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November 29, 2024

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COMMENTARY / World

Apr 16, 2003

Why does Japan choose to remain naked to the threat of North Korean missiles?

By Robyn Lim

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, fearing that he is next on U.S. President George W. Bush's list for "regime change," is openly threatening Japan with his Nodong missiles. Yet Japan chooses to remain naked to this threat. Why doesn't it ask for PAC-3 (Patriot) missiles to be deployed by U.S. forces in...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Apr 16, 2003

Surviving victory in Iraq

By Constantine Pleshakov

MOSCOW -- It is, of course, unknown how future Western and Arab writers will treat the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, and whether U.S. troops or the people of Iraq -- or perhaps neither side -- will be proclaimed an eventual winner. In any case, there is every reason to believe that the battle for Baghdad...

EDITORIALS

Apr 16, 2003

Time to pull out the road map

As the war in Iraq reaches its final phases, attention is shifting to other fronts in the Middle East. None is more important than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S. President George W. Bush promised to push for peace in the region after the Baghdad government fell. While some doubt his determination...

EDITORIALS

Apr 15, 2003

Party influence continues to wane

With public interest drawn to developments in the ongoing Iraq war, the first round of elections in local governments and assemblies featured low-key campaigning and a generally poor turnout. The media has not shown great interest in hyping up the local poles. And established political parties have tended...

COMMENTARY

Apr 15, 2003

Koizumi still Japan's best hope

By Hugh Cortazzi

The publicity given to the quarreling between members of the Japanese Cabinet, including accusations of lying, the resignation of the minister of agriculture and the difficulty Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apparently had in finding a suitable successor suggest that his government cannot last much...

COMMENTARY

Apr 14, 2003

Implications of the Iraq war

By Ralph Cossa

HONOLULU -- Why diplomacy failed in Iraq remains a subject of intense debate. Even Baghdad's supporters could not argue that Iraq had fully complied with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which found Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime in material breach of numerous earlier resolutions and promised...

COMMENTARY

Apr 14, 2003

China stumbles on SARS and Pyongyang

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- Mistake-making is a common occupation of governments everywhere, but lately the Chinese government has made two monster blunders that uncomfortably reopen the question of whether China has made all that much progress after all. The issues concern North Korea and severe acute respiratory...

EDITORIALS

Apr 14, 2003

Easing cash flow for small firms

Small businesses in Japan are having severe cash-flow difficulties, even though the Bank of Japan is pumping plenty of money into the banking system. This is because debt-burdened banks are following restrictive lending practices. In an unprecedented move to help those cash-strapped companies, the central...

EDITORIALS

Apr 13, 2003

In search of the real al-Jazeera

The war in Iraq hasn't been easy for nonparticipants such as Japan to sort out. The most obvious villains were also technically the victims, and the perpetrators of hostilities have looked like invaders one minute, liberators the next. Perceptions and judgments could, and still do, shift like the wind....

COMMENTARY

Apr 13, 2003

Thailand seeks an advantage

By Brad Glosserman

HONOLULU -- Southeast Asian politicians and business professionals continue to insist that China's rise is "an opportunity, not a threat" to their future. That sounds a lot like whistling past the graveyard. The Chinese market is so big and has such a wealth of human and material resources that conventional...

COMMENTARY

Apr 13, 2003

Rebuilding Iraq to be better than before

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- U.S. President George W. Bush has repeatedly spoken of creating an environment of political freedom for the people of Iraq, where at least one generation, if not two, has grown up under the shadow of President Saddam Hussein. But there are a number of unanswered questions influencing Iraq's...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 13, 2003

From polarization to U.N. reconstruction

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- A future historian will almost certainly view the current tragedy in Iraq more calmly than so many of today's analysts and commentators. As the drama is screened from sophisticated command rooms to the remotest television-equipped hut in a far corner of the world, emotions prevail...

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

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

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