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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2011

Without U.S. funds, UNESCO strikes downbeat

I cannot imagine a world without music, art, film, dance, theater and books. It would be a dreary and colorless existence, with little cooperation and communication among citizens. The arts are the glue that holds us together, the cultural fabric of our lives, and they sow the seeds for inventive, universally...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 4, 2011

U.S. base plan reveals obsequious Australia's frail sense of nationhood

"The unbreakable alliance." That is how U.S. President Barack Obama characterized the tie between his country and Australia in a speech to the Australian Parliament on Nov. 17, 2011.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2011

What will wake politicians to threat of climate change?

As ordinary people try to cope with inflation and unemployment, and businesses struggle with higher taxes and falling demand — since consumers are scared to spend — few politicians are looking at life beyond the economic crises.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 23, 2011

Chilling U.S.-China relations

U.S. President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's decision to deploy U.S. Marines to northern Australia close to Asia and the angry riposte from China show how relations between the world's superpower and the once and future great power have cooled to the point where it should...
COMMENTARY
Nov 15, 2011

Scientific mind meltdown

In a survey conducted more than 10 years ago, Chikio Hayashi, former director of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, polled people's opinions toward the statements of two hypothetical airlines with regard to airplane accidents.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2011

Five myths about global population

The world's population hit 7 billion people at the end of last month, according to United Nations estimates, launching another round of debates about "overpopulation," the environment and whether more people means more poverty.
COMMENTARY
Nov 7, 2011

The population disaster looms mostly for Africa

According to the United Nations, the world's population passed the 7 billion mark at the end of October. We can expect much tutting and shaking of heads over its prediction that we will be 10 billion by the end of the century, but almost nobody will have the temerity to point out that this is almost...
EDITORIALS
Nov 6, 2011

Seven billion and counting

The United Nations has identified Danica May Camacho, born just before midnight Oct. 30 in a Philippine hospital, as the 7 billionth inhabitant of our planet. According to the United Nations Population Division, the Earth was to welcome its 7 billionth person on Oct. 31.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 5, 2011

Hokkaido roots spur woman to bring folk tales to masses

For Deborah Davidson, Hokkaido is not only home, it is a door to other worlds. As a child, she played with Ainu children and watched them care for the frolicking cubs of the "iomante" (bear ceremony). As a translator, she now focuses on bringing Ainu folk tales to an English-speaking audience.
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2011

A call for improved national crisis management policy

More than seven months have already passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. Industrial production in the affected areas has bounced back to pre-disaster levels, but the recovery of agriculture and fishery is lagging and nearly 70,000 people remain in evacuation facilities. On top of that,...
JAPAN / Media
Oct 23, 2011

Pele's message of solidarity in Tohoku

In world sports, there are few names more iconic than that of Brazilian soccer legend Pele.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2011

'Jobs factor' made Apple's closed strategy work

Normally, you need a distinctive first name not to need a last name, but in this — as in everything that he did — Steve Jobs was different. He was always just "Steve."
EDITORIALS
Oct 2, 2011

The nuclear test ban at 15

As Japan struggles with its nuclear energy policy, the world is struggling with problems surrounding the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Introduced 15 years ago, the CTBT has been signed by 182 countries and ratified by 155.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIGHT GIST
Sep 27, 2011

No-nos for Noda: Japan's top 10 most useless PMs

On Sept. 2, Yoshihiko Noda was appointed the 95th prime minister of Japan, the sixth man (and they have all been men) to hold the job in five years. To mark this occasion and offer lessons to the new Democratic Party of Japan chief on how not to lead the country, the Community Page asked 10 writers to...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 25, 2011

Humble pie notably absent from the food fancies of worthies and others

Food is a staple fare of the media, whether in the form of recipes, restaurant reviews or photographs of meals to die for. Food is health; food is economics; food is culture; but food is also politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2011

Osama bin Laden made news, not history

Ten years after 9/11, the instant history is being written. In the French newspaper Le Monde, a highly intelligent commemorative supplement dubbed the period "The Decade of Bin Laden." But is that right?
Japan Times
Rugby
Sep 17, 2011

All Blacks validate superiority with rout

The Brave Blossoms had momentum after a confidence-building opener against France, but that wave hit a wall the second time out.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2011

Is China's economic miracle a mirage?

Doubts are beginning to be heard about how sustainable is China's economic miracle, particularly the relentless emphasis on exports and investment spending by hundreds of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and local governments. Beijing, of course, has its supporters, including banker turned academic Stephen...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011

Forecasts of robust middle-class growth are reason enough for Chinese, Indian optimism

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh noted recently that if present trends continue, India will become the world's third largest economy by 2025.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011

Japan in a European club?

Hitherto unknown and self-styled "loach" Yoshihiko Noda must learn to swim in an ocean of problems as Japan's new prime minister of the year. He has more than a plateful of domestic issues, but he should also realize, as his predecessors forgot, that Japan needs to re-engage the world if it is to find...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2011

U.S.-China economic stage

In conventional mass media and online of late, one can discover abundant information describing the unprecedented scale and intensity of industrial cooperation and capital migration between the United States and China.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2011

Obama risks 'junk status'

Standard & Poor's controversial decision to downgrade the credit rating of the United States from AAA to AA-plus brought an instant angry riposte from President Barack Obama that "We've always been and always will be a Triple-A country."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2011

Fall of Berlin Wall wasn't the end of barriers

Fifty years ago, on Aug. 13, under the cover of darkness, East Germany broke ground on the construction of the Berlin Wall, which became one of the most iconic symbols of violence and exclusion the world has ever known.
EDITORIALS
Aug 17, 2011

Ray of light amid the nuclear gloom

The United Nations' latest renewable energy report is a ray of sunshine amid the gloom of Japan's nuclear disaster. According to the REN21 Renewables 2011 Global Status Report, last year renewable energy accounted for 16 percent of global final energy consumption and close to 20 percent of global electricity...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 11, 2011

Summer Sonic prepares for an Asian invasion

Amid all the rivalry between Japanese and South Korean pop groups and the contrived debates about whether the manufactured crap from one country is better than the manufactured crap from the other, fans of independent or alternative music have been left scratching their heads.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2011

Murdoch's malign empire

The resignation of two key lieutenants of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his own full-page signed apology in British newspapers — "We are sorry for the widespread wrongdoing that occurred" — is clearly a desperate attempt to save his News Corporation group from being incinerated in the firestorm...
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2011

A media empire crumbles

Scandals have often dominated the British media, but few have been as remarkable as the revelations which have been appearing almost every day about the misdeeds of journalists on the British populist mass circulation Sunday paper The News of the World. This was owned by News International which is run...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past