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EDITORIALS

Sep 12, 1999

Fashion and its victims

How does one get inside a girl's head? This rueful question must have occurred to many people recently on hearing reports of the death of a 25-year-old woman in Kanagawa Prefecture after she tripped and fell while wearing sandals with 10-cm-high cork soles. To observers of the elevated-shoe fad over...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 1999

Canberra's WTO diplomacy saves the day

By David Murphy and Peter Seidlitz

SYDNEY -- Sturdy Mike Moore, the new director general of the World Trade Organization, knows how to appreciate the privileges of office that became his due last week when he took on the powerful role of world's free-trade czar. After the bruising battle he fought to get the job, he deserves them. The...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 1999

Permanent bureaucracy in Washington

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- There is nothing as permanent in Washington as a federal agency. Once created, government bureaucracies are almost impossible to kill, no matter how outdated. Consider the desperate attempt of the Selective Service System and its allies to reverse the House Appropriation Committee's decision...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 1999

Australia's tragic Timor role

By Gregory Clark

Australia fears the fallout from the East Timor chaos. But Canberra helped create that chaos.

EDITORIALS

Sep 11, 1999

Lost along the Third Way

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has pledged to remake his Social Democratic Party along the lines of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "new" Labor Party. Those plans suffered a rude setback last weekend when the SPD lost two state elections to its conservative rival, the Christian Democratic Union....

EDITORIALS

Sep 10, 1999

Protect Japanese workers abroad

It has been two weeks since four Japanese mining engineers were abducted in the central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan. The four men are among the dozen hostages being held by Islamic guerrillas. As things stand, it is not clear when, or even whether, a reasonable solution will be found, although the Muslim...

EDITORIALS

Sep 9, 1999

An end run in Okinawa

The long-stalled government attempt to find a new home for the U.S. Marine Futenma Air Station in Okinawa is coming back to life. The Okinawa Prefectural Government has apparently narrowed down the candidate sites to a couple of locations on the eastern shores of the main island. The government of Prime...

EDITORIALS

Sep 8, 1999

Deja vu in the Middle East

For what was supposed to be a new era for the Middle East, the recent rituals have been all too familiar. As the deadline for another peace agreement approached, negotiations ground to a halt. The Israeli prime minister dug in his heels as his Palestinian counterpart made last-minute demands and shifted...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 8, 1999

Beleaguered Pakistan faces tough choices

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is trying hard to put on a brave face, even as his nuclearized country's opposition politicians agitate increasingly loudly for his resignation.

EDITORIALS

Sep 7, 1999

Tokyo declares war on diesels

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara is proving to be a man of his word -- up to a point. It remains to be seen whether or not he can keep some of his promises. Not long after announcing plans to seriously tackle the capital region's notorious traffic congestion, Mr. Ishihara and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government...

COMMENTARY

Sep 7, 1999

Merge -- and then to work

By Yukio Suzuki

The blockbuster deal to combine Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan may be compared to an epic drama. Act one has opened with fanfare. But what if discord develops between the director and playwright? What if the actors turn out to be hams? What if the stage settings are...

EDITORIALS

Sep 5, 1999

Independence for East Timor

The East Timorese have voted for independence. Twenty-four years after the Indonesian military invaded the former Portuguese territory and forcibly annexed it to their state, the people of the province have been given the opportunity to choose their own destiny. Despite intimidation and what appears...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.

If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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