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I think the most important thing that comes out of the meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in early 1942 is a commitment on Roosevelt's part to fight Europe first. To struggle first against Germany and put Japan and the Pacific as a secondary theatre in the conflict. And this is what Churchill was after.
I want completing the single market to be our driving mission. I want us to be at the forefront of transformative trade deals with the US, Japan and India as part of the drive towards global free trade. And I want us to be pushing to exempt Europe's smallest entrepreneurial companies from more EU directives.
I grew up as a fifth-generation Jew in the American South, at the confluence of two great storytelling traditions. After graduating from Yale in the 1980s, I moved to Japan. For young adventure seekers like myself, the white-hot Japanese miracle held a similar appeal as Russia in 1920s or Paris in the 1950s.
I go up to San Francisco on holidays and spend time with my family there, but whenever I go to Japan, I enjoy every moment. I try to go back there every year or so. It's a phenomenal place, and I absolutely love it. It's not my second home; it is my home. Whenever I go back, I feel very connected with Japan.
The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary objective of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return.
When I was scheduled to fight in Japan, and then I would come back to the United States, I would have to train, but there was nobody to train here. There was no such thing as a striker going with a grappler, or a striker going to the ground with a grappler, or a grappler standing up and fighting with a boxer.
I wrote in coffee shops in Japan when I was 22, 23, before I had the stamina to sit down and write. I liked the buzzy environment; I couldn't speak Japanese when I arrived, so it was kind of a white noise. It felt more sociable than being alone, but now, as I've developed a writing practice, I couldn't do it.
Koizumi was not rooted in Japan's rightwing nationalist tradition: he was a pragmatist and a populist. Abe, in contrast, is a rightwing nationalist. Unlike Koizumi, for example, he has questioned the validity of the postwar Tokyo trials of Japan's wartime leaders, which found many of them guilty of war crimes.
When I was 11 or 12 - a young boy in Japan - one of my older brothers took me to a sushi restaurant. I had never been to one, and it was very memorable. Back then, sushi was expensive and hard to come by, not like today, when there's a sushi restaurant on every street corner and you can buy it in supermarkets.
If you take skinny jeans - skinny jeans didn't just happen in the US, they were happening in Japan, they were happening in the UK, they were happening everywhere. Some places a little faster than others. But, if we look at our best sellers in this store, they're the same best sellers that we have in the States.
I know this is economic jargon, but essentially, if you bring more women to the job market, you create value, it makes economic sense, and growth is improved. There are countries where it's almost a no-brainer: Korea, Japan, soon to be China, certainly Germany, Italy. Why? Because they have an aging population.
With every story that TV covers, somebody - some corporation, some shareholders - are making money. That's true whether covering Libya, Iraq, the tsunami in Japan, Osama bin Laden, whatever story there is. That day, the shareholders are making money off it. Every newspaper that's sold, somebody's making a dime.
Take Germany and Japan, both defeated in the Second World War. Germany has acknowledged its monstrous crimes to a certain extent, has paid reparations and so on. Japan, in contrast, apologizes for nothing and has paid no reparations, with one exception: It pays reparations to the United States, but not to Asia.
I only ever get to work with Naito once a year. I'd love to wrestle him again. Yeah, he's good, for sure. The person I've never worked before in a New Japan ring - and I'd be happy to get the chance and show the difference of styles - is Zack Sabre, Jr., so that'd be another one. Yeah, he's one of my favorites.
I always had a sense that I would fall in love with Tokyo. In retrospect I guess it's not that surprising. I was of the generation that had grown up in the '80s when Japan was ascendant (born aloft by a bubble whose burst crippled its economy for decades), and I'd fed on a steady diet of anime and samurai films.
The Imperial Household, as represented by the Emperor, has been praying for the welfare of the people while nurturing harmonious relationship with them. Based on the people's respect and adoration for the Emperor, the Japanese people have stayed united. That is the essence of Japan's national heritage, I believe.
