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November 27, 2024

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COMMENTARY / World

Aug 16, 2003

A turnaround remembered

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- August stirs memories of the darkest hours in the complicated 150-year history of America's relations with Japan.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 15, 2003

A new tide of nationalism

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- Leaders in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia have become increasingly vocal in calling for more independent policies and outlook in Southeast Asia, especially in the context of post-American military intervention in Iraq.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 15, 2003

Baron of porn spills it all

By Kevin Rafferty

HONG KONG -- His pictures beamed across the nation's television stations and front pages of all of its newspapers from down market tabloids to sober-sided broadsheets: the grin on his face was as wide as a melon and he held, fanlike, a huge wad of currency notes for all the world, like a television game...

COMMENTARY

Aug 15, 2003

Talks on North Korea face usual impasse

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- At long last, the four major powers in East Asia and the two Koreas aim to honor Clause 60 of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement. Clause 60 was supposed to have been implemented within three months of the July 27, 1953, signing of the ceasefire in the war. Now the stage looks set in Beijing...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 14, 2003

The identity of the Arab world

By David Hirst

DAMASCUS -- Fadil Shururu, chief political officer of Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, has come a long way since I first met him 35 years ago in Jordan's Ghor Valley, seedbed of the newborn guerrilla movement that was to liberate the whole of the Palestinian...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 13, 2003

Mideast violence is forecast

By Ramzy Baroud

DOHA, Qatar -- Despite the positive spin that optimistic politicians put on current developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict, a crashing storm threatens the shores of the Mediterranean. Such a prediction can easily be read over the events surrounding the Middle East peace process in the last month alone....

COMMENTARY

Aug 13, 2003

U.S. can return to the moral high road

By Ralph Cossa

KUALA LUMPUR -- On Aug. 6, peace activists from around the world flocked to Hiroshima to pray for peace and remember those who died when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on that city 58 years ago. More subdued ceremonies marked the anniversary of the second, and we all hope last, use of nuclear weapons...

COMMENTARY

Aug 12, 2003

Test for Japanese diplomacy

By Keizo Nabeshima

The standoff over North Korea's nuclear-arms development is entering a new stage as officials of six nations -- the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China -- prepare to meet soon in Beijing to discuss the threat. At Pyongyang's insistence, the U.S. will hold direct talks with...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 10, 2003

Chaotic images of Indonesia

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- Turmoil in Indonesia was underscored Tuesday when a terrorist bomb exploded in a hotel in Jakarta killing at least 14 people and wounding about 150 more. It has added to the already surging concern of American officials in Washington and at the U.S. Pacific Command's headquarters in Hawaii,...

COMMENTARY

Aug 10, 2003

U.S. hardly stoking fear of China threat

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- The Pentagon's latest report on the military power of the People's Republic of China has, predictably, angered Beijing. But a careful reading shows that the language used is by no means provocative.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 10, 2003

Japanese nuclear arsenal looks unlikely

By Jeff Thompson

WASHINGTON -- Speculation is rife about whether North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons could drive Japan to develop a nuclear arsenal. Some opinion leaders have even suggested that America should exploit this prospect to scare China into resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis. However, the reality...

COMMENTARY

Aug 9, 2003

Political world prepares for fall showdown

By Kenzo Uchida

The first half of 2003 was volatile both internationally and domestically. Severe acute respiratory syndrome hit China, other Asian countries and Canada at the beginning of the year and spread around the world. Then, in the Middle East, war broke out when the United States and Britain invaded Iraq, overthrew...

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

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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