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March 17, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY
Nov 8, 2008
Domestic health-care issues to test Obama
By Cesar Chelala
The election of Barack Hussein Obama as U.S. president represents hope for the kind of transformational politics that can lead to a better, more secure world. It also suggests an end to the politics of divisiveness and a turn toward a political system more attuned to the needs of what both candidates...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2008
American dream triumphs
By Kevin Rafferty
HONG KONG — Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama and to the people of the United States of America, some of whom lined up for five hours to vote, for their stunning victory. Bill Bennett, a former Republican Cabinet secretary under Ronald Reagan, commented that "the country has grown up."...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2008
Europe's mania for a black U.S. president
By Ian Buruma
NEW YORK — Why do Europeans adore America's president-elect, Barack Obama? Stupid question, you might say. He is young, handsome, smart, inspiring, educated, cosmopolitan, and above all, he promises a radical change from the most unpopular American administration in history. Compare that to his rival...
COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2008
Obama and the limits of power
By Gwynne Dyer
My favorite rumor about U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet is that he will create the post of Secretary of the Environment and offer it to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Of course, it's unlikely that Schwarzenegger would take the offer, because being governor of California is a much more satisfying...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2008
It would be a mistake to super-size the IMF
By Kenneth Rogoff
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As the global financial crisis radiates out from the developed economies into emerging markets, it is ravaging not only governance-challenged economies such as Venezuela, Russia and Argentina. The crisis is also striking countries like Brazil, Korea and South Africa, which appeared...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2008
Pregnant Afghan women face deadly odds
By Carol Mann
KABUL — In Badakhshan, Afghanistan, for every 100,000 births, 6,500 young mothers die. This is a record unrivaled anywhere in the world. In other parts of Afghanistan, too, the rates of maternal mortality continue to be among the highest in the world.
COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2008
The right kind of leadership
By David Howell
In these troubled times everyone is looking round for decisive and wise leadership. In particular the world is looking to America, as still the biggest and richest nation by far, despite its current financial problems, to make a better contribution to world peace and stability under its new president...
COMMENTARY
Nov 5, 2008
Beijing has enough of its own problems
By Tom Plate
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It would be a mistake to overestimate how much China can or will do to pitch in to the world dilemma as the roiling and unnerving global financial world proceeds apace.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2008
India's wave of intolerance
By Sumit Ganguly
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana — A new wave of intolerance seems to be sweeping across India. Hapless migrant workers from India's poorest states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have been attacked in Bombay, Christians have faced the wrath of Hindus in Orissa and Karnataka and Bodo tribals have attacked Bengalis in...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2008
Looking at development goals beyond 2015
By Jean-michel Severino
PARIS — It is now halfway to the target date of 2015 for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — the ambitious blueprint, backed by the entire development community, for development in the world's poorest countries. In the wake of the global financial crisis, which is about to hit the developing...
COMMENTARY
Nov 5, 2008
Hindu fanatics threaten Indian secularism
By Gautaman Bhaskaran
MADRAS, India — India's secularism has gone up in smoke along with the festival of Diwali. Weeks preceding this joyous event — which nowadays has more noise and smoke brought about by unrelenting burst of crackers rather than light and luminosity — the rape and murder of Christianity in parts of...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2008
Line of liquidity to confront fear
By Dominique Strauss-Kahn
WASHINGTON — Even as the squeeze in interbank lending has started to ease after the rescue of financial systems across the advanced countries, falling economic indicators have sent stock markets tumbling. Pressures on emerging-market countries, which were once thought by many to have "decoupled" from...
U.S. designated South Korea a 'sensitive' country amid talk of nuclear weapons
Then-U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol attend an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework event at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November 2023.
Canada has a new prime minister with a very hard first assignment
Mark Carney, Canada's incoming prime minister (center), during a swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday. Carney has been sworn in as Canada's 24th prime minister, bringing the former central banker to power in the middle of an explosive trade war with the U.S.
Unification Church faces dissolution in Japan
The logo of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, better known as the Unification Church, is seen at the entrance of its Japan branch headquarters in Tokyo in October 2023.
Tigers shut out the Cubs as Seiya Suzuki receives warm welcome in Tokyo
Tigers players walk off the field while carrying Cubs caps during a rare exhibition game between NPB and MLB clubs.
Despite tough talk, economic woes may force Iran to bargain with Trump
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei looks on during a meeting with students in Tehran on Wednesday.
Tigers shut down Ohtani to take exhibition game over Dodgers
Hanshin pitcher Hiroto Saiki threw five scoreless innings as the Tigers topped the Dodgers in an exhibition game on Sunday in Tokyo.
Japan’s youth climate activists still searching for a breakthrough
While climate demonstrations around the world often draw thousands of participants, in Japan such demonstrations rarely break the 100-person barrier.
As it turns 70, LDP struggles to find its fountain of youth
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (second from left) cheers along with other members of the Liberal Democratic Party during the party's annual convention in Tokyo on March 9.
As pollen season peaks, Japan's allergy struggle emerges from hibernation
Urbanization is amplifying pollen-related allergies as grasslands and soft soil give way to concrete and asphalt.
Japan to get tough on businesses not taking heatstroke countermeasures
A construction site in Tokyo in July 2018. Businesses failing to take measures to prevent severe heatstroke among employees will be subjected to criminal punishment from June.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo
By Alex K.T. Martin

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