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COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Aug 28, 2000

A revisionist's view of Japanese history

By Hiroaki Sato

"Kokumin no Rekishi," published last year, has been touted as the first major attempt to rewrite Japanese history. I've acquired and read it because I've been asked to comment on Japanese nationalism next month, in Chicago. The author of the book, Kanji Nishio, has been prominent in the movement known...

EDITORIALS

Aug 27, 2000

Shattering the myth of race

When two rival scientific groups jointly announced in June that they had completed a working draft of the entire sequence of the human genome -- the genetic material found in every cell of every human being -- the achievement was rightly greeted as a milestone of modern medical research.

EDITORIALS

Aug 26, 2000

Making peace the hard way

Next month, the United Nations convenes its Millennium Summit. One of the key issues the world body must face in the next century is its role in peacekeeping operations. The magnitude of the challenges were made plain this week when a special commission released its final report. It makes for grim reading....

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 26, 2000

Language questions reflect changing times

By Florian Coulmas

In times of transition, when the need for reform is felt more keenly than usual, there is heightened openness to bold suggestions. Japan is in the middle of such a period. Public debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP. The social-welfare system needs a drastic overhaul. Unemployment is at an all-time high....

COMMENTARY

Aug 26, 2000

Is the Bank of Japan right?

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The governor of the Bank of Japan, Masaru Hayami, and the majority of the BOJ's policy council have drawn criticism from the Japanese government and leaders of Japanese industry for the decision to end the BOJ's zero-interest-rate policy. These criticisms have been echoed in the British press....

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 26, 2000

The case against Japan's whaling program

By Norman Mineta

While U.S. President Bill Clinton was signing legislation to protect the oceans, Japan expanded its whale hunt in the North Pacific. In defiance of international pleas from Clinton, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and other leaders, Japan has gone beyond hunting smaller minke whales to include the...

EDITORIALS

Aug 25, 2000

Listen to the market

The market is the judge in the market-driven economy. For instance, the stock market tells -- through prices formed by the collective will of investors -- where the real economy stands. Although this fact is self-evident, it is often forgotten or misunderstood. The current slump in the Tokyo stock market,...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 25, 2000

Wahid battered but still kicking

By David Chew

SINGAPORE -- The threat of impeachment from angry legislators stared Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid grimly in the face on Aug 7., when the 695-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) convened in Jakarta to review Indonesia's progress.

COMMENTARY

Aug 25, 2000

Turbulent times await Mori

By Kenzo Uchida

Japan's new political season will open in late September, when an extraordinary Diet session starts after the summer recess. Politics in the upcoming year will be marked by three potential turning points.

EDITORIALS

Aug 24, 2000

The children must be protected

Increasing media coverage of horrendous cases of child abuse, complete with gruesome details of serious injury or death, seems to indicate that the problem is getting out of control in this country. Until not so long ago, an issue that was widely believed to be a private family matter received scant...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Aug 24, 2000

Handling of Kursk fiasco belies Putin's promise of change

By Constantine Pleshakov

"Shameful and disgraceful" -- these are the words many Russians are using now to describe the attitude of their government toward the sunken nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea. Slow and incompetent rescue attempts, an inability to assess the scope and nature of the damage and, above all, a stubborn...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 24, 2000

Korea's chaebol are obstacles, not answers

By Christopher Lingle

South Korea's industrial conglomerates, the chaebol, were once seen as a driving force behind that country's high rates of economic growth. At the beginning of the 1997 economic crisis, optimists saw them as the engine that would pull South Korea out of its doldrums. Indeed, about 40 chaebol still account...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.

A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan

By Hanako Lowry

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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