I had thought that Tokyo would be like New York City, but it wasn't. I'd imagined that they'd be similar in their bustle and noise level, but, in fact, Tokyo is a very calm metropolis. The bright lights and hectic night-life images so often found in advertisements and Western media do not reflect every day Japan.
In the two-room flat where I live in Japan, I try to take time every day to step away from the bombardment of e-mails and opportunities and papers around my desk, for an hour, and just sit on our 30-inch terrace in the sun, reading something sustaining, whether 'The Age of Innocence' or the latest by Colm Toibin.
I want to clear this once and for all. I was born in Hong Kong. I grew up in Japan and China. London is not home for me. I was there only for three years before I moved to India, but that's probably why I am connected with it. London is definitely not the place I consider my home. It's India that I consider home.
All the organizations and officials of Chongryon, regarding this unity as the great foundation of the movement of Koreans in Japan, should rally themselves around the central leadership with one mind and purpose, and accomplish its patriotic cause, which was pioneered with comradely unity, by dint of comradeship.
Japan today has become acquainted with the Western civilization of the rule of Might, but retains the characteristics of the Oriental civilization of the rule of Right. Now the question remains whether Japan will be the hawk of the Western civilization of the rule of Might, or the tower of strength of the Orient.
Well, there's lots of different things going on at the moment, I'm in talks with some people from Japan to do something and I'm also talking to Hugo Boss to do a very small line, which I want to keep to just 10-12 pieces, but what I want to do is sit with the designers for a couple of days bashing some stuff out.
It turns out that a Nobel is also followed by other recognitions, and perhaps the most unexpected of these is that the Japan Karate Association in Tokyo has now made me an honorary 7th-degree black belt, something that, given my athletic abilities, is even more unimaginable than being an Economic Sciences Laureate.
I've been very fortunate to be at the startup of a lot of different things. I was the startup of the Pancrase organization in Japan. Became a big figure over there. Then I was in the UFC and was at the startup of that, and I was a big figure in that. Twice. Not only in the beginning but also when it was taken over.
China is a great manufacturing center, but it's actually mostly an assembly plant. So it assembles parts and components, high technology that comes from the surrounding industrial - more advanced industrial centers - Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Europe - and it basically assembles them.
I think, in Japan, animation isn't relegated to being a genre unto itself. It's just a medium by which you can tell any number of stories, be it horror or action or adventure or drama or whatever, and we're trying to do that as well. Every film that you go see from Pixar, we're hoping is a little bit of a surprise.
Before the war, my parents were very proud people. They'd always talk about Japan and also about the samurai and things like that. Right after Pearl Harbor, they were just real quiet. They kept to themselves; they were afraid to talk about what could happen. I assume they knew that nothing good would come out of it.
When Japanese went to Hawaii they would go straight and buy the same thing that they would buy in Japan. They just got it cheaper, which they liked. And so they would still eat the red bean ice cream or the green tea ice cream, but they didn't really take advantage of the variety and it wasn't clear that they cared.
There are a lot of things I might be good at, such as competitive figure skating, window washing from ten stories up, and being an open heart surgeon. I might also make an excellent Kamikaze pilot - except for the fact that I don't want to learn how to fly and have no interest in taking my own life on behalf of Japan.
In Japan, the people preserve their temples for their exquisite beauty, and there are a great many sincere Buddhists; but China is irreligious: a nation of atheists or agnostics, or slaves of impious superstitions. In an extended tramp among temples, I have not seen a single male worshiper or a thing to please the eye.
I just had the absolute best luck in the world in terms of meeting The Young Bucks, and they might look like wild little rock stars who are irresponsible, but they are business geniuses. They set up the deal with Hot Topic, and they're going to be the first 7-figure downside characters that New Japan Pro Wrestling has.
Japan's diplomatic efforts could have had a broader international perspective. Relations with the U.S. are, of course, the cornerstone of Japan's diplomacy, but the U.S. acts on its global strategy. For instance, Washington suddenly got closer to China in the early 1970s as part of its strategy against the Soviet Union.
