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November 28, 2024

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COMMENTARY

Dec 6, 2003

Chen plays a dangerous game

By Ralph Cossa

HONOLULU -- Is President Chen Shui-bian trying to provoke a crisis with China in the runup to Taiwan's March 2004 presidential elections?

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 6, 2003

Sound reasons inspire unusual strikes

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- News from France concerning the recent work stoppage by diplomats of the prestigious Quai d'Orsay is unusual, to say the least. Thousands of diplomatic officers, both in Paris and abroad, have abandoned their duties in protest of huge budgetary restrictions that have torpedoed...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 5, 2003

China dreads contagion of unrest

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- The heavy losses suffered by proadministration and pro-Beijing parties in Hong Kong's Nov. 23 municipal elections clearly bore out a prodemocracy message.

COMMENTARY

Dec 4, 2003

Ethnic cleansing on the Jordan River

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Israel can push even U.S. President George W. Bush too far. The Bush administration says it will cut $290 million of $3 billion in promised loan guarantees because Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government continues to construct settlements and a security fence in the West Bank,...

COMMENTARY

Dec 4, 2003

Chirac still feeling the heat

By Andre Fontaine

PARIS -- France has not finished paying for the August heat wave and its 10,000 deaths. Vegetable and beef prices have risen, tourism has declined, forest fires have devastated wide areas and the financial impact on the budget has postponed an economic upswing.

COMMENTARY

Dec 3, 2003

Lots of debate, little action

By Gregory Clark

The problems with Japan's education system are well known -- poor teaching in the universities; class disintegration (gakkyu hokai) in the schools -- to name but a few. So many students, unwilling to put up with the pressures and rigidities of the existing school system, are now dropping out of school...

COMMENTARY

Dec 2, 2003

Bolster will to defend Japan

By Keizo Nabeshima

Last month the government published an outline of draft legislation aimed at protecting the lives and property of Japanese people during a military attack from abroad. Such legislation could also apply in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack. The Diet will discuss the draft during the next regular...

COMMENTARY

Dec 1, 2003

LDP's diminishing appeal

By Takamitsu Sawa

In the Nov. 9 Lower House election, the governing Liberal Democratic Party lost 10 seats while the opposition Democratic Party of Japan gained 40. New Komeito added a few seats thanks to its cooperation in the election with the LDP, its ruling-coalition partner. The Social Democratic Party and the Japan...

COMMENTARY

Dec 1, 2003

Iraq and economy top political agenda

By Kenzo Uchida

The special session of the Diet that was convened on Nov. 19 following the Nov. 9 general election came to an early close Nov. 27. On the question of the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, which is the most important issue at the moment, fierce debate unfolded between Prime Minister Junichiro...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 1, 2003

Cross-strait tensions build as one-China principle fades

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- The "one-China" principle that has been the mainstay of relations between the United States and China for 30 years is steadily fading. Curiously, a critical chapter in the fate of the principle is being played out now on the tiny mid-Pacific nation of Kiribati.

COMMENTARY

Nov 30, 2003

Fear, posturing cloud Sri Lanka's fate

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- The latest Sri Lankan political crisis is still unfolding. The peace process, expected to end the state of civil war, is endangered. So is the future of Sri Lankan democracy. At the very moment when foreign-aid pledges worth more than $4 billion are waiting to be fulfilled, some Sinhalese...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Nov 29, 2003

Coup ushers in uncertain era

By Constantine Pleshakov

MOSCOW -- A former Soviet republic, Georgia, is in the limelight again. Outraged by an allegedly fraudulent parliamentary election, protesters toppled the government of President Eduard A. Shevardnadze and installed an interim administration led by a number of opposition leaders.

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

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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