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COMMENTARY

Aug 13, 2008

Georgia's giant miscalculation

By Gwynne Dyer

The war in South Ossetia is essentially over, and the Georgians have lost. There may be some more shooting yet, but it is now clear that Georgia will never regain control of the rebel territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that President Mikhail Saakashvili has handed Russia a major victory, and...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 11, 2008

Don't cry over Doha failure as the stakes were inflated

By Dani Rodrik

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Will they or won't they? Will the world's trade ministers eventually sign a new multilateral trade agreement that reduces agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs, or will they walk away empty-handed?

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 10, 2008

Disturbing reasons to put a nation to death

By Ian Buruma

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. — Belgium is in danger of falling apart. For more than six months, the country has been unable to form a government that is able to unite the French-speaking Walloons (32 percent of the population) and Dutch-speaking Flemish (58 percent). The Belgian monarch, Albert II, is...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 10, 2008

Russia's convertible icon

By Nina Khrushcheva

MOSCOW — Prophets, it is said, are supposed to be without honor in their homeland. Yet Moscow has just witnessed the extraordinary sight of Alexander Solzhenitsyn — the dissident and once-exiled author of the "Gulag Archipelago" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" receiving what amounts...

COMMENTARY

Aug 10, 2008

Too many Israelis want to cling to a paradox

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON — "I am proud to be a citizen of a country where the prime minister can be investigated like an ordinary citizen," said Ehud Olmert on July 30, announcing that he would resign as prime minister in September to defend himself against corruption allegations. He should be even prouder: Three of...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Aug 10, 2008

Engineering a historical oblivion for soldiers of the wrong wars

By Roger Pulvers

My dad was a lucky man. Born in 1903, he was just too young for service in World War I and a bit too old for the same in World War II. Not that he couldn't have volunteered for the latter. He certainly could have, but decided not to.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 9, 2008

U.S.-India nuclear deal weakens nonproliferation

On Aug. 1 the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) endorsed a "safeguards agreement" with India that would allow inspections of nuclear facilities that India designates as "civilian."

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 8, 2008

Green efforts before Games deserve praise

By Achim Steiner

BEIJING — Images of the Beijing skyline seemingly bathed in a soup of smog and haze have been a common sight on the world's TV screens in recent days and weeks. Foreign journalists with hand-held air pollution detectors have been popping up on street corners checking levels of soot and dust. Everyone...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 7, 2008

Stop criticizing China, it has come so far

By Lijia Zhang

BEIJING — When I was at school, sports lessons included an exercise where we threw hand grenades (made from wood topped with metal to resemble the real thing) against a wall over which a red slogan had been stretched offering the reason for such a militaristic pastime: "Exercise our bodies and protect...

COMMENTARY

Aug 7, 2008

Terrorism and the Games

By Gwynne Dyer

"Safety is our top concern," said China's Vice President Xi Jinping in late July, pointing to the deployment of 100,000 troops around Beijing and the surface-to-air missile batteries that protect the main stadiums as proof of the regime's determination to ensure that no terrorist attack would disrupt...

COMMENTARY

Aug 7, 2008

Say no to 'NPT' of climate change

By Brahma Chellaney

Climate change has been correctly identified as a threat multiplier. Yet it has already become a divisive issue internationally before a plan for a low-carbon future has emerged.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 6, 2008

The challenge of Hiroshima

By Hideko Tamura

MEDFORD, Oregon — When the penetrating heat of summer rises to a scorching point, I am brought back to one sunny day in 1945, faraway from my Oregon home today. I was a sixth grader waiting for my mother. On that day, Aug. 6, in Hiroshima, the sun and the Earth melted together. Many of my relatives...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Yamagata’s Zao Onsen Ski Resort is a classic beauty

Yamagata’s Zao Onsen Ski Resort is a classic beauty

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