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November 29, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Apr 16, 2005

Is Asia moving forward or backward?

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- Settling old scores is the characteristic of small minds; moving forward is the stuff of vision and leadership. Despite the growing trade among China, Japan and South Korea, much political activity appears to focus on the settlement of grudges.

COMMENTARY

Apr 15, 2005

Shedding imposed war guilt

By Gregory Clark

Tokyo is right to blame the Chinese authorities for failing to prevent damage to Japanese diplomatic and other properties during recent anti-Japanese demonstrations. But the Chinese authorities probably had their reasons. Demonstrations in China can easily turn into ugly antigovernment riots when confronted...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 14, 2005

Righting past humiliations

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- China, South Korea and Indonesia have seen a rise of nationalism commensurate with their increasing economic confidence. The rise in national- ism can also be traced to historical humiliations suffered by China and South Korea a century or more ago, and to Indonesia's ordeal in the Asian...

COMMENTARY

Apr 13, 2005

China's cultural soul being sacrificed on altar of growth

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- As the Chinese economy continues to power ahead, everyone in the country is pleased with the visible improvement in standards of living, but very few people are counting the cost in terms of the loss of China's historical legacy, the growing sense of alienation and the loss of the cohesiveness...

COMMENTARY

Apr 12, 2005

Lee should avoid Yasukuni

By Robyn Lim

With tensions rising again across the Taiwan Strait, some in Japan seem to think that it might be timely for former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to visit controversial Yasukuni Shrine, the memorial in Tokyo to Japan's war dead.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 11, 2005

Invest to bolster peace in southern Sudan

By Ramiro Lopes Da Silva

KHARTOUM -- Cereal trader Said Abubaker has a simple explanation for the fast-rising price of the local staple sorghum in the town market at Warawar in southern Sudan: "Peace has been a stranger in our land for so long that now that it has come, nature does not know how to welcome it."

COMMENTARY

Apr 11, 2005

The danger of keeping Japan in its place

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- Reform of the United Nations -- that terribly tarnished crown jewel of post-World War II global order -- is, as everyone agrees, urgently needed. For all its imperfections, it is the best world political organization we have.

COMMENTARY

Apr 11, 2005

EU Constitution in trouble

By David Howell

LONDON -- It is possible, even probable, that the French people will reject the European Union's proposed new constitution in their referendum on May 31.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 10, 2005

Schiavo case deepens America's divide

By Fred Balitzer

ONTARIO, Calif. -- Seldom can I recall any issue in America producing as much emotion and division as the case of Terri Schiavo. The Iraq war has not come close to reaching this level of emotional expression. After being denied food and water for 13 days, her death on March 31, at 41 years of age, brings...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 10, 2005

Intervention based on rules

By Ramesh Thakur

According to the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, "The maintenance of world peace and security depends importantly on there be-- ing a common global understanding, and acceptance, of when the application of force is both legal and legitimate."

COMMENTARY

Apr 9, 2005

School kitchens need a nanny

By Sarah Benton

LONDON -- Turkey twizzlers once divided the nation; now they appear to have united it in a surge of national purpose for reform. This is thanks to a new political hero, chef Jamie Oliver, who, from one of the most despised backgrounds in Britain -- white working-class boy from Essex -- has shown imagination...

COMMENTARY

Apr 9, 2005

Can John Bolton save the United Nations?

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- The United Nations is a mess. Often corrupt and venal, always inefficient and wasteful, frequently captured by the worst political interests, and commonly motivated by the most extreme ideological impulses, the organization is anything but "the last great hope of mankind." If anyone can...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.

Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat

By Greg Dvorak

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SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

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