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Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 17, 2014

Cricket star Khan overplays hand in Pakistani power game

Cricket hero Imran Khan rode a wave of discontent to finally break through as a serious player in Pakistani politics in last year's election. Now he is aiming even higher, leading thousands on a march to the capital in a bid to unseat the prime minister.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ASHIDA'S WAR DIARY
Aug 14, 2014

Diary spurs rethink of prewar anti-militarist, postwar prime minister

The anti-military stance of the editor of The Japan Times got him blacklisted during the war but helped him become prime minister three years after it ended.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2014

India's political, economic potential

The general election in India in May was groundbreaking in many aspects.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Aug 6, 2014

Spy probe heightens China-Canada tensions, reflects split in Ottawa

China's decision to investigate two Canadians for suspected spying highlights a sharp and unexpected deterioration in bilateral ties just months ahead of a trip by Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Beijing.
EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2014

More time for a deal with Iran

The biggest question about the four-month extension of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program is what impact Russian President Vladimir Putin's behavior, Israeli-Palestinian hostilities and the U.S. elections will have on them.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 26, 2014

Japan's brand is floundering under Abe

Attending the Association of Asian Studies conference in Singapore last week, I realized that Japan's global image is not what it might be. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says Japan is back, but doubts are spreading about the version of Japan he is promoting. It appears that Abe's energetic regional diplomacy...
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2014

Female workers may finally get foothold

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe showed up last Sunday for the 19th International Conference for Women in Business, Kaori Sasaki — who has been organizing the gathering to empower women since 1996 — finally felt that society was changing.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 9, 2014

Both candidates in Indonesia election claim victory

Both candidates claimed victory in Indonesia's presidential election on Wednesday, suggesting there could be a drawn-out constitutional battle to decide who will next lead the world's third-largest democracy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2014

Americans: born in an empire of contention

An historian reminds Americans this Fourth of July weekend that dynamic social and economic change, poisonous politics, bad policies and flawed leaders in an 'empire of contention' were all there two centuries ago.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2014

Obama should expedite a nation for the Kurds

President Barack Obama could put the U.S. on the right side of history — and the right side of justice — by expediting the liberation and nationhood aspirations of Iraq's Kurds.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2014

Activists demand action on sexism

While the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party hope the furor over misogynist comments will swiftly blow over, others are continuing to press for a crackdown on discriminatory behavior in politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2014

Capitalism facilitates but doesn't ensure freedom

As Democratic experiments in Thailand and Egypt collapse, there seems to be a building consensus among financial and political elites globally that authoritarian rule, rather than pluralism, is the path to happy endings.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 13, 2014

Abe might be the world's best leader

An American finance professor who says he used to be a Shinzo Abe skeptic now calls Japan's prime minister the most effective national leader in the world right now.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2014

Europe needs greater unity in multipolar world

One aspect of the Ukraine crisis that both Russia and the West need to understand is that the rest of the world appears to be relatively unconcerned about it.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2014

What UKIP's EU election win means for Britain's top parties

UKIP's gains in local and European elections were not a political mega-quake but rather the result of public anger with established parties the past decade over economic austerity, the Iraq war and the MPs' expenses scandal.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
May 30, 2014

'Option B': the blueprint for Thailand's coup

On Dec. 27 last year, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, Thailand's powerful army chief, stood before a crowded news conference and stunned the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra by saying he would not rule out military intervention to resolve a deteriorating political crisis.
COMMENTARY
May 27, 2014

Caught between guns and disgust in east Ukraine

Throughout eastern Ukraine, ordinary Ukrainians are caught between the armed thugs of 'The Donetsk Criminal Republic,' a threatening Ukrainian military and a terminally corrupt state. Most have no desire to join Russia, but feel little enthusiasm for the new post-revolutionary order.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 27, 2014

Thai Army leader Prayuth begins governing after royal endorsement

Thailand's military rulers were firmly in charge Tuesday after royal endorsement, although they faced small protests that the security forces appeared to handle with restraint.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 22, 2014

Thai army takes power in coup after talks between rivals fail

Thailand's army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha seized control of the government in a coup on Thursday, two days after he declared martial law, saying the military had to restore order and push through reforms after six months of turmoil.
COMMENTARY / World
May 19, 2014

Rise of aspirational India

The charismatic Narendra Modi will lead a majority government in India, as voters decisively repudiate the politics of dynasty, inheritance, entitlement, corruption and sycophancy.
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2014

Indian banker has hardest job in economics

The most important contribution that Reserve Bank of India head Raghuram Rajan can make under the next government is to get the nation's inflation rate well below the growth rate.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 13, 2014

Exit polls signal big victory for India's Modi

Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi called for unity in India as exit polls signaled his opposition bloc would win a majority in national elections, boosting his chances of taking power after pledging to revive Asia's third-largest economy.
COMMENTARY / World
May 5, 2014

West unable to concede Russia's point on Ukraine

It's hard to understand the rationale for Western, and Japanese, sanctions against Russia over Ukraine when a federal system that allows both sides reasonable autonomy under a central government is clearly the best answer.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2014

Ending Asia's zero-sum games

Perhaps if Asia's leaders viewed East Asia's rapid economic transformation, geopolitical dynamics and historical animosities like a recenlty arrived space alien, they would see what they need to do to halt the dangerous trends.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2014

Biased media give customers what they want

A study by two University of Chicago economists disputes the conventional wisdom that publishers impose their views on newsrooms. What actually happens is both more innocent and more insidious.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2014

Raise corporate profile of women, confab urges

A two-day international conference aiming to empower women kicked off Friday in Tokyo with a call for companies and the government to foster more female executives — an area of gender equality where Japan greatly lags behind the global norm.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 18, 2014

SDF should utilize Shimoji airport

A political professor assserts that Japan's air power would have a better chance of survival against possible Chinese salvos of ballistic and cruise missiles if Shimoji airport in Okinawa Prefecture were transformed into a military or dual-use facility.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 17, 2014

For China's Xi, purging corruption a means to install loyalists

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to use a purge of high-ranking officials suspected of corruption to instal people close to him and reform-minded bureaucrats into critical positions across the Communist Party, the government and the military, sources say.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 11, 2014

Controlling the mosquito menace

Given the degree of suffering caused by mosquito-borne diseases, government leaders must not subject genetic-engineering solutions for controlling them to the same kinds of political and populist headwinds that have impeded the approval of genetically engineered agricultural products.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years