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EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 2006

Mr. Ozawa on the offensive

Just as the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election campaign is making headlines, Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, president of the Democratic Party of Japan, formally announces his candidacy in the No. 1 opposition party's leadership race and discloses his platform. By emphasizing the need to rectify what some...
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2006

Even without direct say, public influencing LDP race

, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe (center) and Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, attend an LDP regional meeting last week. KYODO PHOTO
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2006

Voting for next prime minister will be an all-LDP affair

The year's biggest political event -- the race to pick the next Liberal Democratic Party president and thus the successor to Prime Minis ter Junichiro Koizumi -- officially kicks off Sept. 8 for a Sept. 20 vote. Here are some questions and answers:
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 29, 2006

Getting tough on terrorism

Now that some time has passed since the seven serial blasts on Bombay's commuter trains on July 11 that killed almost 200 and wounded another 700, it is possible to take a more dispassionate look at the tragedy. In particular, while not absolving terrorists and their external backers of the main blame...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 13, 2006

Guantanamo: shame on U.S.

David Hicks is a young man from Adelaide who was corrupted by al-Qaida propaganda and volunteered to train with them in Afghanistan. He left Afghanistan without having committed any terrorist or criminal act, then decided to go back to collect his meager belongings. Rather stupidly, that was after the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 8, 2006

A Germany not ashamed to wave the flag

BERLIN -- It was clear from the taxi ride into town from Hamburg airport that something was different: Most buildings had a German flag hanging from a balcony. More remarkable still were the cars with small German flags protruding from windows. By the time I got to Berlin, it seemed that every third...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 23, 2006

Imelda Marcos: Still angry after all these years

The beautiful half of one of the 20th century's most notorious dictatorships, Imelda Marcos has spent two decades fighting attempts to jail her and trace a reputed fortune of billions. On the 20th anniversary of the revolution that ousted her and Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines, she talks...
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 2006

Thailand's new crisis

It is in keeping with his singular style of governance that Thailand's embattled prime minister, Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra, lost his job by winning an election. His victory in snap elections has precipitated a constitutional crisis. Sensing that a numerical majority would not allow him to govern, Mr. Thaksin...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2006

A test for Thai democracy

SINGAPORE -- One year after he was re-elected in a landslide, Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been forced to dissolve the National Assembly and call a snap election. Although his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party commands a 75 percent majority in the assembly, Thaksin is embattled.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 5, 2006

Fashionista with attitude

Raised on the mean streets of Brooklyn's Brownsville district, Gene Krell is a self-proclaimed tough guy who cites as one of his heroes a little-known but highly colorful "Dadaist professional boxer" called Arthur Cravan.
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2006

America missing out in Asia

HONOLULU -- The structure of global power is shifting, and Asia is finally emerging as one of the pillars of the international system. We have heard this talk before -- over a decade ago the "Asian century" was the story line -- but it is finally happening. The rise of China is part of this story, but...
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2006

More women taking charge

January has been a precedent-setting month for women. Ms. Michelle Bachelet was elected Chile's first female leader, becoming South America's second woman elected head of state, while Ms. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf took office as president of Liberia, Africa's first elected female head of state.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2006

U.S.-China ideological rivalry heats up

WASHINGTON -- Two recent events in Asia have again directly underscored the "ideological" tussle between Washington and Beijing, which is increasingly seen as a benevolent power and even as offering a model for socioeconomic development. As Asian leaders gathered last month in Kuala Lumpur for the East...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2006

LDP landslide buries two-party system

The result of the Sept. 11 general election was a runaway victory for the Liberal Democratic Party, and political chaos. But from the fog of uncertainty that is enveloping Japan there may emerge a new political structure that could some day be called the "2005 order."
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2006

Four-way horse race to succeed Koizumi

The gate is open and the horses are off and running.
COMMENTARY
Jan 1, 2006

The year of Koizumi's exit

The year 2006 will mark a watershed for Japanese politics inasmuch as Junichiro Koizumi, who has ruled Japan for five years as one of the longest-serving prime ministers in the postwar era, insists that he will step down when his term as president of the governing Liberal Democratic Party expires.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2005

Japan boosts U.S. ties at own risk

The United States has been Japan's most important ally since World War II and the U.S. nuclear umbrella of the Cold War came to define their security alliance.
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2005

Diminishing role of LDP factions

Factionalism has often been said to be the hallmark of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled the nation for most of the past 50 years. The LDP landslide in the Sept. 11 Lower House election, however, has dramatically altered the party's internal structure. In particular, its factional politics...
COMMENTARY
Sep 18, 2005

Japan to go boldly backward for a while

HONOLULU -- No one predicted the size of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's election victory last weekend. The landslide win has transformed the landscape of Japanese politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2005

Betting on a bolder Japan

WASHINGTON -- A Latin proverb says, "fortune favors the bold but abandons the timid." That, more than any other explanation captures the drama of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's gravity-defying success in catapulting his Liberal Democratic Party to its biggest electoral success ever -- in...
EDITORIALS
Sep 6, 2005

Democracy test for Mr. Mubarak

Egyptian voters will choose their next president Wednesday from among 10 candidates running in that country's first-ever multicandidate presidential election. There are no candidates powerful enough to challenge incumbent President Hosni Mubarak, however, and it seems certain he will win a fifth term....
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2005

NHK, Asahi still trading blows in censorship row

NHK and the Asahi Shimbun are still at odds over allegations that an NHK war crimes documentary was censored under political pressure, and a new report by the daily threatens to add fuel to the fire.
COMMENTARY
Jun 16, 2005

The gulf between Bush, Roh

LOS ANGELES -- I'm sorry, but President George W. Bush just doesn't get South Korea and he doesn't understand its president, Roh Moo Hyun, either. And I doubt he ever will.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 20, 2005

'S wonderful: Wiling away the time with Caetano Veloso

Caetano is here. Caetano Veloso. The man who has been hailed for decades in his native Brazil as a singer, composer, poet and revolutionary, and commonly celebrated abroad as the 'Bob Dylan of Brazil,' despite his dislike for such labels.
EDITORIALS
Feb 12, 2005

More disappointment for South Asia

South Asia is home to the some of the poorest nations in the world. The region desperately needs greater integration to marshal its resources and help stimulate development that will offer its citizens better lives. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was created to do just that,...
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2005

Picking up where he left off

U.S. President George W. Bush is beginning his second term of office (Thursday, Washington time). Having outlined an aggressive agenda for the next four years, he has said he intends to use the political capital accumulated during his first term to accomplish his objectives. That will require spending...
COMMENTARY
Jan 7, 2005

Musharraf's penchant to stay in charge

ISLAMABAD -- The prospect that Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- who seized power in a bloodless coup five years ago -- will remain head of the military looms as a major setback in the political outlook for South Asia's second-largest nuclear-armed country.
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2004

Will Chen change tack?

KUNMING, China -- While all signs pointed to a victory by Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's "pan-green" coalition (Democratic Progressive Party plus former President Lee Teng-hui's independence-oriented Taiwan Solidarity Union) in parliamentary elections Dec. 11, the Kuomintang/People First Party (KMT/PFP...
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2004

More gridlock in the Taiwan Strait

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian had a disappointing weekend. His Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was unable to win a majority in parliamentary elections held Saturday. The result is likely to be continuing gridlock in Taiwanese politics, as different parties control the presidency and the legislature....
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Extra Diet session achieves little; critics declare democracy dead

The 53-day extraordinary Diet session ended Friday with little progress on key contentious issues -- namely a political money scandal and the war in Iraq.

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