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November 28, 2024

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COMMENTARY / World

Jan 23, 2004

Reliving the romance of nation-building

By Alan Goodall

SYDNEY -- So you think your one-hour-plus commute into Tokyo each morning is agony! Pity passengers on Australia's newest train trip -- two days and two nights. And paying $12,000 for the privilege.

COMMENTARY

Jan 22, 2004

Keep Indo-Pakistani talks in public eye

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- The emerging Indo-Pakistani peace process is set to face its first political test in the next two months as India conducts national elections, creating an opportunity for hardliners to question the aims set out at this month's meeting between Indian Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and...

COMMENTARY

Jan 21, 2004

Washington-Seoul: tough times ahead?

By Ralph Cossa

HONOLULU -- Is the U.S.-South Korea relationship in for some tough times? The answer is "yes," but not because of the recent forced resignation of "pro-American" Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan (whose wise council and steady, mature leadership will be sorely missed).

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 19, 2004

Argument without contempt

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Without entering the notorious, unending controversy surrounding Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, I would like to examine peripheral issues arising from it and to question the inability of some campaigners to respect the views of others. While I fully understand the fury of many observers...

COMMENTARY

Jan 19, 2004

Okinawans await assurance of lighter military presence

By Brad Glosserman

HONOLULU -- During a visit to Okinawa, which has long borne a disproportionate share of the U.S. military presence in Japan, I was peppered with questions about the impact of planned redeployments. Okinawans have high hopes that the moves will lighten their burden. I could not reassure them.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 19, 2004

Foreign affairs top U.S. political debate

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- For the first time since the divisive Vietnam era, foreign policy and national security will most likely dominate the U.S. presidential election campaign this year, especially since the line between issues abroad and politics at home has become more blurred than ever.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 19, 2004

S. Korea's recipe for economic disaster

By Christopher Lingle

COLOMBO -- A gathering of South Korea's leading policymakers and economists have agreed that Seoul should apply fiscal-stimulus measures through the first half of 2004. It is a great tragedy that this conclusion reflects the best judgments of mainstream economic orthodoxy, because the simple fact is,...

COMMENTARY

Jan 18, 2004

Authoritarian threat grows

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The real threat from terrorists is being used as a pretext for growing authoritarian tendencies in democratic countries. On the grounds that every possible step must be taken to prevent terrorist attacks, suspects are being imprisoned without trial or access to lawyers, and Draconian controls...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 17, 2004

Hope for Indo-Pakistani peace

By Ramesh Thakur

Some years ago, I was visiting Samarkand in Uzbekistan, from where the Mughal Dynasty came down to the subcontinent. The only other person from South Asia in the group was a senior Pakistani military officer. We soon realized we had more in common with each other than any other members of the group because...

COMMENTARY

Jan 15, 2004

China more open, at least on medical front

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- Last year, after China was caught suppressing information about the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, it dismissed the minister of health and the mayor of Beijing and dramatically opened its health-care system up to international scrutiny. There was much hope then that the...

COMMENTARY

Jan 14, 2004

Japan blind to Chinese reality

By Gregory Clark

A recent tour of Chinese universities took me to Changchun, the capital of the puppet Manchukuo state that Japan tried to set up in the 1930s in China's remote northeast region. Today it is a sprawling conurbation of more than 6 million people, broad highways and high-rise apartments and a key player...

COMMENTARY

Jan 12, 2004

Koizumi flaunts propensity to curtail 'drastic' reforms

By Keizo Nabeshima

Japan is at a historic turning point, both domestically and internationally. Symbolic of this are pension reform, highway system privatization and the troop dispatch to Iraq. But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "structural reform" initiative appears to have lost momentum since he took office in April...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.

Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat

By Greg Dvorak

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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