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November 29, 2024

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COMMENTARY / World

Jan 30, 2005

Looking up after bleak year

By Ramesh Thakur

Two years ago, the World Economic Forum launched a Global Governance Initiative that brought together a group of experts from around the world to map the state of the world on peace and security, education, environment, health, human rights, and hunger and poverty. The initiative provides an assessment,...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 30, 2005

Treading softly on Jakarta's sensibilities

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- Many observers believe the Dec. 26 tsunami disaster has opened up Aceh and the rest of Indonesia to the West. In fact, Aceh has been intermittently "closed" to international scrutin for 30 years amid the struggle by Acehnese secessionists to create an independent state. Now, as the Indonesian...

COMMENTARY

Jan 29, 2005

China's global impact grows

By David Howell

LONDON -- Suddenly China has become the No. 1 topic on the agenda of every Western policy forum and think tank. That the focus should be so sudden is in a way surprising.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 27, 2005

Foggy North Korean shuffle

By Soyoung Kwon and Glyn Ford

BRUSSELS -- Recent events in North Korea have been interpreted in various ways and, generally, the wish has been father to the thought. The truth is difficult to discern, but indications are that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has placed himself firmly behind a reform program that may finally bring...

COMMENTARY

Jan 26, 2005

Things look up to Downer

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- They say an optimist looks at the very same glass that the pessimist sees as half-empty and proclaims it to be half-full. By that measure, one of the world's foremost optimists has got to be Alexander Downer, Australia's minister for foreign affairs.

COMMENTARY

Jan 25, 2005

Medical reform needs help

By Kiroku Hanai

In its first report on medical reform, the council to promote deregulation -- an advisory body to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi -- recently recommended lifting some restrictions on "mixed medical care," easing conditions for the private operation of hospitals and reorganizing the government's Central...

COMMENTARY

Jan 25, 2005

Short shrift to a leader ousted by outlaws

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- The death of former Chinese Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang is a reminder of the tragedy that befell 15 years ago when the People's Liberation Army was called upon to shoot down unarmed demonstrators in Beijing, students as well as civilians. But it is also a reminder that China even today...

COMMENTARY

Jan 24, 2005

A return to Northern basics

By Keizo Nabeshima

The Japan-Russia talks on the Northern Territories are deadlocked. Shortly after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union seized four islands or islet clusters northeast of Hokkaido -- Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai. In 1993, the two nations issued a joint statement calling for the conclusion...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 24, 2005

Lineage of the Asian community concept

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Last fall the embryonic concept of an Asian community appeared to gain some momentum. Now, of course, other topics, mainly the tragedy of the Dec. 26 tsunamis, have monopolized public attention, but the vision of a broader Asian community deserves further discussion.

COMMENTARY

Jan 23, 2005

The lobbyists who advertise

By Ronald Meinardus

MANILA -- As the complexity of the issues facing our societies continues to grow, political decision-makers increasingly face the problem of how to handle what is often termed information overkill.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 23, 2005

Pitching a U.S.-South Korean divorce

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- In a provocative new book, the authors propose that the United States and South Korea agree to an "amicable divorce" in which all American military forces would be withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula and the security treaty that has made South Korea and America allies for 50 years would be...

COMMENTARY

Jan 22, 2005

Too soon to end U.S. military's aid effort

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- What seems truly noteworthy about the U.S. response to the tsunami disaster (especially as viewed here from the West Coast) is the dramatic duration of the caring. Even as the TV media have begun to lose interest (predictably), the general interest here seems not to be waning at all.

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

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