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COMMENTARY / World

Oct 3, 2007

Heading for a French Sixth Republic?

By Raphael Hadas-Lebel

PARIS — Nearly 50 years after the creation of the Fifth Republic by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to change France's fundamental institutions. An expert council will send him its proposals by Nov. 1.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 3, 2007

Wealth related to the culture of nations

By Gregory Clark

DAVIS, Calif. — Modern economists have turned Adam Smith into a prophet, just as communist regimes once deified Karl Marx. The central tenet they attribute to Smith — that good incentives, regardless of culture, produce good results — has become the great commandment of economics. Yet that view...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 2, 2007

China can change Myanmar

By Kevin Rafferty

HONG KONG — Buddhist monks, the most pacific of dedicated religious people, marched through the streets of Myanmar's main cities Yangon and Mandalay last week in protest against years of hardship, gross mismanagement and corruption inflicted on their long-suffering people.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 1, 2007

'Doing something' may pose perils during a credit crunch

By Harold James

PRINCETON, New Jersey — Every financial crisis is inherently unknowable — before it occurs, and as it occurs. By contrast, we understand past crises very well. Accountants go over the books, the participants tell their tales to the newspapers (or sometimes before a judge), politicians explain why...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 1, 2007

Price of saving a tree in Latin America

By Bjorn Lomborg and Roger A. Sedjo

PRAGUE — Latin America is blessed with more than its fair share of wildlife and lush forests. A third of the world's mammal species and more than a quarter of all known reptiles and bird species can be found there.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 1, 2007

Holding hands within the limits of decency

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

MADRAS, India — The perception of sex and morality is once again creating problems in India.

COMMENTARY

Sep 30, 2007

China might still the hands of the junta

By Tom Plate

BANGKOK — In 1989 Chinese troops, on orders of the government, mowed down demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. It was a sad spectacle that China is still living down, though memory fades with every year of spectacular economic development — and with the nation's steady prideful movement toward...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Sep 30, 2007

Bilingual blanks are nothing to kobosu your guchi about

By Roger Pulvers

Last week in this column, I addressed the trials and tribulations of bringing up a child to be bilingual — both for parents and children. As anyone who has been down that road knows, it's what Japanese people would call shinan no waza (an arduous task).

COMMENTARY

Sep 28, 2007

Bank crisis exposes limits of confidence

By Hugh Cortazzi and Diego Areas Munhoz

LONDON — Mortgage lending is inevitably long term. To cover such lending, banks depend on deposits by savers that may well be short term. If banks don't have enough deposits to cover their loans, they have to borrow on the interbank market. Banks are required to carry enough cash to cover up to five...

COMMENTARY

Sep 28, 2007

The politics of assassination

By Ramzy Baroud

LONDON — The assassination of Lebanese politician Antoine Ghanem on Sept. 19 is likely to be used, predictably, to further U.S. and Israeli interests in the region. Most Western and some Arab media have argued that Syria is the greatest beneficiary from the death of Ghanem, a member of the Phalange...

COMMENTARY

Sep 27, 2007

Hype on nuclear power is misleading

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI — Talk of a "global nuclear renaissance" remains just that — all talk. Notwithstanding the strong public relations campaign by the nuclear power industry and its powerful lobbying groups, nuclear energy is hardly the answer to the twin challenges of carbon mitigation and energy security...

COMMENTARY

Sep 27, 2007

Crunch: a question of trust

By David Howell

LONDON — Financial markets all round the world, from New York to London to Tokyo, have been rattled by the recent squeeze on credit and lending, which originated in the United States. All kinds of lessons have been drawn from the experience, many of which boil down to the simple adage that dubious...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Hiroki Shimana pauses before entering a Shinjuku Ward apartment where the owner, a woman in her 80s, passed away alone. The door had been sealed with tape to prevent any odors from disturbing the neighbors.

The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan

By Johan Brooks

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high

Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high

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