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November 22, 2024
 

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Michael Richardson
COMMENTARY
Aug 14, 2010
Iran will test U.S.-China ties
SINGAPORE — Relations between the United States and China — already under serious strain over trade and economic issues, human rights and, most recently, the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea — are about to be tested anew over Iran's controversial nuclear program.
COMMENTARY
Aug 5, 2010
China's claims make waves
Befitting its status as a rising global power, China says it is the third-largest country in the world, after Russia and Canada, with a land area of about 9.6 million square km. However, although China is a continental giant, it is a maritime minnow compared to other big countries.
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2010
Beijing's Asia power play
China's economic and military might has grown in recent years along with its overseas trade and investment. China is becoming an oceanic power with growing clout in the Asia-Pacific region.
COMMENTARY
Jul 22, 2010
Pond scum could save the world
Do we really need to keep pushing the frontiers in the search for oil? Must we venture into ever deeper and more dangerous waters, and into areas on land where technical challenges and political risks are rising? Some leading multinational energy companies evidently believe there may be a promising alternative...
COMMENTARY
Jul 8, 2010
A losing battle against proliferation
Slowly but surely, the barriers preventing the spread of nuclear technology and materials that can be used to make weapons of mass destruction are being eroded.
COMMENTARY
Jun 21, 2010
Indonesia moving to reduce forest loss, warming emissions
SINGAPORE — Recent developments in curbing high levels of forest loss around the world, particularly in the tropics, are promising. They are significant because deforestation, including the clearing of trees from peat swamps in Southeast Asia, is the biggest source of global warming emissions from...
COMMENTARY
Jun 16, 2010
China ups the ante in Asia
In the opening session last month of the China-U.S. strategic and economic dialogue, Chinese President Hu Jintao said it was natural for the two countries to disagree on some issues. What was important, he added, was to "respect and accommodate each other's core interests and major concerns, appropriately...
COMMENTARY
Jun 3, 2010
NASA keeping a closer eye on space weather
The images from cameras and sensors on the latest satellite watching the sun are a dramatic reminder of the awesome power of the star that warms our planet. They show clouds of magnetized gas big enough to engulf the Earth breaking away from the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere. These coronal...
COMMENTARY
May 25, 2010
China won't hear suggestions that it's a disarmament slacker
SINGAPORE — As the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs, Japan has been a leader in the campaign for nuclear disarmament since the end of the Second World War.
COMMENTARY
May 13, 2010
China's navy changing the game
For much of the Cold War, China's navy was little more than an elaborate coast guard. It was barely a blip on the maritime horizons of Japan and Southeast Asia. Today the Chinese armed forces are in the midst of an intense and sustained modernization program, and the navy has emerged as a key service...
COMMENTARY
May 9, 2010
Beijing projects power in South China Sea
SINGAPORE — Is China becoming more assertive in enforcing its claims to control as much as 80 percent of the South China Sea, a claim that includes sovereignty over dozens of islands disputed with several Southeast Asian states?
COMMENTARY
May 3, 2010
Plans for 'small' reactors nudge waste-disposal concerns to fore
Imagine a world in which midsize cities, factories and towns in many countries have their own small nuclear reactors to generate electricity and heat. Some would be in remote locations unconnected to the national grid but others would be in densely populated zones that need local sources of constant...
COMMENTARY
Apr 20, 2010
Methane has scent of potential
SINGAPORE — Starting this month and extending through May, South Korea will resume exploratory drilling in waters off its east coast to find out whether a long-hidden energy resource can be turned into a new wellspring of natural gas. Other major energy users and importers, including the United States,...
COMMENTARY
Apr 8, 2010
New tool to monitor climate change
Some of the most dramatic signs of climate change are taking place in the vast and frigid polar caps, where relatively few humans live. We would know much less about them than we do but for recent advances in satellite technology and remote sensing.
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2010
Assuaging China's expanding 'core' concerns
SINGAPORE — Not long before U.S. President Barack Obama held his low-key meeting in the White House with the exiled Tibetan leader last month, the Dalai Lama, a Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington issued a statement on the talks and the U.S. decision to provide a new package of defensive arms to...
COMMENTARY
Feb 26, 2010
Damping the soot emissions could buy time
SINGAPORE — A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences trekked across frigid highlands in Tibet to confirm a significant recent discovery about climate change. They drilled and analyzed five ice cores from various locations on the Tibetan Plateau to find that the concentration of black carbon, or...
COMMENTARY
Feb 10, 2010
More research key to solving glaciers' riddles
Three years ago, a grim warning from the panel of scientists advising the United Nations on climate change caught the attention of policymakers in Asia.
COMMENTARY
Feb 4, 2010
The world's radioactive rubbish is piling up
The Pacific Sandpiper, a specially built cargo ship with safety features far in excess of those found on conventional vessels, left Britain's Barrow port bound for Japan the other day.
COMMENTARY
Feb 1, 2010
Nuclear plant construction up; South Korea challenging market
SINGAPORE — Recent startups hardly provide much evidence of the vaunted "renaissance" in civilian nuclear power that promises reliable supplies of electricity without the pollution and greenhouse gas emissions associated with fossil fuels, especially coal.
COMMENTARY
Jan 12, 2010
Push begins to clear electric-car obstacles
SINGAPORE — Does 2010 mark the start of a new era in road transport as electricity increasingly takes over from petrol and diesel engines as the source of power for vehicles?
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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