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August 24, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2010
Dark side of a Western defense of freedom
By Charles Tannock
BRUSSELS — The price of freedom, it is said, is eternal vigilance. But that price can take the form of morally squalid decisions in which innocent people bear the brunt of the cost of freedom's defense.
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2010
Asia needs to make wiser use of its water
By Michael Richardson
SINGAPORE — Photographed from satellites in space, Asia and the other great continents are a spectacular sight. One of the most unique features of the panoramic view is water, in both liquid and frozen forms, which covers about 75 percent of Earth's surface.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2010
Rationing miracle rescues
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — Surely the picture of the month was of Chilean miner Mario Sepulveda thumping the air like a 2-year-old in jubilation that he was free after 68 days in a dank, dark dungeon more than 600 meters below the Atacama Desert.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Oct 25, 2010
Kan feeling Diet squeeze from three major groups
What occupies the mind of Prime Minister Naoto Kan more than anything else appears to be how to keep his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) free from the influence of his archrival, former party Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa. This could very well be the root of inconsistencies and blunders that have emanated...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2010
White House magic at halftime
By Michael Spence
NEW YORK — In September 2008, the global economy and financial system was hit by an earthquake, whose epicenter was in the United States. It was the end of the Bush administration. The presidential election was two months away. The timing, from the point of view of crisis management, could not have...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2010
Stabilization of Afghanistan could serve as cornerstone of NATO-Russia foundation
By Anders Fogh Rasmussen
BRUSSELS — When I gave my first public speech as NATO secretary general just over a year ago, I focused on the NATO-Russia relationship, because I believe it is crucial for global, not just European, security. At that time, I thought the relationship to be in urgent need of repair, and that the North...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2010
Poverty still pervades booming South Asia
By Ejaz Ghani
WASHINGTON — South Asia presents a depressing paradox. It is among the fastest growing regions in the world, but it is also home to the largest concentration of people living in debilitating poverty, conflict and human misery. While South Asia is far more developed than Sub-Saharan Africa, and India...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2010
Entrepreneurs' best friend growing long in the tooth
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — Standard Chartered Bank has an advertisement currently running on television that is eye-catching and thought-provoking. Its central message is that "not everything that counts in life can be counted" and that the bank wants to be "here for people; here for progress; here for the long run;...
COMMENTARY
Oct 22, 2010
Are China and Japan on a collision course?
By Tom Plate
LOS ANGELES — The people of China and Japan deserve better leadership at the top than they have been getting. But better leadership is not immediately in prospect for either ancient nation. That means relations between the two giant economies will probably get worse, when improvement is urgently needed...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2010
Absent from talks, Hamas still wields a veto
By Mkhaimar Abusada
GAZA CITY — The resumption of direct peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis has broken 20 months of stalemate, and marked the entry of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into this round of diplomacy. But these difficult talks face significant challenges from outside the negotiating...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2010
Return of a maverick
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — On the way to the airport in early 1990, I saw a strange face among the profusion and confusion of election posters. Not a European grandee, or indigenous Indian, or mestizo, or mulatto. It was more like Chinese, but surely not in this heart of Latin America.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2010
The paradox of blinking
By Kishore Mahbubani
SINGAPORE — The world has recently witnessed two major diplomatic blinks. Japan, facing mounting pressure from China, unconditionally released a Chinese trawler captain whose ship had rammed a Japanese Coast Guard patrol boat. And U.S. President Barack Obama did nothing when Israel refused to extend...
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
Women-only communities flourish in China
Chen Yani (right), nicknamed "Keke," eats lunch with friends and guests in a female co-living space she founded called "Keke's Imaginative Space" in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on July 14.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Man arrested over deadly stabbing of woman in Kobe
Masashi Tanimoto, 35, the suspect in the deadly stabbing a 24-year-old woman, is taken into custody in Kobe on Friday night.
Japanese city proposes two-hour daily limit for smartphone use
The Toyoake Municipal Government in Aichi Prefecture is planning to enact an ordinance to urge all smartphone users in the city to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school.
Alicia Keys closed Summer Sonic, but J-pop owned it
Summer Sonic’s 2025 lineup demonstrated its strength, showcasing the latest in J-pop, including “new kawaii” act Fruits Zipper.
Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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