It is good that since the outbreak of the war with Japan, more and more revolutionary writers have been coming to Yan'an... But it does not necessarily follow that... they have integrated themselves completely with the masses here. The two must be completely integrated if we are to push ahead with our revolutionary work.
Japanese food is very pretty and undoubtedly a suitable cuisine in Japan, which is largely populated by people of below average size. Hostesses hell-bent on serving such food to occidentals would be well advised to supplement it with something more substantial and to keep in mind that almost everybody likes french fries.
I'm anxious to face them (major league pitchers) all, but in reality I'm looking forward most to (Boston's) Pedro Martinez. He was with the major league team that came to Japan in 1996, just before he became a superstar. I'm anxious to see how much he's improved. And I'm anxious to see how much I've improved against him.
When I was little, I thought my country was the best on the planet. And I grew up singing a song called 'Nothing To Envy.' And I was very proud. In school, we spent a lot of time studying the history of Kim Il-Sung, but we never learned much about the outside world, except that America, South Korea, Japan are the enemies.
I was just lucky to be there ahead of the curve to be the driving force behind bringing this amazing style of wrestling from Japan that combined Lucha Libre, American professional wrestling, Canadian professional wrestling and Japanese wrestling all into one beautiful mix that fans worldwide absolutely can't get enough of.
During my travels in Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Europe and all over the United States, I have seen and heard the voices of people who want change. They want the stabilization of the economy, education and healthcare for all, renewable energy and an environmental vision with an eye on generations to come.
I was with my band at a karaoke bar in Japan when it was very big there, and they got up and made fools of themselves without practicing properly. I didn't understand why they were doing that. It was like they were making fun of the genre by performing badly. But I didn't get up and sing, so I don't know what it feels like.
The election of Shinzo Abe as the leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic party and now prime minister will have profound repercussions for Japan and East Asia. Most western commentary during the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi has been concerned with the extent to which Japan has allowed a freer rein to market forces.
In Japan, the attention to detail in customer service is an experience that is unlike anywhere else. It's really quite special. I think everyone who's interested in fashion would do well to take a trip to learn about presentation and the way the merchandise is handed to you. These are skills that no one really thinks about.
I like going to Japan where they treat it like a real sport. I like doing the entertainment stuff with the WWE. I really like doing the small venue stuff, like Ring of Honor, because everything is so intimate. There's different feelings and different experiences, and you have to be good at different things to do all of that.
It was good to launch the economy in the '50s. Japan did this; China did this; even South Korea did this. All the East Asians did this - import substitution. I think all countries followed import substitution in the '50s and in the '60s, but I think by the '70s, countries were getting out of that first phase of the strategy.
Why did the earthquake and tsunami occur in Japan? Was it the act of an angry God? No, it was the result of the movement and collision of the earth's tectonic plates - a process driven by the earth's need to regulate its own internal temperature. Without the process that creates earthquake, our planet could not sustain life.
I never considered the clothing business in college. But my father was a manufacturer of men's wear in the Northeast and wanted to investigate manufacturing in Asia. In 1972 he sent me to Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong for four months. I'm convinced it was his way of getting me into business, rather than letting me be a hippie.
My husband and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, and you look at, like, the presentation of the food, and it's ridiculous. It looks like a Mondrian painting or something. Everything looks like a bunch of little Hello Kitty erasers when you eat a little bento box in Japan. It's so precise and beautiful and processed and neat.
You know, Russia today is, what, 200 million people? In land mass, it's probably 50 times the size [of Japan], in natural resources a hundred times the size! Russia's not doing all that badly. The public there - not everybody - but they have things that the West offered, [that] were only available in the West a long time ago.
Of course, the American education system is very inefficient in many ways compared to other countries in Europe or Japan, but it works in such a way that at least the few people who are going onto unusual careers and science can manage to get into that, even though they go through an earlier stage that doesn't give them much.
When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.
When I was in Japan on tour in 2010, I felt like I was 30 years into the future. I love technology and they are so advanced with their phones, computers, everything. I think they had the iPhone way before we did in the U.S. I love gadgets, games, social media and I try to stay ahead on all that stuff, but they get it all first.