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COMMENTARY / World

Apr 16, 2009

The war on women rages on in Afghanistan

By Sreeram Chaulia

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — As the presidential election season arrived in Afghanistan, the incumbent Hamid Karzai sprang a nasty surprise on the country's Hazara Shiite women by signing on to a "rape law" that legitimizes non-consensual sex in wedlock. Designed to placate arch conservative Shiite clerics, the...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 16, 2009

Don't believe rumors that recovery is coming

By Nouriel Roubini

NEW YORK — Mild signs that the rate of economic contraction is slowing in the United States, China and other parts of the world have led many economists to forecast that positive growth will return to the U.S in the second half of the year, and that a similar recovery will occur in other advanced economies....

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 15, 2009

The end of the long march

By Lester Tenney

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Sixty-seven years ago this month, on April 9, 1942, I was surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. At my first prison camp, the Japanese commandant turned to the American prisoners of war (POWs) and told us that we were "lower than dogs"...

COMMENTARY

Apr 14, 2009

Beyond the gasoline era

By Takamitsu Sawa

Mitsubishi Motors will start selling its new battery-powered car dubbed "iMiEV" in Japan this coming July while Nissan Motor plans to follow suit next year. Toyota Motor, meanwhile, says it will launch a plug-in hybrid vehicle sometime in the "early 2010s." I agree with Nissan President Carlos Ghosn,...

COMMENTARY

Apr 14, 2009

Pakistan: building peace by building schools

By Cesar Chelala

You can try to force peace through military might — and you are bound to fail — or you can build peace through education. That seems to be the main lesson behind Greg Mortenson's life and work. Thanks to his efforts, 78 schools have been built in Pakistan and thousands of children have been educated,...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 12, 2009

A sense of drift pervades Indian democracy

By Harsh V. Pant

LONDON — As the largest democracy in the world enters into the campaign phase for its 15th parliamentary elections, it seems preoccupied with trivialities: Which Bollywood actor will contest? Which Nehru-Gandhi family scion will be the prime ministerial candidate? Will various regional satraps come...

COMMENTARY

Apr 12, 2009

Welcome development in U.S.-China dialogue

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG — All indications are that the first summit meeting between the new American president, Barack Obama, and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, went extremely well. The American leader has already accepted an invitation to visit Beijing later this year.

COMMENTARY

Apr 11, 2009

The peacemaking process has a cultural dimension

By Kazuo Ogoura

Peace is not simply an absence of military conflict. It is a long process in which potential or actual opponents can deepen their understanding of each other and correct misperceptions or misunderstandings. If this aspect is lacking, military conflict can easily break out again.

COMMENTARY

Apr 9, 2009

Australia and Afghanistan

By Gregory Clark

So Australia's Labor Party prime minister, the Chinese-speaking Kevin Rudd, has promised Australia will stay the course with the United States in Afghanistan right to the very end. That's interesting. Canberra once also promised the U.S. it would stay in the Vietnam war till the very end. "All the way...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 9, 2009

Sarkozy pushing the limits of Bonapartism

By David Rieff

PARIS — After four decades, France has returned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's unified military command. At a stroke, President Nicolas Sarkozy overturned one of the pillars of French policy — and of the legacy of Charles de Gaulle, the founder of Sarkozy's own political party.

COMMENTARY

Apr 9, 2009

The lighter side of North Korea's launch

By Tom Plate

BEVERLY HILLS, California — Some things you just don't joke about. Certain developments in the course of human affairs are decidedly not funny. What's a perfect example, right off the top of my head? Oh, how about North Korea's missile launch over the weekend?

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 8, 2009

A ray of hope for abolishing nuclear arms

By Lech Walesa and Aleksander Kwasniewski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki

WARSAW — The agreement by the American and Russian presidents to renew strategic arms reductions has revived hope for the global abolition of nuclear arms. The urgency can hardly be exaggerated: nuclear weapons may come into the possession of states that might use them, as well as of stateless terrorists...

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

Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high

Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high

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