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COMMENTARY / World

Sep 15, 2005

Disaster responses redefine 'Third World'

By Philip J. Cunningham

BANGKOK -- "If America and Thailand were both hit by natural disaster, Thais would handle it better," a Thai lawyer once told me.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 15, 2005

Human rights key to China's development

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- During a recent visit to Beijing, U.N. rights envoy Louise Arbour called attention to the serious human-rights situation in China and the need for improvements according to international human-rights standards. An important step in that regard would be for China to ratify the International...

COMMENTARY

Sep 15, 2005

Koizumi must now master global politics

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- I met Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi two years ago for a fascinating interview. I recall slightly pressing him on the touchy question of whether Japan would actually overcome its restrictive pacifist Constitution (a significant legacy of the U.S. Occupation) and dispatch troops to Iraq,...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 15, 2005

Betting on a bolder Japan

By Andrew L. Oros and Steven C. Clemons

WASHINGTON -- A Latin proverb says, "fortune favors the bold but abandons the timid." That, more than any other explanation captures the drama of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's gravity-defying success in catapulting his Liberal Democratic Party to its biggest electoral success ever -- in...

COMMENTARY

Sep 14, 2005

Major hurdle remains in six-party talks

By Ralph Cossa

KYOTO -- The fourth round of six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear-weapons aspirations resumed Tuesday in Beijing after a five-week recess. One main sticking point, seemingly still unresolved, centers around North Korea's "right" to have a peaceful nuclear-energy program.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 2005

Again, a war that affects few Americans

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- In the four years since the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, at least two distinct changes in the realm of security have taken place: One seems to have escaped notice; the other is all too evident.

COMMENTARY

Sep 12, 2005

Learning Katrina's lessons

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The sufferings of the people of Louisiana and Mississippi as a result of Hurricane Katrina have attracted great sympathy and concern. The initial response of the U.S. government to this catastrophe was widely seen as slow and inadequate, and it seems that lives might have been saved by a quicker...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 11, 2005

Pyongyang palliative is Bush's bitter pill

By Eugene B. Kogan

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- Although buried by headlines from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina-devastated U.S. Gulf Coast region, the fourth round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, about to resume in Beijing, presents the best chance yet to resolve diplomatically the simmering crisis on the...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Sep 11, 2005

What price social equality since the ventriloquists' putsch?

By Roger Pulvers

On the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity, is it too early to talk of a Bush legacy? What vision has the administration of President George W. Bush bestowed on the United States as a result of the terrorist attacks that day?

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 11, 2005

Aussies adjust the moorings

By Ramesh Thakur

BRISBANE, Australia -- While the historical origins and cultural roots of Australia lie in Europe, its primary strategic alliance is with the United States, its pri- mary security focus is on Southeast Asia, and its major trading partners are in Northeast Asia.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 11, 2005

Has risk of nuclear proliferation risen?

By Michael Krepon

HONOLULU -- The nuclear cooperation agreement announced between U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18 marked a major shift in U.S. policies aimed at stopping and reversing proliferation. If implemented, it would result in new rules of global nuclear commerce...

COMMENTARY

Sep 10, 2005

From Kyoto to New Orleans

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- Beneath the endlessly horrific details surrounding the hurricane that swamped parts of New Orleans and the southeast United States lurks a monster question. Just how angry -- really -- is Mother Nature over the irreverent, careless way we humans and our energy-hungry machines have been...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

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