Sport is often a great source of soft power, or the ability to shape the preferences of others by appeal instead of coercion or monetary incentives. The Olympic Games are a powerful tool for this type of attraction. Awarded to Germany before the Nazis came to power, the 1936 Berlin Olympics helped...
What choices are available to a nation that, in its quest for modernization, foolishly built a nuclear reactor in a seismically active tsunami zone? The Royal Society reported in 2015 that the disastrous fate of Fukushima in 2011 resulted from a “cascade of engineering and regulatory...
Japan is set up for a stint in the international spotlight, hosting the G20 summit at the end of June and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It will be a busy few years for Japan, which hosts the G20 summit on June 28-29 followed by the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The international attention sparks questions...
Russia and Japan have disparate views on the Kuril Islands that can only be overcome through significant concessions. Last year, the 70-year-long territorial dispute between Russia and Japan over the Kuril Islands again rose to prominence. On September 12, at an economic development conference...
On that fatal March morning in 1995, Aum Shinrikyō tried to mount an attack that would cause so much indiscriminate carnage that it would actually bring down the government. The execution by hanging in Tokyo on July 6 of the "doomsday cult" leader Shoko Asahara and six of his followers has...
With Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe on the ascendant, tensions are bound to rise in East Asia despite Japan’s aging population and tottering economy. This week, US Senator Bob Corker turned on the man he endorsed not too long ago. The senator called US President Donald Trump “utterly...
Media in Japan focuses heavily on domestic affairs, affecting the country's global outlook. Our world is becoming increasingly interconnected in a multitude of ways, and advances in information and communication technologies have made the gathering and dissemination of information at a global...
Obama visits Asia to heal past wounds, push for trade, deepen security ties, promote American interests and contain China in a masterly display of diplomacy. The late Harold Macmillan, heir to a publishing business, a British prime minister and chancellor of the University of Oxford, was once...
Two devastating earthquakes cause much suffering and highlight the need to prepare better for future natural disasters. Few could have imagined in the 16th century that we would have satellites in space, open-heart surgeries and infinite information in the palms of our hands. Yet every now and...
A former Aum Shinrikyo member reveals how difficult it is to distance oneself from the group once you decide to leave. Nagaoka’s son, who has asked for his name to be withheld to protect the privacy of his family, first joined Aum Shinrikyo in the fall of 1987 when he was still a college...
