More Commentary Articles - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY

Apr 20, 2012

How Beijing demonstrates a lesson in harmony

By Frank Ching

From the outside it seems as though China's leadership is facing its biggest crisis in a generation with the country's most prominent political star, Bo Xilai, the czar of Chongqing, suddenly dismissed from all of his posts while his wife and a household assistant stand accused of the murder of British...

COMMENTARY

Apr 19, 2012

The North Korean wild card

By Michael Richardson

In a quantum leap over North Korea's controversial though unsuccessful long-range rocket launch on April 13, India plans to test not just one but three ballistic missiles in quick succession over the next week, including the first firing of its Agni 5 missile with a range of 5,000 kilometers.

COMMENTARY

Apr 19, 2012

Afghan lies mirror deception of Vietnam War

By Gwynne Dyer

In the midst of the Taliban attacks in central Kabul on Sunday, a journalist called the British embassy for a comment. "I really don't know why they are doing this," said the exasperated diplomat who answered the phone. "We'll be out of here in two years' time. All they have to do is wait."

COMMENTARY

Apr 18, 2012

Competition gives U.S. airlines a bumpy ride

By George Will

From his office window, Thomas W. Horton, in his fifth month as CEO of American Airlines, can see in the distance the Manhattan-size footprint of Dallas-Fort Worth airport, where American has 85 percent market share; it also has 68 percent in Miami, gateway to South America's booming market. A few miles...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 18, 2012

A white flag in Latin America's war on drugs

By Mary Speck

The retired general who won Guatemala's presidency in November seems an unlikely advocate of a kinder approach toward counternarcotics policy. Otto Perez — whose party's symbol is a clenched fist — campaigned on the promise that his government would crack down on the crime ravaging parts of the country....

COMMENTARY

Apr 18, 2012

Dam-building disputes roil Asia

By Brahma Chellaney

Dam building on shared rivers has emerged as the leading source of water disputes and tensions in Asia, the world's driest continent whose freshwater availability is less than half the global annual average of 6,380 cubic meters per inhabitant. Dam-building activities by China and Central, South and...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 18, 2012

The ECB's lethal monetary inhibition

By Barry Eichengreen

Europe's financial system on the brink of disaster, the European Central Bank stunned the markets with an unprecedented intervention, offering banks across the eurozone essentially unlimited liquidity against any and all collateral for an exceptional period of three years.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 18, 2012

The lives of boys devalued in U.S. and Afghanistan

By Colbert I. King

What is a boy's life worth? The answer may depend on who is asking. It also may matter where the question is being raised.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 17, 2012

Too little outcry over Palestinian censorship

By David Keyes

A university lecturer and single mother of two, Ismat Abdul-Khaleq, was arrested in the West Bank on March 28 for criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Facebook. Perhaps this is what Abbas meant when he said during a recent interview with al-Jazeera that his party, Fatah, was a political...

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Apr 16, 2012

U.S. digs in to hold Futenma

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has asserted that a Japan-U.S. agreement struck in February will help resolve the issue of relocating U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which now sits in the middle of densely populated Ginowan City in the central part of Okinawa Island.

COMMENTARY

Apr 16, 2012

Look at Social Security for what it is: welfare

By Robert Samuelson

Would Franklin Roosevelt (the 32nd U.S. president) approve of Social Security? The question seems absurd. After all, Social Security is considered the New Deal's signature achievement. It distributes nearly $800 billion a year to 56 million retirees, survivors and disabled beneficiaries.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Apr 15, 2012

Is Putin's 'roof ' going to keep out the hard rains of his falling popularity?

By Roger Pulvers

Putin's in a pickle and Russia's in the soup. At least that's what many who write about the "Dear Leader" and his country seem to be saying. But is it so? Certainly there is disruption, the kind of disruption that sits just below the skin, breaks out into turmoil, then all but disappears from sight —...

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

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports