Search - politics

 
 
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 1, 2013

Indonesia seeing a new corporate colonialism

Land conflicts between farmers and plantation owners, mining companies and developers have raged across Indonesia as local and multinational firms have been encouraged to seize and then deforest customary land — land owned by indigenous people and administered in accordance with their customs.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
May 30, 2013

What Bachmann meant to politics

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's surprise retirement announcement likely brings an end to an Icarus-like political career in which she rapidly rose to national prominence before falling hard.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 29, 2013

Abenomics stumbling over sexism

No one needs a Sheryl Sandberg-esque 'lean-in' movement like Japan's women. Lack of women in the nation's workforce is impeding economic growth.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 28, 2013

Osaka: What do you make of Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s comments about “comfort women” and his suggestion that U.S. forces in Okinawa use local brothels?

He's a perfect example of why 'diapers and politicians should be changed often, and for the same reason'! He's too incompetent for Osaka, and should be 'promoted' to national government. I've lived here for 30 years; I miss the old days when mayors and governors concentrated on administering Osaka and stayed out of the limelight. Hashimoto should take his showboating to Tokyo and leave Osaka under the radar.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 28, 2013

Want more out of Japan but face doesn't fit? Be TOFITR

I recently served as a "private sector representative" in a panel discussion before an audience of foreign graduate students at the University of Tokyo. Many of the students will soon be seeking employment in Japan; because I have spent 25 years living in or traveling to Japan, the last 10 or so running...
WORLD
May 28, 2013

Candidates in Iran begin campaigns

Eight competitors in the race to replace Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began their three-week campaign sprint over the weekend, holding almost daily events and dominating the country's radio and television airwaves.
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2013

Why Obama can't win with some black critics

It is naive to expect President Barack Obama to introduce a 'black agenda' in a Congress filled with people who believe him to be a socialist destroying the country.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 26, 2013

History shows one man's rape is another's wooing

"The evolution of political thought in this relatively isolated island nation during the period in question is unique to the point of being somewhat freakish."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 25, 2013

English education and English sheepdogs

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aims to globalize Japan's workforce and says that Japan must become more competitive in the English language. This has touched off a debate among native English teachers, Japanese who teach English, Japanese speakers who don't speak English, and English sheepdogs owned by both...
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2013

Africa's Lincoln or a tyrant exploiting Rwanda's tragic story?

Paul Kagame is angrier than I've ever seen him. Rwanda's president is famously direct with his critics. His contempt for governments he's crossed swords with, led by the French, is only marginally less vitriolic than his view of human-rights groups daring to lecture him, the rebel leader whose army put...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2013

No heroes in AP news leak

Whoever provided the initial leak to the Associated Press in April 2012 not only broke the law but caused the abrupt end to a secret, joint U.S./Saudi/British operation in Yemen that offered valuable intelligence against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 23, 2013

There are billions of reasons why Japan Inc. should reflect

The flood of cash the Bank of Japan has made available to Japan Inc. has not opened executives to new ways of thinking or ushered more women into the workforce.
Reader Mail
May 23, 2013

Not for impressionable men

Regarding the May 16 front-page article "Hashimoto sticks to guns on sex slaves": The cruel and insensitive statements from Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto about encouraging the U.S. military to make use of Japanese prostitutes and his apologism for wartime Japanese soldiers' enjoyment of serial-sex with...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 22, 2013

Osaka takes plunge with canal pool

If an Osaka company has its way, getting roaring drunk and jumping, or falling, into Dotonbori Canal after either a Hanshin Tigers victory or a wild night out in neighboring Shinsaibashi will be less risky, healthwise, but it will no longer be free.
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
May 22, 2013

Pearl jewelry exhibition; evacuation simulation symposium; political decision-making seminar

EXHIBITIONS
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013

Five myths about Benghazi

The events surrounding the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, look dramatically different depending on your politics. Republicans tend to see a cover-up and a scandal. Democrats see an attempt to damage President Barack Obama and...
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2013

Weep for poor Earth itself

What would prompt a respected international investor to lament that the global economy shows signs of potential failure that has brought down civilizations before us?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Authorized life of Thatcher is clear-eyed, rich in details

It is a tricky deal being an authorized biographer. Charles Moore's big advantage over those who have previously tackled Margaret Thatcher is that he has been provided with material denied to them. Of the arrangement that he was offered by his subject, he writes: "I would have full access to herself...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 19, 2013

Immigration reform: Could this be Abe's new growth strategy?

The politics of immigration in Japan involve anxieties about national identity and worries about crime. Looking at other countries with large numbers of immigrants, the Japanese government has said "no thanks." There are, however, strong economic reasons for Japan to let down the drawbridges.
WORLD
May 18, 2013

Before tea party scandal, IRS harassed gay groups

Before there was the tea party, there was Big Mama Rag, Inc.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2013

UKIP rides wave of discontent

Britain as well as Japan must contend with xenophobic anti-establishment parties and politicians who want to take their nations back to imaginary periods of isolation.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 14, 2013

Turks in Kansai fear Inose gaffe indicative of wider ignorance about culture

'Stupid', 'shockingly provincial' and 'a sign of how little Japanese people really understand that part of the world' were among the reactions of Turkish residents in Kansai to Tokyo Gov. Naoki Inose's comments about Turkey and the wider Muslim world.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 14, 2013

Secretive trade talks aren't in the public interest

Both Japan and Australia need to inform the public as to what agreement may or may not have been reached secretly during current trade negotiations.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 14, 2013

Last refuge of weak leaders

Why have anti-Japanese sentiments resurfaced in China and South Korea in 2013 — just as Japan is trying to recover from two lost economic decades
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 13, 2013

Upper House poll to test public will on economy, TPP and Constitution

The House of Councilors election will be held within three months, and the focus is on whether the split in the Diet — where the two chambers of the legislature are controlled by different camps — will finally be mended.
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2013

Obama has leverage to salvage U.S.'s reputation

The Obama administration should take some of the legal ingenuity it has applied in justifying indefinite detention and apply it instead to closing Guantanamo.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 11, 2013

Obama's Guantanamo hunger strike problem

When the military doctors force-feed Guantanamo Bay detainee Fayiz al-Kandari with a tube shoved into his stomach there are three stages to the pain.
EDITORIALS
May 10, 2013

A shaky win for Mr. Najib

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his ruling coalition have prevailed again in a Malaysian election, but will his shrinking majority enable him to keep up reform efforts?
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 9, 2013

Huffington in Tokyo for launch of Japanese-language version of HuffPost

The Japanese version of the Huffington Post website aims to encourage reserved Japanese people to participate in online discussions and express themselves, Arianna Huffington, founder of the online media giant, said Wednesday.

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