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COMMENTARY

Nov 26, 2008

Common sense versus PC

By Hugh Cortazzi

Presumably the recent remarks of former infrastructure minister Nariaki Nakayama about Japan being ethnically homogeneous were correctly reported. If so his remarks were tactless, in view of Japan's Ainu population, but also showed an ignorance of history. The Japanese are generally considered to be...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 25, 2008

Room for Asian influence in G20 structure

By Michael Richardson

SINGAPORE — Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies have been meeting regularly for nearly a decade. But the decision to convene a summit of the G20 heads of government in Washington the weekend of Nov. 15 marked an important turning point in...

EDITORIALS

Nov 25, 2008

Mr. Aso needs to get serious

The recent behavior of Prime Minister Taro Aso makes one wonder whether he is taking the heavy responsibility his job carries seriously enough. One example is his failure to immediately submit a supplementary budget for fiscal 2008 to the Diet. The supplementary budget is necessary to implement the government's...

COMMENTARY

Nov 25, 2008

West Coast appreciates destiny with Asia

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — Serious intellectual narrowing can happen to even the brightest folk once nested down on the U.S. East Coast. They become preoccupied (almost neurotically, almost provincially) with the problems of the past — especially with the Middle East and Europe — and lose sight of the new problems...

EDITORIALS

Nov 25, 2008

Bank sheds its purpose

A former employee of Shinginko Tokyo, a bank mainly owned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and five other people were indicted Nov. 17 on a charge of defrauding the bank of about ¥50 million. The former employee, from the bank's Ikebukuro branch, and the five allegedly forged accounting and other...

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Nov 25, 2008

U.S.-China ties weaken alliances

As the United States works harder than ever to strengthen relations with China, there are signs its alliances with Japan and Taiwan are weakening. A conspicuous sign of change in Japan-U.S. ties came early Oct. 12 when President George W. Bush telephoned Prime Minister Taro Aso to inform the latter of...

COMMENTARY

Nov 24, 2008

Tamp down the old ways

By Kiroku Hanai

Sixty years ago on Nov. 12, 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMT) handed down its verdict branding Japan an aggressor nation and leading to the execution of six military leaders and one politician for instigating the war. As if to substantiate the validity of this verdict,...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Nov 24, 2008

Burst of U.S. bubble arouses old specters

By Hiroaki Sato

So the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has spoken: The "usual tools of economic policy — above all, the Federal Reserve's ability to pump up the economy by cutting interest rates — have lost all traction" ("Depression Economics Return," Nov. 14, The New York Times).

EDITORIALS

Nov 24, 2008

Increase peacekeeping efforts

Two officers of the Ground Self-Defense Force have been dispatched by the government to join the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) peace support operation in southern Sudan. The decision to dispatch them was made in early October on the basis of the 1992 international peace cooperation law. The...

EDITORIALS

Nov 24, 2008

Opposition to dam plan

The governors of Osaka, Kyoto, Shiga and Mie prefectures have called on the government to cancel its plan to build a dam on the Daido River, part of the Yodo River system, in Shiga Prefecture. They said its priority is low and that the dam should not be included in a development program to construct...

COMMENTARY

Nov 24, 2008

Deciphering the oil puzzle

By David Howell

What happens when the demand for oil flattens out or falls and the supply of oil continues as before or actually increases? The answer is economics at its simplest — the price plummets. And that indeed is what has occurred.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 24, 2008

Connecting the solutions while there's time

By Ban Ki Moon and Ban Ki-moon

WASHINGTON — The world does not need to be reminded of the urgency of this historical moment. We sense it every day in the news. One day a major bank, insurance company, or automaker announces a record loss. The next brings word of the impact on nations and peoples least able to cope with these blows...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.

How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan

By Megha Wadhwa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Muji has been sustainable from the beginning

Muji has been sustainable from the beginning

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