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COMMENTARY / World

Jul 13, 2010

Is it dangerous to speculate on food prices?

By Alexander Sarris and Denis Drechsler, George Rapsomanikis

ROME — The prices of many staple foods increased dramatically during 2007-2008, creating a food crisis for many poor and developing countries. International prices of maize, rice and wheat, for example, reached their highest levels in 30 years, causing political and economic instability — and leading...

COMMENTARY

Jul 13, 2010

How Japan regains vitality

By Shinji Fukukawa

Japan's international rating has been declining lately. Heard overseas are suggestions that Japan is about to enter its third "lost decade," or that Japan has disappeared off the world's radar screen. Its share of global GDP, 14.3 percent in 1990, slipped to 8.9 percent in 2008 and is expected to sink...

EDITORIALS

Jul 13, 2010

A setback for Mr. Kan

In Sunday's Upper House election — the first national poll that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has contested under the leadership of Prime Minister Naoto Kan — voters demonstrated their lack of faith in the DPJ by taking away the ruling coalition's majority in the chamber of the Diet.

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Jul 12, 2010

China is pleased with Kan but keeps tabs on Ozawa

China apparently views new Prime Minister Naoto Kan as easier to deal with than his predecessor Yukio Hatoyama, and has already started sending friendly signals to Tokyo in the hopes of promoting closer bilateral relations.

EDITORIALS

Jul 12, 2010

Russian games up north

The Russian military carried out a drill July 3-4 on Etorofu Island, off Hokkaido, ignoring a July 2 demand by Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada that it refrain from doing so there. Japan calls Etorofu and three other islands (including one islet group), northeast of Hokkaido, the Northern Territories,...

COMMENTARY

Jul 12, 2010

Scholars flunk George W. Bush

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK — George W. Bush ranks among the five U.S. presidents who accomplished the least while in office, according to the Siena College Research Institute's latest survey of 238 presidential scholars. The institute has conducted the poll annually for the past 28 years.

EDITORIALS

Jul 11, 2010

Motive for clean energy

Up to 9.5 million liters of oil continue to spew daily into the Gulf of Mexico since BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. U.S. President Barack Obama has called the oil spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced."

COMMENTARY

Jul 11, 2010

Treason of the attorney

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON — Eighty years ago, just after the First World War and with the world rapidly sliding toward the next, the French philosopher Julien Benda wrote a book called "The Treason of the Clerks"— "clerks" in the medieval sense, educated men, intellectuals, who despite their high calling chose to serve...

EDITORIALS

Jul 11, 2010

Tough call on sumo for NHK

The Japan Sumo Association, which has been rocked by the gambling scandal, was dealt more blows last week. On Tuesday, NHK decided not to provide live television coverage of the 15-day Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament. On Wednesday, police raided Onomatsu and other sumo stables for evidence of suspected...

CARTOONS / DAHL'S JAPAN

Jul 11, 2010

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jul 11, 2010

For Japan's own good, it's high time to get into that holiday thing

By Roger Pulvers

It may surprise you, but one of the trickiest words to translate from Japanese into English is isogashii. Every dictionary will tell you that its closest equivalent is "busy," and you'd be hard pressed to find a native Japanese speaker who disagreed with this.

CARTOONS / ZERO GRAVITY

Jul 11, 2010

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

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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