Regarding the government’s proposals to review the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Law, more than 14 months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, is that all there is?The government submitted a bill to revise the law to the Diet last week, aiming to enable better immediate responses to large-scale disasters based on lessons from the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. However, the bill does not review provisions stipulating emergency measures the government can take, even though the existi

May 25, 2012

The protest by Bodindecha students and their parents urging the school to take previously rejected students into classes illustrates a major flaw in the education system. The students and parents have been desperately trying to get accepted at this well-recognized school because of the wider disparity in the quality of our schools.As of press time, there were reports that the school had accepted an additional 20 students and planned to assist parents of the remaining rejected students to find su

May 25, 2012

The trouble with Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is that he has probably spent too much of time travelling abroad to really understand what’s going on in his own country. On Monday he said the government has done enough to protect the interests of Indonesia’s religious minorities.On the eve of a periodic review of Indonesia’s human rights record before the U.N. Human Rights Council, Marty toed the official line, saying the government has done whatever was necessary to protect the fo

May 25, 2012

In the very early morning of April 17, a senior KAIST student committed suicide. Outside of KAIST, it was recognized simply as another suicide, because just last year, four students and one professor killed themselves. But it was a shock to the community of KAIST because it happened after the introduction of the so-called suicide mitigation plan.KAIST is well-known as a fully government-supported, privileged university. Not only was tuition free but living expenses were also supported during stu

May 24, 2012

A Greek exit from the euro area would inflict heavy damage in Greece and throughout Europe. It could also be one of the best things that ever happened to the currency union. Greece’s repeat parliamentary election next month will serve as a referendum on whether the country should end its 12-year membership in the common currency. An affirmative answer would trigger a cardiac arrest of the Greek economy, as the banking system collapsed and foreign suppliers refused payment in drachmas. The financ

May 24, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court is about to toss a judicial bomb into the middle of the presidential campaign, and nobody knows what impact it will have.The bomb, of course, is the court’s ruling on President Obama’s health-care law, which is expected next month.At first glance, the political implications might look simple. If the court upholds the law, Obama’s biggest legislative achievement, the president wins; if the court declares the law unconstitutional, he loses.But as with many things in politics

May 23, 2012

Barack Obama wanted to be a transformational president, and as we head into the general election, he may have gotten his wish ― just not the way he or his supporters might have thought.Obama seems to have transformed the cohort of 18- to 29-year-olds, a whopping 66 percent of whom preferred him over John McCain, from passionate voters who thought Obama really did offer change they could believe in, into people feeling, in the words of veteran political analyst Charlie Cook, “disappointment and d

May 23, 2012

Ever since March, when the New York Times decided to make a cause celebre out of the resignation of Greg Smith, a vice president at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), a cottage industry of first-person Wall Street departure stories has sprung up across the print media and blogosphere. For instance, the Guardian in London has run a series of 60 columns ― titled “Voices of Finance” ― that give current and former Wall Street bankers and traders a chance to anonymously describe what their jobs are reall

May 23, 2012

U.S.-Egypt ties have become snarled over the past year. Many Egyptians resent the U.S. because it supported the deposed regime of Hosni Mubarak. And the U.S. has struggled for a coherent response to the country’s back-and- forth dance with democracy under transitional military rule. The Egyptian presidential election May 23 and 24, with a runoff June 16 and 17 if necessary, offers a chance to revive the relationship. For the last few months, Egypt’s relationship with the U.S. has been stuck, ove

May 22, 2012

Competition, we are constantly told, encourages individuals, institutions and companies to take the risks necessary for innovation and efficiency. But in higher education, competition often discourages risk taking, leads to overly cautious short-term decisions, produces a mediocre product for the price, and promotes excessive spending on physical plants and bureaucracies. The construction arms race on campus is the most visible example of competition run amok. To become more attractive to potent

May 22, 2012

Talks to form a coalition government in Greece collapsed again as a result of the country’s belt-tightening backlash. The country now faces an unpleasant dilemma: agreed-upon austerity measures in exchange for bailout funds, or a messy default and exit from the eurozone. Greece’s deteriorating situation raises many questions about whether austerity is the right path for other struggling European nations trying to avoid this same fate.For several years now, European governments have tried version

May 22, 2012