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November 22, 2024
 

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Michael Richardson
COMMENTARY
Dec 29, 2009
Persuading China to put the screws to Iran
SINGAPORE — Will the world's leading powers act in a more united way on Iran's nuclear program than they have so far over climate change?
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2009
Rice prices rock a buoyant economic boat
SINGAPORE — Asia is leading the world economy out of recession. The region's most populous nations — China, India and Indonesia — appear to doing particularly well, setting the pace for renewed growth in Northeast Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
COMMENTARY
Dec 15, 2009
Underwriting a global reforestation program
SINGAPORE — Where does Southeast Asia rank in greenhouse-gas emissions, a key focal point of the international climate change negotiations?
COMMENTARY
Nov 30, 2009
Less efficient natural 'cleaning' could tip global carbon balance
SINGAPORE — Nearly everyone is familiar with budgets. Households keep them. So do companies and national governments. But what about the carbon budget that measures the health of our climate system?
COMMENTARY
Nov 12, 2009
Re-energizing America's role in trade talks
International trade has been an engine of growth for many Asian countries, enabling them to create jobs and raise living standards faster than in countries elsewhere in the world that were unready to take advantage of surging trade opportunities.
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2009
Pollution fears don't dent coal's popularity
Asia's rebound from the global economic slump is cheering the world with its promise of more growth, jobs and trade. But the revival is bad news for the environment because it is largely driven by a production and transport system addicted to fossil fuels, especially coal and oil. This helps explain...
COMMENTARY
Oct 23, 2009
Influential Asian groupings
SINGAPORE — Can Asia leverage its growing weight in the global economy into a more influential leadership role in the world? This will be tested soon.
COMMENTARY
Oct 15, 2009
An angel among the evil energy resources
Environmental activists have an aboveground and a below-ground view of the world. Energy sources harnessed on or very close to the surface, like wind, wave, tidal, solar and hydro power, are good. They are renewable and do not emit carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that is widely thought to be...
COMMENTARY
Sep 22, 2009
Is Earth's methane a time bomb?
SINGAPORE — Developed and developing countries continue to haggle over terms of a new pact to limit global warming gases. With only 15 full negotiating days scheduled before a climate change summit convenes in Copenhagen at the end of the year, the next round of negotiations in Bangkok (Sept. 28-Oct....
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2009
Less water for more food as Asia urbanizes
SINGAPORE — Industrialization and urbanization across Asia have encouraged the misconception that they are the main gluttons of water. But the dominant force in Asian water consumption is agriculture.
COMMENTARY
Aug 19, 2009
A greater role in relief work for armed forces
Will Asia-Pacific armed forces find their role in national defense and security shifting significantly in the future as the effects of climate change caused by global warming intensify? If so, how quickly will it happen?
COMMENTARY
Aug 4, 2009
Drawing down the nuclear stock
Conflicts of interest dividing Moscow and Washington have overshadowed a more positive development — real progress in nuclear arms cuts between the two powers that together hold 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons.
COMMENTARY
Jul 8, 2009
U.S.-proposed 'green tariffs' raise Asia's ire
When U.S. lawmakers recently approved legislation to limit U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, it was widely hailed as an important new step in confronting climate change. Under the Bush administration, the United States refused to join other industrialized nations in capping...
COMMENTARY
Jul 1, 2009
Tough to thwart North Korean arms exports
The cargo ship Kang Nam 1 has long been on a watch-list of North Korean vessels suspected of illicit trading. But it recently emerged from the shadows at the center of a cat-and-mouse game in Asian waters, tracked by U.S. warships, maritime reconnaissance planes and satellites under a United Nations...
COMMENTARY
Jun 24, 2009
Tough to intercept missiles
Due to the severe economic slump, the United States recently announced that it would make substantial cuts to its costly and controversial missile defense program. Several new parts of the planned shield are to be canceled.
COMMENTARY
Jun 18, 2009
Kim's defiance raising the stakes
North Korea has confirmed the worst suspicions of those who fear the destabilizing consequences of nuclear proliferation by announcing that it will become a full-fledged nuclear state, able to build both uranium and plutonium bombs and fit them to the nose cones of its missiles.
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2009
Dodging a CO2 hangover
Officials from Japan and other parts of the world are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until June 12 for more negotiations on a new set of global arrangements to prevent runaway climate change. The deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, is supposed to be clinched at a climate summit convened...
COMMENTARY
May 29, 2009
China closing energy deals while oil is cheap
SINGAPORE — Cash-rich China is using a period of relatively low oil prices to improve its energy security and ensure that its economy has the oil-based fuels needed to sustain growth when recovery from the slump takes hold.
COMMENTARY
May 4, 2009
Tracking and demobilizing debris in space
SINGAPORE — The 25 radar and optical telescope centers around the world that help the U.S. Armed Forces track debris in space have become increasingly busy in the past couple of years as man-made junk orbiting Earth proliferates, posing a growing danger to both civilian and military use of space. ...
COMMENTARY
Apr 7, 2009
Carbon slump threatens emission-cut goals
SINGAPORE — First, came the credit crunch and recession. Now there is a carbon price slump that may undermine one of the main ways governments have chosen to combat global warming. This is happening as Japan, the United States and other advanced economies develop plans for carbon trading based on national...
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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