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COMMENTARY

Jul 2, 2009

Don't bait the Russian bear

By Brahma Chellaney

U.S. President Barack Obama's Moscow visit offers a historic opportunity to avert a new Cold War by establishing a more stable and cooperative relationship between the West and Russia.

COMMENTARY

Jul 1, 2009

Tough to thwart North Korean arms exports

By Michael Richardson

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 / World

Jun 30, 2009

Older, smaller population to impact Japan's choices

By Tomoko Tsunoda and Brad Glosserman

— The next few months will be crucial for Japan's defense and security policies. The National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), which outline the framework for national security policy, are due by yearend. This in turn provides the foundation for the Mid-Term Defense Program, which translates that...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 29, 2009

More European hope, less American fear

By Dominique Moisi

PARIS — Since the arrival of President Barack Obama in the White House, there has been an undeniable rapprochement between Europe and the United States. But on the deeper and more fundamental level of emotions and values, is it possible that the gap between the two sides of the Atlantic has widened?...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 28, 2009

Reactive oil markets won't wait

By Kevin Rafferty

HONG KONG — Economists are arguing whether they can see the green shoots of economic recovery or whether they are still only the yellow weeds of continuing recession. But global oil markets have been hyperactive and reacting as if the green shoots have already burst into flower on the way to a full-grown...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 28, 2009

Netanyahu should lay off useless demands

By Abraham B. Yehoshua

HAIFA, Israel — Ever since the Six Day War of June 1967, a small number of Israelis, not all on the left, has supported the idea of two states as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of their compatriots have rejected it, as have the Palestinians.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jun 28, 2009

Jokichi Takamine: a man with fire in his belly whatever the odds

By Roger Pulvers

When I had tummy ache as a child, my mother would say, "Take a diastase." So, I naturally thought — as did my mother — that what I was putting into my mouth was a "diastase."

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Jun 28, 2009

Mythmaking and the Kamikaze 'volunteers'

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK — Lisa Hosokawa Garber, a fresh graduate of St. Andrews Presbyterian College in North Carolina, has sent me "Crosswind," her short, imaginative account of three months in the life of a youth training to be a Kamikaze pilot. It describes what its author calls a Shakespearean "twist of fate":...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 27, 2009

Asia and the climate crisis

By Haruhiko Kuroda

MANILA — The latest round of negotiations on a new global climate change agreement that recently concluded in Bonn showed promising signs that governments everywhere realize the urgency of cooperative action to address this global challenge.

COMMENTARY

Jun 26, 2009

EU cyclone belts the left

By Glyn Ford

BRUSSELS — The only results to cheer in the recent European Parliament elections came from Greece, where PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) went up to nine seats, and Ireland, where the financial crisis and public re-evaluation of regulation saw the Irish Labour party win two to three seats. Meanwhile,...

COMMENTARY

Jun 25, 2009

Dancing with the dragon

By Brahma Chellaney

Nearly six months after U.S. President Barack Obama entered the White House, it is apparent that America's Asia policy is no longer guided by an overarching geopolitical framework as it had been under President George W. Bush. Indeed, Washington's Asia policy today appears fragmented. The Obama administration...

COMMENTARY

Jun 24, 2009

Iraq war is a tipping point

By David Howell

The British are to hold an inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war, and how Britain came to be so closely involved with the Americans in the 2003 Iraq invasion.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.

Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Cainz enriches lives and communities through DIY

Cainz enriches lives and communities through DIY

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