More Opinion Articles - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY

Dec 18, 2008

Central Europe and the bear

By David Howell

How are the ex-communist countries of Central Europe faring during the present global economic downturn? To judge by the glittering city of Budapest, the answer is that so far the forces of recession have made little impact. The restaurants are full, the shops crowded, the streets jammed with vehicles,...

COMMENTARY

Dec 18, 2008

What can be done to protect Zimbabweans

By Ramesh Thakur

WATERLOO, Ontario — The responsibility to protect (R2P) norm, embraced universally at the world summit in New York in 2005, remains operationally elusive. Calls are growing for international intervention to lift the shroud of Robert Mugabe's ruinous reign from Zimbabwe's body politic.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 18, 2008

Modest signs of progress in Poznan

By Michael Richardson

SINGAPORE — The world remains on a path toward a new treaty to limit greenhouse-gas emissions, blamed by some scientists for warming the planet to potentially dangerous levels. But clinching a comprehensive deal designed to control climate change has been made increasingly difficult as both developed...

EDITORIALS

Dec 18, 2008

The dilution of devolution

The government's devolution panel has submitted to Prime Minister Taro Aso a second set of recommendations calling for the consolidation of regional offices of central government ministries and a reduction in the number of national servants working at such offices.

EDITORIALS

Dec 18, 2008

First three-way summit

While Japan, China and South Korea are neighbors in East Asia, Japan's ties with these nations have not been smooth because of such factors as Japan's wartime behavior in the 1930s and '40s and territorial rows over the Senkaku islets with China, and the Takeshima islets with South Korea. In a welcome...

EDITORIALS

Dec 17, 2008

Trade talks run out of steam

Last month, world leaders met to plot a response to the global financial crisis. As part of their package of recommendations, they called for progress in trade talks to jump-start the faltering economy. Apparently, that was just empty rhetoric. Last week, Mr. Pascal Lamy, director general of the World...

EDITORIALS

Dec 17, 2008

Serious slump indicated

The results of a Bank of Japan survey released Monday show that business confidence among companies is rapidly worsening as Japanese companies feel the impact of the global economic slowdown. It seems that the Japanese economy is heading into a serious slump, which may last for a long time.

COMMENTARY

Dec 17, 2008

U.S. must stop pampering Pakistan

By Brahma Chellaney

U.S. policy on Pakistan isn't working, and unless Washington fundamentally reverses course, it risks losing the war in Afghanistan and making the West an increasing target of jihadists. That is the key message emerging from the recent terrorist assaults in Mumbai.

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Dec 16, 2008

Japan aches for a political rescue

Time appears to be ripe for a complete overhaul of the Japanese political landscape, but it is utterly impossible to predict how political parties will line up after the next general election.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 16, 2008

Lessons from the tainted life of Guantanamo

By Alejandro M. Garro and Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK — President-elect Barack Obama's promise to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will go a long way toward ending one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. legal history.

EDITORIALS

Dec 16, 2008

Afghanistan in trouble

The Taliban, which was ousted from power by U.S.-led coalition forces seven years ago, is stepping up its efforts to regain power in Afghanistan. Coupled with an increase in militant attacks in Pakistan and the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan symbolizes...

EDITORIALS

Dec 16, 2008

No time to waste in the Diet

The Diet last week enacted a law to continue the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean and another law to inject capital into regional financial institutions with second votes in the Lower House where the ruling bloc holds a two-third majority.

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

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports