BRIAN COVERT

My wife was haranguing me to get to the dinner table; we were already running late. “Wait a minute,” I said from the entryway by our front door. “I think she’s going.” I didn’t want to come back after dinner only to find that a beloved member of...

今年１０月、ニューヨークで開催された国連総会の委員会において、３４カ国の代表が世界的核兵器廃止を要求する共同声明を発表し、日本への参加を求めた。これに対し日本側は、現在の日米間の安全保障同盟関係維持の重要性を引き合いに賛同しなかった。日本政府のこの一つの対応から、環太平洋地域における米軍の配備拡大に関連した、これまでの問題点がはっきりと見えてくる。沖縄県に配備された軍用輸送機オスプレイに関わる最近の論議も、まさにこれらの問題の一つである。

Soon after the bombs began raining down on the people of Afghanistan in 2001, a number of Pentagon officials in Arlington, Virginia insisted they did not keep track of the numbers of dead enemy fighters or civilians. This insistence grew much...

Good morning, everyone. My name is Brian Covert. Thank you for joining the event today, especially on a Saturday morning, to think about and talk together about Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. I’m especially happy that young people could...

MANY MONTHS WENT BY following the Day of Dispersal, and despite some international grumblings here and there about the way the foreigners had been treated, Japan’s position in the newly sanctioned “Big 3 Eastern Economic Partnership” (BEEP)...

IT WAS MONDAY MORNING when the postcards started arriving, right on schedule. In homes all over Japan in which overseas people lived, the cards were dropped into mailboxes by the young, new employees of Japan Post: women in their 20s, no more than...

日本をベースに活動するジャーナリスト、ライターとして、問題意識を持つ市民として、またなによりも皆さんと同じ人間として、このサイトでは、私の仕事、 社会活動や趣味などを紹介していきたいと思います。多くの人にとって、自分自身や生活の一部を他の部分と完全に別にしておくのは、きわめて自然なことです。 しかし、私の場合は、自分の様々な面がそれぞれ調和をもって共存できる場所が欲しかった。したがって、ここではジャーナリストとしてのマスコミ関係の仕事のほかに、私の詩人としての一面、社会活動家としての一面、写

There are many yardsticks by which to measure a society, and surely volunteering ranks somewhere near the top of the list. It is safe to say that in the United States today, volunteer activities can make the difference between a close-knit...

Benjamin Franklin, an inventor and one of America’s “founding fathers” of the 1700s, once said: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” But even Franklin, were he alive today, might be surprised by the myriad...

Today, August 15 [2005], marks 60 years since the end of World War II, a war that took millions of lives and changed the course of history. All around the world today, it is a time for quietly reflecting on where the human race has been and where...

If it seems that Dr. Asaf Durakovic’s visits to Japan are always preceded by violent threats and harassment back home in North America, it is only because that is a constant reality for him. Just before coming to Japan last year to appeal the...

The second day of the two-day “International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq” in Kyoto, Japan was kicked off by testimony from Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi Kurd now living in exile in London. Zangana said she had long been opposed to Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath...

On the downtown streets of this ancient city, camera-clad tourists and foreigners wearing traditional Japanese kimono robes fluttered about the sidewalks in anticipation of the Gion Matsuri, one of Japan’s biggest annual summer festivals. Inside a...

こんにちは。本日は新聞学研究会の第２１０回例会のゲストスピーカーとしてお招きいただき、ありがとうございます。 特に七夕のような日本の特別な日に、尊敬すべき同僚の報道関係者の方々の前でお話できることを光栄に思うと同時に、身の引き締まる思いです。 お聞きの通り、私の名前はブライアン・コバートです。 ジャーナリズムの分野で２０年以上、日本とアメリカで仕事をしてきました。日本に住んでいた１５年余りの間に、私は日本のかつての英字新聞４紙のうち３紙で働きました。また、UPI通信社東京支局の大阪特派員も務め

Good afternoon. Thank you for your introduction and for kindly inviting me here today to be your guest speaker for the 210th meeting of the Shimbun Gaku Kenkyu-kai. I am both honored and humbled to be speaking here among my esteemed colleagues in...

A citizens tribunal seeking to indict United States president George Bush for war crimes in Iraq held its third public hearing in Japan here Sunday, April 25 [2004], presenting evidence and bearing witness to the suffering of the Iraqi people.

Friday is karaoke day for me and my son, or at any rate this particular Friday was, so we ventured into the muggy Kansai heat, dressed in light shirts, short pants and sandals. It was the summer of 2000 and there was reason to believe something...

Greetings again, everyone! We’re already a month into the new school year here in Japan — the first school year of the new millennium — and along with it, no doubt, a slew of more news stories to appear in the media about how schools appear to be...

Greetings all, in these final days of March! In this debut edition of KnoK NEWS, we get down to some basics of homelearning in the Land of the Rising Sun: What is learning at home like in Japan? What kind of people are doing it? Why? And how many?...

Bundled up for the winter cold, my son and I headed out to the train station near our home in Osaka, Japan on a morning early this year. We were soon joined on the walk down the hillside road by an elderly Japanese man, Mr. Kawanishi, a retiree...