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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 6, 2008

Triumph of the totalitarian will in Beijing

MOSCOW — When the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games begins this week, viewers will be presented with a minutely choreographed spectacle swathed in nationalist kitsch. Of course, images that recall German leader Adolf Hitler's goose-stepping storm troopers are the last thing that China's...
EDITORIALS
Jul 30, 2008

A 'go-ahead' for Mr. Singh

The government of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won a parliamentary vote of confidence last week. What looks like another skirmish in India's fractious domestic politics is anything but: The victory has profound implications for the global nuclear order and shifts the terms of engagement between...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2008

Believe it or not, Mugabe still has supporters

HIROSAKI, Aomori Pref. — The world can't understand how Robert Mugabe has support left in Zimbabwe. After violence and intimidation against his opponents he was able to steal a victory, but at great cost. Why do his people put up with it and why did he gain over 40 percent of the vote in the first...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2008

Fab Four flick offers a taste of revolution

It's easy to be skeptical about the idea of a movie-musical based on the music of The Beatles. After all, we've been there before with 1978's "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the Robert Stigwood-produced travesty that took the most twee aspects of The Beatles' oeuvre, cast The Bee Gees and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2008

Quiet changes in Japan's defense

OSAKA — Japan appears to be drifting aimlessly under a divided government, and its external policy seems equally disoriented under a Fukuda administration that has been up to its neck and largely unsuccessful in blazing new trails for the country. Surprisingly, though, bureaucratic autopilot does not...
COMMENTARY
Jul 9, 2008

After a century has passed, Young Turks at a crossroads

The Ottoman Empire had already been in retreat for over a century when the Young Turk revolution broke out in July, 1908. Some of the Young Turks hoped to save the whole empire; others wanted to abandon the empire and rescue an independent Turkey from the wreckage. The latter group won the argument,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 6, 2008

Lebanon's new status quo of contradictions

BEIRUT — Hezbollah's armed insurrection in May, which overran Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, has dealt a further blow to hopes of true state sovereignty in the country, strengthening Hezbollah and weakening the Western-backed government.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2008

Exorcising Musharraf's ghost

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Following its recent free elections, Pakistan is rebounding politically. But the euphoria that came with the end of the Musharraf era is wearing off, as the new government faces stark choices.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 25, 2008

All hail capitalism, mendacious destroyer of life on Earth

If you're hoping that the representatives of the world's richest nations meeting in Hokkaido for the G8 Summit next month will take action on climate change, you're in for a disappointment.
COMMENTARY
Jun 21, 2008

Security versus freedom

How to maintain a fair balance between national and individual security and traditional freedoms and human rights is an important political issue in Britain. We have been forced to accept increasing intrusion into our private lives by government agencies. Some fear we are living in a world similar to...
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2008

South Korea's 'bulldozer' stalls

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak must wonder whatever happened to his honeymoon. His first 100 days in office were marked by the sharpest plunge in popularity ratings of any democratically elected Korean leader. The fault is not Mr. Lee's alone, but the majority of the blame is his. Only he can stop...
EDITORIALS
Jun 5, 2008

Historic meeting in Beijing

The march toward reconciliation across the Taiwan Strait continues. Last month, Chinese President Hu Jintao met Wu Poh-hsiung, chairman of the KMT (Nationalist Party), Taiwan's ruling party. Coming on the heels of the inauguration of Taiwan's new president, Mr. Ma Ying-jeou, who has promised to stabilize...
EDITORIALS
May 31, 2008

Birth of a republic

Nepal has become a republic. A special assembly of legislators voted overwhelmingly this week to abolish the country's 239-year old monarchy. The Maoist-dominated Parliament now begins the difficult task of governing one of the world's poorest countries. All the country's political parties and its people...
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2008

A first lady's diplomatic mission

A natural calamity is usually an occasion to set aside political differences and show compassion. But Burma, ruled by ultranationalistic but rapacious military elites distrustful of the sanctions-enforcing West, came under mounting international pressure to open up its cyclone-wracked areas to foreign...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 16, 2008

