Search - local-elections

 
 
COMMENTARY
Dec 30, 2007

Living with war and a warmer planet

LONDON — 2007 was the year in which global warming finally began to be taken seriously. Climate-change deniers were in full retreat, and the realization that we face a long and grave crisis was finally dawning on the general public. However, it remains to be seen whether the world will agree on effective...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 11, 2007

Funds law no match for wily politicians

Almost every day it seems another politician is making headlines over a money scandal. Four members of embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet — administrative reform minister Genichiro Sata, and farm ministers Toshikatsu Matsuoka, Norihiko Akagi and Takehiko Endo — have been forced from their...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 5, 2007

Antiwar activist Steven L. Leeper

In a sense, it is the ultimate irony: The man appointed to oversee the memorial to victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945 by an American B-29 aircraft is . . . an American.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Japanese NGOs focus on relief, reconciliation -- and coffee co-operatives

The violent troubles in 2006 drove many staff of Japanese nongovern- mental organizations out of East Timor. The NGOs I visited had modest offices and accommodations, and the staff lived frugally -- unlike the "lords of poverty" I have encountered elsewhere in the international development community....
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 24, 2006

Koizumi's Shake, Rattle & Roll

Elvis impersonator? Japan's Thatcher? Faction buster? Nah, as the curtain falls on the Koizumi show, he will be remembered above all for his missed opportunities and self-indulgent gestures at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo -- that, and steamrollering the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 into oblivion....
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 1, 2006

The coming 'St. Putinsburg' summit

PRAGUE — St. Petersburg is a great place in early summer, when the "White Nights" bathe the city's imperial palaces and avenues. Small wonder, then, that Russian President Vladimir Putin likes to show off his hometown.
EDITORIALS
May 26, 2006

Weak effort to equalize votes

The Upper House has passed and sent to the Lower House a bill to revise the Public Offices Election Law in order to rectify disparities in the relative value of a vote in Upper House elections. The bill, submitted by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito, is likely to...
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2006

Philippine terror havens threaten region

CANBERRA -- The presence of insurgent or terrorist sanctuaries in nonbelligerent countries is one of the most intractable, explosive issues in international relations. It was a central fact of the Vietnam War, brought about the destruction of Lebanon, and continues to plague the coalition in Iraq. It...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 3, 2006

Lawsuit-free land a myth

Japan is not renowned for its courtroom dramas. But occasionally a landmark ruling does make the front pages.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2005

INEPT LEADERSHIP CONTINUES

HONG KONG -- A controversial plan to extend democracy in Hong Kong died Dec. 21 when the legislature failed to pass it by a big enough majority. Hopes of true democracy in the special region of China have thus been put into deep freeze, with recriminations reverberating from Hong Kong to Beijing and...
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 2005

Silence isn't always golden

With the Dec. 31 deadline for compiling the fiscal 2006 budget approaching, the government recently made a series of decisions, including placing a heavier financial burden on people aged 70 years or older receiving medical service, the creation of a single public-lending institution out of the current...
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2005

Tax diversion poses challenges

This fiscal year the government is expected to collect about 5.78 trillion yen in revenues from six different taxes paid by automobile and road users. Because these revenues are legally earmarked for road improvement, however, the government cannot use the money for other purposes. This rigidity has...
COMMENTARY
Aug 29, 2005

Watershed election for Japan

LONDON -- The results of the Japanese general election on Sept. 11 will be important not only for the future of Japanese parliamentary democracy but also for the Japanese economy and Japan's foreign relations.
JAPAN
Jun 24, 2005

Ishihara seen as X-factor in metro race

Four years ago, it was Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who appeared on the posters of Liberal Democratic Party candidates for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2005

Wild card in Filipino politics

MANILA -- Ideally, in a democracy the military is subordinate to the political leadership, which enjoys a popular mandate through universal elections. In reality, civil-military relations often have a different quality.
COMMENTARY
Oct 31, 2004

In defense of a liberal agenda

MANILA -- Today, hardly another political term is as misapprehended and misrepresented as is "liberal." A case in point is the United States in the runup to the presidential elections. For partisan reasons, the Republicans and the so-called neoconservatives have gone on a rampage to discredit liberalism....
Features
Jun 13, 2004

Momentum building toward a transformed Japan

The "lost decade" story of teetering banks, an imploding Nikkei and skyrocketing unemployment has been overdone, and overlooks many interesting and dynamic developments. Too much of what is happening in contemporary Japan cannot be explained by media images of social gridlock and economic stagnation....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2003

Ailing, apathetic Osaka plods to the polls

OSAKA -- Osaka goes to the polls this Sunday to elect a new mayor. But Satomi Ando, 43, who runs a small printing business in the Tenma district, could care less.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ELECTION 2003
Nov 4, 2003

Party campaign strategies smack of desperation

With the coming election in mind, former House of Representatives member Kaoru Yosano last spring departed the Liberal Democratic Party faction led by Shizuka Kamei.
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2003

U.N. force key to Iraqi peace

LONDON -- The news from Iraq over the last month has been bleak, with U.S. and British forces continuing to suffer significant casualties. Bomb blasts last month at the U.N. headquarters and a Shiite mosque left many dead and wounded. Acts of sabotage have hindered the resumption of electricity and water...
COMMENTARY
Sep 14, 2003

Shy man performs historic balancing act

HONG KONG -- Because Hong Kong's leader tends to view the news media (local or otherwise) with the enthusiasm of a swimmer greeting a school of sharks, Tung Chee-hwa has scant hope of receiving his due as the historically pivotal man he is. His public image is generally terrible, and he is often portrayed...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 21, 2003

A breakthrough for Thaksin

BANGKOK -- Nearly 2 1/2 years after his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party's unprecedented electoral victory, recent weeks have seen Thailand's Premier Thaksin Shinawatra score an unmistakable psychological breakthrough. The change has nothing to do with Thaksin's own psychology; his supreme self-confidence seems...
Japan Times
JAPAN / GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS '03
Apr 9, 2003

Parties kept at distance in Kanagawa race

YOKOHAMA -- The last-minute candidacy of Yoko Tajima, a former House of Councilors lawmaker and celebrated feminist scholar, in the April 13 Kanagawa gubernatorial election has added a new wrinkle into an already crowded field.
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2003

Smashing the payoff triangle

The history of the Liberal Democratic Party includes a long list of money scandals. The recent arrest of Lower House lawmaker Takanori Sakai, charged with violating the Political Funds Control Law, is the latest reminder.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 15, 2003

Few hawks in Southeast Asia

SINGAPORE -- As the world awaits the outcome of another report by United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, and perhaps a second resolution (following U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441), war drums are beating ever louder in the United States, Britain and some allied nations.
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2003

Diet's role in cleaning up politics

The economic debate in the Diet appears to be distracting legislators from an issue that is no less important: political ethics. It would be a great pity if this issue were to be sidelined under the pretext of prioritizing economic-recovery measures. Recent developments involving scandal-tainted politicians...
EDITORIALS
Dec 24, 2002

Afghan revival depends on security

Sunday marked the first anniversary of the establishment of an interim government in Afghanistan following the collapse of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime. Earlier this month, Mr. Hamid Karzai, head of the transitional government that took over from an interim administration in June, noted...
EDITORIALS
Nov 5, 2002

Extensive debate on the Constitution

A Lower House constitutional research panel last week released an interim report summarizing nearly three years of its discussions. The voluminous document covers a wide range of subjects, including the Emperor system, roles of the Self-Defense Forces and basic human rights. However, it leaves open the...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight