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EDITORIALS
Dec 5, 2009

The Dubai debt bomb

The announcement that the government of Dubai would suspend payment of debts incurred by its investment group, Dubai World, has rattled global markets, sparking fears of another dip in the global economy.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2009

Wishing the science away

LONDON — Ahead of the Copenhagen conference on climate change (which starts Monday), those who have argued that there is no conclusive proof that climate change is man-made were encouraged by the recent leak of e-mails from the archives of the University of East Anglia. The exchanges suggested that...
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Dec 4, 2009

Kim looking to make statement in Grand Prix Final

Like a great fighter looking to land a knockout punch, world champion Kim Yu Na enters the Grand Prix Final seeking to eliminate any doubt about who will win the gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 29, 2009

Though elusive to all, the language of Japan surely merits a break

When I was staying in a pension in Seoul for a month in the autumn of 1967, I tried to speak some Japanese, our only common language, with its 80-year-old Korean proprietor. He refused outright until about a week into my stay, when he gave in and said, "I haven't spoken Japanese since the war and I vowed...
JAPAN / ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
Nov 27, 2009

COP15 hinges on Senate, China

Second in a series
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2009

U.S.-China relations shifting

Observers analyzing the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to China, not unnaturally, looked for signs of a shift in the world balance of power — and they found them.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 21, 2009

Shameful incident will brand Henry for life

LONDON — It takes years for a player to build a reputation. During his eight seasons at Arsenal Thierry Henry established himself as, in the opinion of most, the finest overseas footballer to play in England.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2009

Ghost in the recovery machine

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The International Monetary Fund's October World Economic Outlook proclaimed that "Strong public policies have fostered a rebound of industrial production, world trade, and retail sales." The IMF, along with many national leaders, seem ready to give full credit to these policies for...
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Nov 18, 2009

Orser provides insight into making of a champion

Those who have had the chance to see a young athlete come into their own can tell you it is truly a sight to behold.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2009

Asia benefited most from fall of Berlin Wall

NEW DELHI — By marking the Cold War's end and the looming collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago transformed global geopolitics. But no continent benefited more than Asia, whose dramatic economic rise since 1989 has occurred at a speed and scale without parallel in world...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2009

Climatic challenge demands fall of new walls

MOSCOW — The German people, and the whole world alongside them, are celebrating a landmark date in history, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not many events remain in the collective memory as a watershed that divides two distinct periods. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall — that...
Reader Mail
Nov 12, 2009

Little to gain from Soros' words

George Soros' assertion in his Nov. 8 article, "No alternative to a new world architecture," is simple. I may never be as smart as Soros, but a poor Kyoto monk like me knows that the world is not a zero-sum game. China, India or Asia's rise need not spell the demise of the West or United States or Japan,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 10, 2009

From East Berlin to the Far East, and vice versa

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. The East German nation, for 28 years hidden from the world's eyes behind almost impassable walls, suddenly opened up.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2009

Dollar dying at the hands of a weak renminbi

WASHINGTON — Over the last several weeks, the dollar's depreciation against the euro and yen has grabbed global attention. In a normal world, the dollar's weakening would be welcome, as it would help the United States come to grips with its unsustainable trade deficit. But, in a world where China links...
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2009

Pollution fears don't dent coal's popularity

Asia's rebound from the global economic slump is cheering the world with its promise of more growth, jobs and trade. But the revival is bad news for the environment because it is largely driven by a production and transport system addicted to fossil fuels, especially coal and oil. This helps explain...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Nov 1, 2009

Susan Schmidt: Honored U.S. beacon for Japan

Susan Schmidt is a former editor at the University of Tokyo Press who spent 20 years living and raising a family in Japan up until the mid-1990s. She is now executive director of the U.S.-based, 1,500-member Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese — a role in which she has not only helped...
EDITORIALS
Oct 31, 2009

More doubts about Copenhagen

The prospects for success at the United Nations meeting in December in Copenhagen to devise a global accord to fight global warming appear to be receding. Ironically, one reason for the growing pessimism is the bilateral agreement struck by China and India, two of the world's leading producers of greenhouse...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2009

Hiroshima beckons Obama

KYOTO — For the past 64 years the name "Hiroshima" has conjured a nightmare vision for all humanity: the unthinkable specter of instantaneous atomic annihilation. Only by personally visiting Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the two cities that have experienced atomic bombing, can one begin to grasp the threat...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 23, 2009

Tokyo theater scene gets kiss of life

The Edinburgh theater and street-performance festival in Scotland annually sends a buzz round the arts world; France's Avignon invariably features a cordon bleu international menu; and Adelaide and Singapore vie for the Asia-Pacific spotlight.
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2009

Tenth place and falling

Japan ranks 10th in the world on the Human Development Index (HDI), an annual report from the U.N. Development Program that uses three main factors, health, knowledge and standard of living. Tenth would be a laudable position except that Japan's ranking is buoyed by one single factor, the longevity of...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2009

India shifts stand on carbon emission cuts after China announces a national program

LONDON — With a new U.N. climate treaty to be considered in Copenhagen in December, the developed world and the emerging economies are trying to bridge their differences on how to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming. The United States wants developing countries like India and China...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Oct 14, 2009

Sekai Camera's new reality

Speaking on the sidelines at the CEATEC technology conference in Chiba on Friday, Takahito Iguchi made a bold statement: "We will make a new environment."
EDITORIALS
Sep 27, 2009

Resolution for going nonnuclear

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution "to seek a safer world for all and create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons."
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Sep 20, 2009

Junior skaters shine at Poland JGP

Last weekend was a banner one for Japanese skaters, and not the ones you might think.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 20, 2009

U.K. birders' fair shows we can all help save even LBJs

"Life works by making lots and lots of different kinds of living things, and every one we lose impoverishes us and the world. Every single species, obscure or common, funny or dull, gorgeous or LBJ [the bird-watchers' abbreviation for "Little Brown Job"], is a strand in the web of life: every time we...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 20, 2009

U.K. birders' fair shows we can all help save even LBJs

"Life works by making lots and lots of different kinds of living things, and every one we lose impoverishes us and the world. Every single species, obscure or common, funny or dull, gorgeous or LBJ [the bird-watchers' abbreviation for "Little Brown Job"], is a strand in the web of life: every time we...
COMMENTARY
Sep 11, 2009

Shifting balances of power

The hope was that the League of Nations before World War II and the United Nations, its postwar successor, would provide a more effective way of ensuring world peace than the "Balance of Power" that Britain, in particular, had tried to maintain in Europe for centuries. This hope has not been fulfilled....
COMMENTARY
Sep 10, 2009

Politics and people colliding

The Japanese people have just voted decisively for change. For what kind of change should they now be asking?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2009

Time to reject tyranny and health insecurity

NEW YORK — Since 2001, under the guise of "reforms," the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has adopted Bush's undemocratic dogma of market fundamentalism — dysfunctional deregulation, privatization and corporate money games. Such dogma destroyed America's financial systems, social safety net and manufacturing,...

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