Fight vs. apartheid through foreign eyes

Danish director Bille August never had personal ties to South Africa, but he remembers what a "powerful force" Nelson Mandela was throughout the 1980s.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 10, 2008

Documenting the divide between rich and poor

She was 3 when she first stood in the spotlight — on the stage of Tokyo's National Noh Theater — as the apple of her father's eye.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 1, 2008

LDP gets drivers' ire for gas hikes

Angry motorists swiftly slammed the government's decision Wednesday to reinstate provisional extra tax rates on gasoline, with some calling the imminent price hike a "terrible act" and others criticizing Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda for his strong-arm political tactics.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 27, 2008

Hail and farewell to the world's greatest 'Good Gringo' U.S. president

On April 1, the widely read History News Network (HNN) Web site announced the results of a survey it conducted among historians.
EDITORIALS
Apr 12, 2008

Conservatives win again in South Korea

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak got a boost this week from parliamentary elections that gave fellow conservatives a majority in the National Assembly. The results provide a modicum of relief for "the bulldozer" but he is still going to have to struggle to implement his policy agenda. Ironically,...
Reader Mail
Apr 10, 2008

What makes Taiji's economy tick?

On reading your March 30 article on the annual Taiji dolphin hunt ("A HREF="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080330x1.html">Secret film will show slaughter to the world"), I could not stop wondering from what point does healthy journalism unafraid of telling things that other papers do not...
EDITORIALS
Mar 29, 2008

Taiwan takes a new approach

The election of Mr. Ma Ying-Jeou, the Nationalist (KMT) candidate, in Taiwan's presidential campaign last weekend could herald a diminution of tensions in the Taiwan Strait, one of the remaining legacies of the Cold War and a potential nuclear flash point. Mr. Ma has called for closer relations with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 21, 2008

'Jellyfish'

War and its implications are the first things one tends to associate with Israeli cinema, perhaps because those kind of films are the ones that make it to the film festivals and get international releases (most notable are the works of director Amos Gitai).
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2008

Burma sanctions don't work

NEW DELHI — Burma today ranks as one of the world's most isolated and sanctioned nations — a situation unlikely to be changed by its ruling junta scheduling a May referendum on a draft constitution and facilitating U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari's third visit in six months.
COMMENTARY
Feb 25, 2008

Fuel to the fire in Okinawa

On Feb. 10 a very divisive mayoral election in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, ended in victory for the candidate who supports the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan. The election results delighted the Japanese government.
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2008

Try dispensing real justice

Despite declarations from high-level Japanese government officials to the contrary, it is no secret that the Japanese no longer want U.S. military forces here. Who can really blame them? If my country had to play host to foreign military troops for 60 years, I would want to see these troops leave too....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2008

Of manju, fish burgers and pachinko in the town of Obama

The more I live in Japan (quite a few years now) the more I realize the only difference between the Italians and the Japanese is the way we eat raw fish.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Feb 20, 2008

The Blog from Another Dimension

The Blog from Another Dimension might conjure up images of science fiction, but click through to Luis Poza's blog and you'll quickly see that it's about the here and now, cataloging his thoughts about current events, technology and social issues in Japan.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / CHINA SYMPOSIUM
Feb 7, 2008

Playing by U.S. rules compels China to change and adapt

Contrary to the stereotype that China is "playing a different game" in its bid to outcompete developed economies, it has achieved rapid growth by integrating with the global supply chain on the terms set by major powers — in particular the United States.
JAPAN / Q&A
Jan 30, 2008

Road taxes: Pork-barrel or necessity?

The government submitted a tax reform bill to the Diet Jan. 23 that includes a clause to continue the provisional higher rates imposed on auto-related levies for another 10 years, drawing opposition from the Democratic Party of Japan, which wants the higher rates that have been in place for more than...

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