barack Obama's official visit to Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar so soon after his re-election — is good news for Japan and the region, whether you refer to it as...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 22, 2012

America's trouble with China

By Harold Brown

Xi Jinping, China's newly anointed president, made his first visit to the United States in May 1980. He was a 27-year-old junior officer accompanying Geng Biao, then a vice premier and China's leading military official. Geng had been my host the previous January, when I was the first U.S. defense secretary...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.

That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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