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August 27, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Apr 26, 2012

Winds of change in France

By Gwynne Dyer

"My true adversary does not have a name, a face or a party," said Francois Hollande, France's next president. "He never puts forth his candidacy, but nevertheless he governs. My true adversary is the world of finance."

EDITORIALS

Apr 26, 2012

Stalemate in the Upper House

The Upper House on Friday passed censure motions against Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka and infrastructure and transport Minister Takeshi Maeda. The nonbinding motions were submitted by the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and two smaller parties.

EDITORIALS

Apr 26, 2012

Changing Tepco from the inside

The government on April 19 picked Mr. Kazuhiko Shimokobe, a bankruptcy lawyer with vast experience in corporate restructuring, as chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co. He headed the decision-making body of the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund, a public entity that injects funds into Tepco to...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 26, 2012

Reinventing the Sino-U.S. relationship

By Michael Spence

China and the United States are in the grip of major structural changes that both dread will end the halcyon era when China produced low-cost goods and the U.S. bought them. In particular, many fear that if these changes lead to direct competition between the two countries, only one side can win.

COMMENTARY

Apr 25, 2012

Reining in rich tax dodgers

By Hugh Cortazzi

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has declared his intention of cracking down on the ways in which rich people in Britain avoid paying their fair share of taxes. He regards tax avoidance by rich people as immoral.

COMMENTARY

Apr 25, 2012

What happens to world's economy if Spain fails?

By Robert Samuelson

Just when you thought the world economy might be improving, along comes Spain. It's Europe's next economic domino, struggling to cope with big budget deficits, massive unemployment and an angry public. Will it fail — and, if so, with what consequences?

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 25, 2012

Pyongyang's next move after the missile fizzle?

By John J. Metzler

In the bizarre ritual of North Korea, a recent rocket launch was intended to put the icing on the dynastic cake of the centennial birthday celebrations of the late dictator Kim Il Sung. The world press had been invited to the reclusive neo-Stalinist state, and the stage was aptly set for the kind of...

EDITORIALS

Apr 25, 2012

Shielding kids from parental abuse

A revised civil law came into force on April 1 with a provision for suspending parental prerogatives for up to two years to protect children from parental violence or neglect. The revised civil law also makes clear that parental protection and education of children must be done for the sake of the children's...

EDITORIALS

Apr 25, 2012

Progress on Hague Convention

The Noda administration on March 9 submitted a bill related to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Abduction to the Diet. Once Japan joins the convention, Japanese married or formerly married to foreigners and living abroad must keep in mind that the often-employed method of removing...

COMMENTARY

Apr 24, 2012

'Cruel and unusual' punishment of teenagers

By George Will

In the summer of 1787, just 94 years after the Salem witch trials, as paragons of the Enlightenment such as James Madison, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin deliberated in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a mob pelted and otherwise tormented to death a woman accused of being a witch....

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 24, 2012

How much should one's birth gender matter?

By Agata Sagan and Peter Singer

Jenna Talackova reached the finals of Miss Universe Canada last month, before being disqualified because she was not a "natural born" female. The tall, beautiful blonde told the media that she had considered herself a female since she was four years old, had begun hormone treatment at 14, and had sex...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 24, 2012

Flagging will for gun control

By Adam Winkler

April 16 marked five years since the massacre at Virginia Tech, where a mentally ill student, Seung Hui Cho, used two handguns he had bought legally to kill 32 people and wound 25 others.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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