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August 15, 2024
 

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Ramesh Thakur

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Ramesh Thakur
Ramesh Thakur is Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; adjunct professor, Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, Griffith University, and editor-in-chief of Global Governance from Jan. 1, 2013. He began writing for The Japan Times in 1998 as Vice Rector of the United Nations University.
COMMENTARY
Sep 24, 2012
Leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world
In a world beset by many grave problems that threaten to unleash a perfect storm at short notice, many people bemoan the dearth of responsible and high-quality leadership to point the way forward to a more prosperous, peaceful and just future.
COMMENTARY
Sep 11, 2012
Let posterity see how the Iraq war was created
When the Iraq War Inquiry Group (of which I am a member) issued a public call for an inquiry into the decision-making that lay behind Australia's participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, members of the then-Howard government dismissed it in effect as yesterday's news.
COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2012
Australia's call for thoughts on Iraq
On Aug. 16 a group of Australians, led by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and former Chief of the Defense Force Gen. Peter Gration, launched a call for an inquiry into how and why Australia joined the Iraq war in 2003. The goal is not to rake over old coals, but to improve how war and peace decisions...
COMMENTARY
Aug 15, 2012
India and Pakistan: Come and dream with me
This week (Tuesday and Wednesday), Pakistan and India are celebrating their conjoined independence days. Their rivalry has sabotaged India's tryst with destiny as a global power and Pakistan's ambition to be the leading light of the Islamic world. Will 2047 mark 100 years of solitude in bilateral relations...
COMMENTARY
Aug 6, 2012
Fundamental hits to India's brand
The hits just keep coming. In recent weeks, credit rating agencies have downgraded India's investment status, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been described by Time magazine as an underachiever, U.S. President Barack Obama has raised concerns that corporate America is worried about India's investment...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2012
Media at the crossroads of profits and politics
On July 24, seven key News International personnel in the United Kingdom and one contracted private investigator were charged with 19 counts of conspiracy to hack mobile phone voice mails between 2000 and 2006. At long last, the allegations will be tested in court.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2012
China, Russia and Syria: the ghost of Gadhafi at the U.N.
China and Russia have cast three vetoes so far on draft U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions aimed at tougher international responses to the Syrian's government's brutal crackdown on protestors and rebels.
COMMENTARY
Jul 20, 2012
Overhauling the anachronistic U.N. groupings
Come October, Australia will be competing with Finland and Luxembourg for two of this year's five elected two-year seats on the U.N. Security Council. Why against Finland and Luxembourg and not others also contesting for the total of five seats up for grabs? Well might you ask.
Jun 21, 2012
Drone warfare clashes with law, human rights
As in other aspects of human life, the march of military technology has greatly outpaced the laws and institutions to regulate the behavior they make possible. The Obama administration has so greatly expanded the Bush policy of drone strikes as to leave neutral observers queasy about the legal regime...
COMMENTARY
Jun 18, 2012
Effective diplomacy in the age of social media
Far from being rendered irrelevant by technological progress, where governments can communicate with one another directly on a need-to basis, diplomacy has become an increasingly critical instrument in an age of interdependence and globalization.
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2012
The politics of victimhood
When a group of gay activists engaged in an angry confrontation with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who was having dinner with a major columnist in a Melbourne restaurant, the journalist noted how those demanding tolerance of diversity had shown an ugly face of extreme intolerance uncharacteristic of...
COMMENTARY
May 21, 2012
Australia and the Security Council
This autumn in New York, Australia will be contesting for one of the elected seats on the U.N. Security Council. Some domestic critics ask why bother with the United Nations? Some international critics ask why waste a vote on Australia? Both are wrong.
COMMENTARY
Apr 30, 2012
Possession underscores nuclear contradictions
Can the differing world reactions to India's missile test and North Korea's attempted "satellite launch" be explained by the familiar saying that success has a thousand fathers while failure is an orphan? The more likely explanation is that the two tests are forcing the international community to confront...
COMMENTARY
Apr 10, 2012
World Bank could use a competitive advantage
From a turn of phrase by Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs in 2001, a grouping was born in 2009. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa) make up two-fifths of the world's population, one-fifth of world gross domestic product and one-seventh of world trade. Yet, they account for two-thirds of...
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2012
India and the Iran sanctions
Writing in The Diplomat on Feb. 20, R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state in the Bush administration, lamented the fact that India was going to continue to purchase oil from Iran.
COMMENTARY
Mar 17, 2012
Nuclear agenda after 3/11
A year after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, all but two of the country's 54 nuclear reactors are shut down. The Japanese people remain confused, apprehensive and distrustful of government statements and reassurances. The future of the nuclear power industry...
COMMENTARY
Mar 12, 2012
Foreign aid: sop to conscience and bad policy
When India selected 126 French Rafale fighter aircraft (£13 billion) over the U.K.-manufactured Typhoon involving a consortium of European countries, some British politicians and commentators demanded that aid to "ungrateful" India, a fast-rising economic power, be stopped.
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2012
Find common ground with critics to work out norm for 'responsibility to protect' operations
Ten years after the formulation of the responsibility-to-protect (R2P) principle as a guide for driving international intervention in a country, it is worth making three points:
COMMENTARY
Jan 31, 2012
To prepare for nuclear war is to seek the peace of death
The world faces two existential threats: climate change, and nuclear Armageddon. Action on both is required urgently. Tackling the first will impose significant economic costs and lifestyle adjustments, while tackling the second will bring economic benefits without any lifestyle implications.
COMMENTARY
Jan 9, 2012
Collision of political, economic logic condemns India to rudderless rule and chronic corruption
India's economy grows mainly in the night, some say, when the government is asleep. If every economic prospect pleases, India's politics can be vile.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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