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November 25, 2024

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COMMENTARY / World

Aug 28, 2001

Trends in life learning for senior citizens

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- So much talk about globalization issues nowadays overshadows a couple of other equally important current developments: the longer life span of individuals and their wish to lead a meaningful period of time as silver-haired "senior citizens."

COMMENTARY

Aug 27, 2001

Lessons of the Yasukuni visit

By Kiroku Hanai

Settlement has been reached, at least temporarily, on two thorny issues that sparked criticism both at home and abroad: a junior high school history textbook edited by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 27, 2001

Immigrants' uphill battle to learn English

By Domenico Maceri

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- The Asian immigrant was described as speaking in "halting English" even after 20 years of living in the United States. The reporter of the Central California newspaper seemed to suggest that 20 years of living in the country should have resulted in a strong command of the language....

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Aug 27, 2001

U.S. wants justice for all -- except itself

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- On Aug. 2, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicted Bosnian Serb Gen. Radislav Krstic of genocide. But even before the verdict, the Bush administration had made clear its opposition to the effort to create an International Criminal Court, which would broaden...

COMMENTARY

Aug 26, 2001

Musharraf moves to rein in Islamic schools

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- The order from the government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, to impose the syllabus of mainstream schools upon Islamic ones, known as "madrassah," is yet another attempt by a Pakistani regime to rein in what many consider to be the first stop for militant...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 26, 2001

Tuvalu: first casualty of climate change

By Eun Jung Cahill Che

HONOLULU -- It's too late for Tuvalu, a small island nation in the Pacific. Ten thousand people, Tuvalu's entire population, are packing their bags as their homes among nine low-level atolls are being swallowed by the rising sea. These are the facts of life: The Earth is warming, sea levels are rising,...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 25, 2001

Scandals have Chirac on the defensive

By Jonathan Fenby

LONDON -- August is the month when, traditionally, the French forget about the cares of everyday life as they head for long holidays at home or abroad. But, this year, the most eminent of them as had a far from relaxing time. Just nine months before he faces an uphill re-election battle, President Jacques...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 25, 2001

Why Dear Leader isn't going to Seoul

By Ronald Meinardus

SEOUL -- "All contacts have stopped. We had expected North Korea to take up the process again, but they haven't," says South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung Soo. Since Pyongyang left negotiations last March, not much has happened diplomatically between the two estranged Koreas.

COMMENTARY

Aug 25, 2001

Asking a lot of peacemakers

By David Howell

LONDON -- What have Macedonia, Israel and Northern Ireland got in common?

COMMENTARY

Aug 25, 2001

Japan should borrow more

By Gregory Clark

In a small rural valley where I spend weekends, peace has been destroyed for almost a year by the roar of several large machines trying furiously to convert a few hectares of swamp and abandoned farmland into usable rice paddies. The project is heavily subsidized by the government.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 25, 2001

U.S. Congress is wrong to target the U.N.

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- The threat by the U.S. House of Representatives to withhold $582 million in funds for the United Nations is the wrong action against the world body.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 24, 2001

Ideologues assault pluralistic curricula

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

Bitter controversies over history textbooks are not limited to Japan, where recent government approval of a new volume has provoked an uproar in South Korea and China, and, although with a more muted response, in Southeast Asia. In India, the government's effort to foist Hinduism on educational institutions...

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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