More Opinion Articles - The Japan Times

August 23, 2025

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY

Sep 13, 2012

Airports: too few or too many?

By Hugh Cortazzi

A hot political question in London in recent weeks has been the need for more airport capacity to meet the needs of business in the 21st century. A neutral observer might think that this is essentially a matter that should be settled on the basis of supply and demand and the relationship between these...

EDITORIALS

Sep 13, 2012

Withholding pension premiums

The health and welfare ministry has announced that nearly 163,000 companies failed to pay premiums into the Kosei nenkin system, a pension plan for corporate workers, in fiscal 2011. Since Kosei nenkin is an important fund for retired workers, company executives should realize their social responsibility...

EDITORIALS

Sep 13, 2012

DPJ leadership on the block

The campaign for the election of the Democratic Party of Japan leader has officially kicked off. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and three other DPJ Diet members have announced their candidacy.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 2012

Volatile risks accompany North Korea's reforms

By Andrei Lankov

Reports of unusual activity have been emerging from North Korea. Farmers were told in early July that, going forward, the state would take not their entire harvest but only 70 percent, and they would be allowed to keep the rest. The military's economic role was partially curtailed last month when some...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 2012

Japan's Russia diplomacy

By Mineo Nakajima

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for the first time during the June Group of 20 summit in Mexico. When Noda proposed holding substantive talks over the Northern Territories dispute on the basis of bilateral accords and documents as well as of the principle of law...

COMMENTARY

Sep 12, 2012

New ships give China's navy a stronger punch

By Michael Richardson

In the latest step in its naval modernization and expansion, China recently announced that it is accelerating serial production of an advanced destroyer. This will tilt the regional balance of power at sea in its favor and put it in a stronger position to enforce its sovereignty claims over Taiwan and...

EDITORIALS

Sep 12, 2012

Turkey's troubles

Like Japan, Turkey sees itself as a bridge between two worlds — in this case, between Europe and the Middle East. Not only does geography enable Turkish leadership, but its successful combination of Islam and democracy is seen as model for the Middle East as well.

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Sep 11, 2012

Troubled waters, bad bridge

A South Korean journalist in Seoul warns that Japan should not make light of the recent series of tough actions taken by Seoul against Tokyo because they represent the beginning of a sharp turn in South Korea's policy toward Japan.

COMMENTARY

Sep 11, 2012

Let posterity see how the Iraq war was created

By Ramesh Thakur

When the Iraq War Inquiry Group (of which I am a member) issued a public call for an inquiry into the decision-making that lay behind Australia's participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, members of the then-Howard government dismissed it in effect as yesterday's news.

EDITORIALS

Sep 11, 2012

Democrats stake their claim

Party conventions in the United States are rallies for the faithful. Three days of speeches and pageantry are crafted to move from one emotional peak to the next, to fire up the troops, and provide the intellectual and policy framework for the campaign that will follow. Putting the conventions back to...

CARTOONS / ZERO GRAVITY

Sep 9, 2012

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Sep 9, 2012

Putin's siege-mentality Russia now firmly in the grip of a 'cold civil war'

By Roger Pulvers

There is an old Soviet-era Russian joke about two rival groups of archeologists who cannot agree on the age of a mummy discovered in Central Asia. At their wits' end, they call in the NKVD — the name of the dreaded KGB in Stalin's time — to settle the dispute.

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

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports