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November 22, 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
Apr 5, 2010
Governments have duty to aid citizens caught in a nightmare
WATERLOO, Canada — Australian businessman Stern Hu has been convicted of taking bribes and stealing state secrets and sentenced to 10 years jail in China. International standards of a free and fair trial do not seem to have been met.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2009
Realities of disarmament
WATERLOO, Canada — The international commission on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, chaired by former foreign ministers Gareth Evans of Australia and Yoriko Kawaguchi of Japan, faced two hurdles even before its work was completed.
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2009
Revisiting the folly of India's nuclear tests
WATERLOO, Ontario — Three recent events reopen the debate on the wisdom of India's nuclear tests in 1998, as judged from within the narrow framework of its own interests. Or rather, they confirm the folly of the tests:
COMMENTARY
Aug 12, 2009
Seven global lessons from a teachable event
WATERLOO, Ontario — Apparently Sgt. James Crowley's arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in Boston on July 17 was "a teachable moment." Here are seven lessons relevant to world affairs.
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2009
Next word on intervention
WATERLOO, Ontario — The 1990s was a decade of conscience-shocking atrocities in Rwanda, the Balkans and East Timor. Unilateral actions by India and Vietnam to end atrocities in the 1970s had drawn international opprobrium and condemnation. The crises of the 1990s provoked agonized soul-searching on...
COMMENTARY
May 15, 2009
Nonoption in Afghanistan
KABUL — A five-day visit to Afghanistan left me profoundly pessimistic about the accomplishments to date to stem the drain on international blood and treasure, yet convinced of the importance of not losing Afghanistan to the other side.
COMMENTARY
Mar 27, 2009
Perks of the warring states
WATERLOO, Ontario — Since the end of World War II, America, Britain and Israel have been among the countries most heavily involved in war and armed conflict. Don't expect to see any of their political or military leaders in an international criminal dock anytime soon.
COMMENTARY
Mar 6, 2009
Genteel pastime reaches end of innocence
WATERLOO, Ontario — In recent years, Australia, England and New Zealand have canceled cricketing tours of Pakistan because of concern for the physical safety of their teams. At best, Australia agreed to play Pakistan in the neutral venue of Abu Dhabi next month.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2008
What can be done to protect Zimbabweans
WATERLOO, Ontario — The responsibility to protect (R2P) norm, embraced universally at the world summit in New York in 2005, remains operationally elusive. Calls are growing for international intervention to lift the shroud of Robert Mugabe's ruinous reign from Zimbabwe's body politic.
COMMENTARY
Dec 1, 2008
Lessons for India after three days of terror
WATERLOO, Ontario — Mumbai is remarkably resilient in bouncing back to a semblance of normalcy within days. We've been here before — in 1993 and again in 2006 — when terrorists killed more than 200 people each time. Each time the government expresses shock, promises resolute action against the...
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2008
Pirates feel the sting of India's naval muscle
WATERLOO, Ontario — The rising might of India and the growing menace of piracy collided recently in the Gulf of Aden, a 2.59-million-square-km stretch of waterway between Somalia and Yemen. This came after India's demonstration of prowess in space with the successful launch of a lunar probe. As a symbol...
COMMENTARY
Oct 27, 2008
Better governance for a global age
WATERLOO, Ontario — The financial crisis roiling the world is the result of serious shortcomings in domestic financial governance that have also highlighted gaps in the global governance of international finance and capital.
COMMENTARY
Aug 27, 2008
Showcasing best of China
It's been like watching the coverage of the Beijing Olympics on a split screen. Much of the Western media comment in the main news and opinion pages has been written up by the "nattering nabobs of negativism," in the immortal words of Vice President Spiro Agnew (albeit written by William Safire). The...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2008
Payback time for Russia
You have to admire the chutzpah of the neocons for their castigation of Russia for attacking another country and emulating, in the Caucasus, NATO's behavior in the Balkans. Who does Vladimir Putin think he is — U.S. President George W. Bush?
COMMENTARY
Jun 2, 2008
Macho move would make Burma's plight even worse
Their paranoia and mistrust of the outside world are such that Burma's generals have been criminally tardy in permitting emergency humanitarian supplies and personnel to come into the country. More than 100,000 may have been killed and over 2 million displaced and made homeless by the cyclone.
COMMENTARY
May 12, 2008
Let the Asians push aid to Burma
WATERLOO, Canada — CNN has quoted Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Burma, as saying that more than 100,000 may have died in the country's delta region alone from the deadly cyclone that hit May 3.
COMMENTARY
Mar 26, 2008
Why this foreigner supports Obama
WATERLOO, Canada — Barack Obama's speech on race and politics on March 18 came from and spoke to the heart. It was brutally, searingly honest. Nothing he said or could have said will appease the detractors and the naysayers. But their sniping and carping will diminish them and betray their smallness...
COMMENTARY
Feb 22, 2008
Beware Kosovo's offspring
Last Sunday, Kosovo formally declared independence to the accompaniment of festive celebrations by the good citizens of the world's newest country. We can but wish them well as they chart a new course inside a new Europe free of the distracting conflicts that had ravaged the continent until the middle...
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2008
Our responsibility to protect
WATERLOO, Canada — Then Secretary General Kofi Annan's famous "challenge of humanitarian intervention" in September 1999 provoked a furious backlash from many countries. Yet a mere six years later, the norm, reformulated as the "responsibility to protect" (R2P), was endorsed by the world leaders gathered...
COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2007
Killing cycle claimed Bhutto
WATERLOO, Canada — Born amid the mass killings of partition in 1947, Pakistan has never escaped the cycle of violence, volatility and bloodshed. Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) is the latest casualty of that murderous cycle.
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.
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.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
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.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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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