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October 16, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Mar 2, 2009

Putting Asia first puts Clinton in driver's seat

By Tom Plate

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The U.S. secretary of state's recent four-stop swing through Asia led to some accusations of symbolic superficiality. Perhaps — but there can be more real meaning in acts of diplomatic symbolism than what first meets the eye.

EDITORIALS

Mar 1, 2009

Dressing for the recession

As the global economic crisis hits more and more people, even the richest of the rich are feeling the pinch. Forbes Magazine's annual list of the wealthiest people in the world, released last month, noted losses even at the highest incomes. In Japan, the top 40 richest Japanese saw their combined wealth...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 1, 2009

Pope should reflect on his universal mission

By Kevin Rafferty

HONG KONG — Is the pope Catholic! This, of course, is a fabled American rhetorical expression, usually used sarcastically and meaning, how could you be so stupid as to doubt something?

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 1, 2009

What 'prohibition' has wrought

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK — When I read the news that the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy "blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point" (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 12), I thought: Someone is finally talking sense. I have long regarded the...

EDITORIALS

Mar 1, 2009

Nuclear tragedy in the Pacific

Along with Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945 — the dates of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings — March 1, 1954, is an important date. Fifty-five years ago, residents of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean and the 23 crew members of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5), a 140-ton tuna fishing...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 1, 2009

Obama please note: Those who fail to 'master the past' are guilty, too

By Roger Pulvers

In "Guilt About the Past," based on guest lectures that Bernhard Schlink gave at Oxford University last year, the University of Berlin law professor describes the "long shadow" cast by the perpetrators of war crimes on their descendants.

EDITORIALS

Feb 28, 2009

Mr. Obama's vision

Technically speaking, U.S. President Barack Obama's address to a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday was not a state of the union speech. The president has been in office a little more than a month and he felt that was not enough time to render a judgment on the state of the nation. In fact, the speech...

COMMENTARY

Feb 27, 2009

Little reason for Indians to claim 'Slumdog'

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

CHENNAI, India — Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" may have walked away with eight of the 10 Oscars it was nominated for, including those for Best Picture and Best Director, but the euphoria it has created in India is clearly misplaced.

EDITORIALS

Feb 27, 2009

Mr. Aso goes to Washington

Prime Minister Taro Aso met with U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday in Washington, just a week after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during her visit to Tokyo, invited him to meet with the president as the first foreign leader to be invited to the White House since Mr. Obama came to...

COMMENTARY

Feb 27, 2009

Econ lessons from Japan

By Gregory Clark

Searching the reasons for Japan's "lost decade" — the deflation and stunted growth said to have plagued Japan ever since the collapse of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s — has long been popular among U.S. and British commentators seeking an answer to the West's current economic problems.

EDITORIALS

Feb 26, 2009

Students and cell phones

The education ministry has told the nation's prefectural boards of education to instruct primary and middle school authorities to ban students from bringing cell phones to school. It also has called for improvement in the education of morals related to communications.

COMMENTARY

Feb 26, 2009

Liberal Democratic parties: up and down?

By Gwynne Dyer

Big crises like the current recession change a lot of things that once seemed to be a permanent part of the landscape. In Japan the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed the country for all but nine months of the past half-century, is about to go over a cliff.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.

Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building

By Patrick St. Michel

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

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