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November 27, 2024

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COMMENTARY / World

May 2, 2003

U.S. sets the bar high in N. Korea talks

By John Barry Kotch

SEOUL -- The United States and North Korea finally have begun talking again. Or have they? Are they talking to each other, at each other or past each other? Although the two sides agreed to keep the diplomatic channels open, it's going to take a lot more meetings to get out of this crisis in one piece....

COMMENTARY / World

May 1, 2003

Reform is key to keeping Asia on top

By Ifzal Ali

MANILA -- Asia's future is bright, but it is not preordained. Policy reforms that augment investment, lead to the adoption of new technologies and enhance productivity must be pursued to increase the growth potential of developing economies in Asia. The urgency of these reforms is accentuated by the...

COMMENTARY / World

May 1, 2003

Kelly's 'fairies' threaten peace

By David Wall

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Last October, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly set off an international crisis by claiming that North Korean officials had told him that Pyongyang was developing nuclear weapons. The officials denied saying that.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Apr 30, 2003

Pyongyang's actions shock few observers

By Constantine Pleshakov

MOSCOW -- When you are told that a person whom you don't know has won the lottery or lost a job, your feelings are pretty predictable and simple: Envy in the first case and empathy in the second. Yet if the person in question is somebody you know, your reactions get more complicated. You immediately...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 30, 2003

For Japan, being America's ally is no longer so easy

By Robyn Lim

The number of North Korean Nodong missiles capable of targeting Japan is now thought to be some 175 to 200, rather than 100 as previously believed. Moreover, at the China-U.S.-North Korea talks in Beijing last week, North Korea taunted the United States by saying that it had developed nuclear weapons....

COMMENTARY

Apr 29, 2003

Will Chirac's luck run out?

By Andre Fontaine

PARIS -- When he had to appoint a general, Napoleon Bonaparte would ask if the candidate possessed the main quality for the job: luck. No politician in French contemporary history meets that condition more than President Jacques Chirac.

COMMENTARY

Apr 28, 2003

Asian politicians slowly embrace the Net

By Ronald Meinardus

MANILA -- Irrespective of ideological leanings, all politicians are keen on receiving media coverage. As one U.S. political campaign publication noted, "If you don't exist in the media, you don't exist."

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 28, 2003

A silver lining to the SARS epidemic

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is sending shivers down the spines of Asian governments and citizens alike. China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam have been the most affected by this scourge, while other Asian countries are desperately trying to prevent the disease...

COMMENTARY

Apr 28, 2003

Mixed marks for the Iraq war

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The removal of the evil despotism of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is an important benefit for the peoples of Iraq and the world in general. The ending of his regime will be welcomed by some neighboring countries that felt threatened by Iraq. It should in the long run be beneficial to the Arabs as...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Apr 28, 2003

America is the greatest abuser of WMD

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- One duplicitous aspect of the United States' war on Iraq has been the use of the term "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD). No, I am not talking about the kinds of weapons that are assumed in the question raised by the conservative Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak on April 7 -- "Where...

COMMENTARY

Apr 28, 2003

Fair, transparent foreign aid

By Kiroku Hanai

Last September the Japanese government was stunned by a lawsuit filed with the Tokyo District Court by 3,861 residents of Indonesia's Sumatra Island. The plaintiffs said their life had been disrupted by a dam for hydroelectric power and flood control built with Japan's official development assistance....

COMMENTARY

Apr 27, 2003

Bush faces long-term burden of triumph

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI -- Aggression pays, and naked aggression pays handsomely. That may sound like the moral of America's occupation of Iraq after a faster-than-anticipated military triumph that threatens to herald a more muscular U.S. foreign policy. That moral may be reinforced by the way the Bush administration...

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

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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