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Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Sep 25, 2016

New website to help track Diet members' money trails

An Osaka-based nonprofit organization has announced it will create an online group dedicated to letting any member of the public follow politicians' money trails.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 24, 2016

Troika of female politicians under scrutiny

The media has been abuzz about the emergence of three prominent Japanese female politicians: Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and Renho, the head of the Democratic Party. However, the significance of this development is limited. Overall, politics in Japan remains a man's world —...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 10, 2016

National trauma and the memory wars of Asia

It has been 15 years since 9/11, and America's nightmare has metastasized beyond anyone's wildest imagination. It is a bad dream that includes former President George W. Bush's Iraq War debacle, which plunged the Middle East into its current turmoil. But America's trauma pales when compared with the...
WORLD / Politics
Sep 1, 2016

Brazil's new leader, Temer, is a consensus-builder who now must prepare for a fight

Michel Temer is a president few Brazilians want, replacing a leader few saw fit to stay.
EDITORIALS
Aug 30, 2016

Peace at last for Colombia

The best hope for peace is an agreement that gives the disarmed and demobilized rebels a genuine voice in Colombian politics.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Aug 24, 2016

Beyond silence: lessons learned from a Japanese spouse

You see it often in Tokyo: the attentive Japanese woman and the Western man filling silence. In fact, a lot of them end up married, sharing a house and 1,000 meals, albeit hardly a life of the mind.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 18, 2016

Campaign said in 'hospice phase' as Trump taps firebrand to put him back on brash tack

Donald Trump's surprise move to hand the reins of his campaign to a right-wing firebrand was seen Wednesday as a formalized revival of his bare-knuckled, anti-establishment strategy and a rebuke to prominent Republican strategists who doubt its power to win the White House.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 17, 2016

Koike can help Japan get serious about gender gap

Japan's efforts to promote gender mainstreaming have fallen short. Hopefully new Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike can give this vital concept a jump start.
EDITORIALS
Aug 14, 2016

A new era for South Africa?

The African National Congress can no longer claim without challenge the allegiance of South Africa's black voters.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 14, 2016

Jingoism is the ugly side of the Olympic Games

The Olympics should focus more on the feats of human athletic attainment and less on the nationalities of the competitors.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 13, 2016

A new Taiwan dreams of transitional justice

The newly elected Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government of President Tsai Ing-wen has hit the ground running in a flurry of initiatives that highlight how powerfully the past resonates in contemporary Taiwan. Only in office since late May, she has positioned Taiwan on the progressive side of...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2016

Divisions weaken Palestinians

There can never be a free Palestine without Palestinians first freeing themselves of the factional strife that weakens them.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 9, 2016

In Thailand, bruised opposition seeks solace in 2017 vote prospects

In Thailand's rural heartland, supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra say they will focus on winning an election next year, even though they would have to govern on military terms if they did.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2016

Trump won't defend the U.S. Constitution

Donald Trump's track record suggest he would undermine the U.S. Constitution rather than uphold it.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2016

Britain's Tories are now in a class of their own

Theresa May has begun her premiership with her Conservative Party in its strongest position in more than a quarter of a century.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2016

The future of globalism stands at a crossroads

Japan must make efforts to fortify the crumbling foundation of globalism.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2016

Of course U.S. candidates have ties to Russia

Russian oligarchs have yet to give Donald Trump a dime, but they have donated thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton's campaign.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Aug 1, 2016

Savvy campaign helped Koike's election as Tokyo's first female governor

Yuriko Koike's focus must turn now to how she can get along with the metropolitan assembly.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2016

Can Nixon's campaign wizard help Trump win?

If Trump wants to increase his likelihood of winning, he needs to the man who masterminded Nixon's innovative TV ads to run his campaign.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2016

If Clinton is likable, show it

If there is any way to bring out the private, likable Hillary Clinton before a larger, public audience, then her campaign needs to find it quick.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2016

The death of Turkish secularism

Will President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continue to pursue his authoritarian path or will he reach out to his opponents and attempt to bridge the deep fissures in Turkish society?
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 22, 2016

Abe's boys club makes mockery of 'womenomics'

If Shinzo Abe cared about gender equality he would back Yuriko Koike's bid to be Tokyo's first female governor.
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2016

The election showdown in Tokyo

Tokyo voters have a big decision to make, and the party affiliations of the leading candidates for governor should be the least of their worries.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 15, 2016

Lessons of the Chilcot report

The Chilcot report demolishes Tony Blair's sham justifications for embroiling the U.K. in possibly the most disastrous war of the modern era.
JAPAN
Jul 14, 2016

Tokyo voters seek out corruption-free governor

As the Tokyo gubernatorial election kicked off Thursday, voters said they were looking for a clean, corruption-free governor after the last two — Naoki Inose and Yoichi Masuzoe — resigned over money scandals.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 13, 2016

Justice Ginsburg enters political fray, terms Trump 'faker' with ego

In calling Republican Donald Trump a "faker," Ruth Bader Ginsburg thrust herself into presidential politics to an unprecedented degree for a U.S. Supreme Court justice in the modern era.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2016

Risk of war returns to Europe

Europe remains home to more than half the world's nuclear weapons, and a growing number of experts believe that the risk of a third major war there is increasing.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2016

How Clinton limps forward after the FBI report

FBI Director James Comey may have recommended against charging Hillary Clinton; but, politically speaking, he hung her out to dry.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 11, 2016

Tokyo must support the U.S. foreign policy establishment

The U.S. foreign policy establishment has contributed greatly to peace and stability worldwide in the postwar period, and no country has benefitted more than Japan.

Longform

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