Search - opinion

 
 
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2004

Managing security alliances

The administration of President George W. Bush has recognized that new security threats and new military capabilities require a new U.S. global defense posture. Nowhere are those changes more evident than Northeast Asia, and on the Korean Peninsula in particular. The redeployment of U.S. forces in South...
COMMENTARY
Jun 13, 2004

Personality could crown Gordon Brown

LONDON -- Britain is governed by an unhappy couple -- a pair of men whose relationship excites more attention than any other aspect of British politics.
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2004

A crucial vote for Iraq

The United Nations Security Council's vote to formally end the occupation of Iraq is a crucial step toward the restoration of sovereignty and stability in that troubled country. The decision is a milestone, but it is by no means a solution to Iraq's woes. In many ways, the real work begins now, with...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 11, 2004

Verdict in O.J. criminal trial still a divisive issue

I have been waiting a long time to write this column.
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2004

Put pension reform above politics

The ruling parties early Saturday morning rammed much-maligned pension bills through the House of Councilors. However, their resorting to physical violence at a committee session and a tricky procedure at a plenary session badly tarnished the House of Councilors as the "chamber of common sense." The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 6, 2004

A voice like none other

Though many postmodern jazz musicians are tireless experimentalists, they often end up producing interesting concepts more than good music. Pianist, composer and band leader Hiroshi Minami, however, is that rare jazz musician who sets up intriguing musical challenges that feel natural. He plays an engaging...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 6, 2004

Japan is back to the Stone Age when it comes down to transplants

Is Japan still in the medical Stone Age? A look at American depictions of the medical profession might make you think so. Last Tuesday, NHK had a bunch of celebrities sitting around and rapturously discussing the American hospital soap opera "ER" and its mature take on the physician-patient dynamic....
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jun 4, 2004

Mourinho not lacking in confidence and not afraid to show it

LONDON -- On the face of it English football should be delighted that the coaches of the Champions League and UEFA Cup winner are coming to the Premiership.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2004

A celebration and reckoning

PARIS -- The European Union should figure heavily in the headlines this month. To start with, U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin and many other heads of states, including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jun 1, 2004

What's your opinion of Nova's ban on teachers dating students?

Jonas Kirkegaard Student, 28 I would suspect some students would come there to see teachers, and also outside of school. Sounds like a moral choice to me. Personally, I wouldn't do it.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 29, 2004

Rhodes lifts Giants over BayStars

Tuffy Rhodes drove in the go-ahead run with a double to right field in the eighth inning Friday to lift the Yomiuri Giants to a 7-5 win over the Yokohama BayStars.
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2004

Reinstating a jury system

Japan is set to introduce a new criminal trial system by the end of this decade, in which professional and lay judges will deal with major cases on an equal footing. A judicial reform bill calling for the creation of the saiban-in (citizen judge) system passed the Upper House last week, making it certain...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 28, 2004

Ancient port of quiet delights

By the time footsore travelers on the old Tokaido Highway made it to Otsu, the town must have been no unwelcome sight. Many of them would just have trudged some 500 km from Edo (present-day Tokyo), and Otsu was the last of the 53 official way-stations strung out along the great thoroughfare. Just 10...
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2004

New democracy masters coalition-building

HONG KONG -- Ironically, at a time when the United States is trying to bring instant democracy to the Middle East, Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, is undergoing a complex, three-tiered democratic election virtually unnoticed.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2004

Labor is game but Howard forges on

SYDNEY -- It is fitting that an Australia-U.S. free-trade agreement should be signed the day Prime Minister John Howard celebrated 30 years in Federal Parliament. Both events mark historic steps in Australian politics and in a firm alliance with the United States.
JAPAN
May 25, 2004

Koizumi's Pyongyang trip: Was it politically motivated?

Many high-ranking officials of the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Official Residence had urged caution, saying the idea was too risky and too early.
JAPAN
May 25, 2004

Koizumi's Pyongyang trip: Was it politically motivated?

Many high-ranking officials of the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Official Residence had urged caution, saying the idea was too risky and too early.
EDITORIALS
May 24, 2004

A qualified success for Mr. Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has completed his second trip to Pyongyang. Unlike with his first visit, there were no surprises this time. He returned home with the families of four abductees, a promise to arrange a reunion between a fifth abductee and her three family members in Beijing, and pledges...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2004

On the move after decades of pacifism

A quiet pride is evinced in the dispatch of Japan's Self-Defense Forces troops for peacekeeping in Iraq even though the polls say a bare majority opposes the deployment. Says a business executive: "That's their profession; that's what they've been trained for."
JAPAN
May 22, 2004

Nation waits as Koizumi jets to Pyongyang

Expectations are high in Japan that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who will visit Pyongyang on Saturday for his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, will return with the families of the five repatriated abductees.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2004

Myanmar's thorn in the ASEM process

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Once again, the experiment known as the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) enters the limelight for the wrong reasons. With preparation under way for a summit meeting in Hanoi next October, the focus is not so much on real issues as on the format for participation. Characteristically,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 16, 2004

EU stretching the envelope

MOSCOW -- Nobody truly knows where Europe ends. Geographically, it is supposed to run all the way east to the Ural Mountains, but few would argue that this definition should be taken seriously. What matters is culture and politics and the allegiances resulting from both. With the recent expansion of...
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2004

New jailers, same prison?

The stage-managed toppling of ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's statue will not, after all, be the image defining the Iraq war. Like the famous photo of the young girl on fire running naked to escape the horror of napalm in the Vietnam War, the photographs emerging from Abu Ghraib prison will be the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 13, 2004

Ozawa undecided about taking DPJ helm

Ichiro Ozawa, deputy head of the Democratic Party of Japan, gave a guarded response Wednesday to a formal request that he assume the party's presidency following the resignation of DPJ leader Naoto Kan over his failure to pay mandatory pension premiums.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 13, 2004

Ozawa undecided about taking DPJ helm

Ichiro Ozawa, deputy head of the Democratic Party of Japan, gave a guarded response Wednesday to a formal request that he assume the party's presidency following the resignation of DPJ leader Naoto Kan over his failure to pay mandatory pension premiums.
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 11, 2004

Kidnap crisis poses a new risk

When five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq last month, huge public concern for their safe return quickly gave way to hostility and a campaign of vilification. A disastrous public appeal by the families of three of the hostages for the withdrawal of SDF troops from Iraq encouraged the government to...
Features
May 9, 2004

Lost in translation on Japanese screens

Unlike the countries that tend to dub foreign movies, Japan has been mainly using subtitles for more than 70 years. No one knows exactly why, but some say the Japanese simply enjoy hearing the original voices of the actors and the sounds in the background. Most now take it for granted that going to the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 9, 2004

If only divorces were scripted by TV writers

It's easier to get a divorce in Japan than anywhere else in the world. If both parties agree, all they have to do is affix their seals to a document and their union is instantly dissolved -- no trial separation period, no grounds, no mess.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 9, 2004

Terrorism in its most serious form

WAR AND STATE TERRORISM: The U.S., Japan and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century, edited by Mark Selden and Alvin Y. So. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 293 pp., £22.95 (paper). This provocative examination of state terrorism asks readers to reconsider their assumptions about who are the "bad...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?