Elections are coming up in Japan, and Shinzo Abe faces a challenge from the left.
Yamamoto Taro: New Prospects for Progressive Politics in Japan
read more
Nuclear Power
How Japanese Officials Can Atone for Fukushima
Let them eat isotopes.
Iran: Deal or No Deal?
Rare are the moments when enormously complex situations lend themselves to unambiguous yes-or-no answers. This is one of them.
America’s Homegrown Terror
Plagued by poor infrastructure, climate denialism, and a patchwork of unregulated fracking wells and nuclear waste sites, the U.S. is poised to topple itself with self-inflicted wounds.
Riding the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Rollercoaster
The United States held nuclear energy out to Iran and then pulled it away.
Surviving Climate Change: Towards a Climate Revolution
Is a green energy revolution on the global agenda?
Branding Japan
Shinzo Abe is back as prime minister, along with his special brand of Abenomics and a whole new politics of hype.
Marching Orders for Japan’s Reactionaries
Richard Armitage is at it again. George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of state has made a career of telling Japan what to do. When then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had second thoughts about joining the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq, Armitage told an official, “Don’t try to back off.” Earlier, he had advised Japan (in Gavan McCormack’s paraphrase) to “pull its head out of the sand and make sure the Rising Sun flag was visible in the Afghanistan war.”
Japan’s Version of Kool-Aid
Lady Gaga went to Japan for a charity concert, proceeds of which go to victims of the March 11 earthquake. All week, Lady Gaga commanded the airwaves, Japan’s current turmoil notwithstanding. The panda eyes she wore on a morning talk show could be the single greatest make-up event ever. But it was something else that Lady Gaga did that really commanded my attention, and the attention of so many Japanese.
Sans Insurance, a Nuclear Meltdown Can Become a Financial Meltdown
Since insurance companies refuse to provide more than minimal coverage for nuclear-power plants, the state must absorb the bulk of the costs of a disaster such as Fukushima.