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November 28, 2024

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COMMENTARY / World

Nov 29, 2002

NATO mission remains foggy

By Jonathan Fenby

LONDON -- The invitations issued at the recent Prague conference to seven former Eastern Bloc states to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are a dramatic demonstration of how the world has changed in just a few short years.

COMMENTARY

Nov 29, 2002

A state led by the power of nine

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- While many foreign press reports recently stressed the ways in which China was becoming more capitalist, only London's Financial Times cautioned readers about how the country remains indubitably communist.

COMMENTARY

Nov 28, 2002

A reunion on neutral ground

By Ralph Cossa

HONOLULU -- Shame on Pyongyang . . . and shame on Tokyo, too!

EDITORIALS

Nov 28, 2002

Staving off banking disaster

The latest financial reports from Japan's major commercial banks tell more of the same story: The huge overhang of nonperforming loans continues to block a return to health. To be sure, banks made a profit in their main lines of business in the first six months of fiscal 2002, as they did in previous...

COMMENTARY

Nov 28, 2002

Jiang's 'thought' deified in his own time

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- The constitution of China's Communist Party, revised at the recent 16th Party Congress, elevates President Jiang Zemin to virtually the same level as that of party founder Mao Zedong and the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Each is identified as "chief representative" of the Communists...

EDITORIALS

Nov 27, 2002

Not the time to celebrate profits

At first glance, corporate earnings reports for the first half of fiscal 2002 seem too good to be true, given the continuing economic slump. On average, pretax profit surged nearly 40 percent in April through September from the same period a year earlier -- a dramatic reversal from the 40 percent decline...

COMMENTARY

Nov 26, 2002

Environmental security risks

By Brad Glosserman

HONOLULU -- The United States has become acutely aware of "new security threats" since 9/11. Transnational terrorism does not fit neatly within the mind-set that has guided U.S. national security thinking throughout the 20th century. The move to create a homeland security department is proof of the need...

EDITORIALS

Nov 26, 2002

Reviving the image of peacemaker

Israel's opposition Labor Party now has a new leader, who is calling for an immediate resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians. In Tuesday's leadership election, Mr. Amram Mitzna, the mayor of Haifa, won an easy victory over Mr. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the party chief who had served as defense minister...

EDITORIALS

Nov 25, 2002

Birth of a new NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was reborn last week. The alliance has added seven new members, all former Eastern bloc countries, extending NATO's territory to Russia's borders in the Baltic and to the Black Sea. Yet unlike the last round, this time Moscow accepted the expansion without protest....

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Nov 25, 2002

Gilded Age of excess returns to America

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- During a recent talk in this city on his lifelong subject, the Iwakura Embassy, businessman-scholar Saburo Izumi reminded those gathered that the Japanese group visited the United States during the Gilded Age. This appellation comes, of course, from American writer Mark Twain (and C.D. Warner)...

COMMENTARY

Nov 25, 2002

Get serious about Zimbabwe

By David Howell

LONDON -- The miserable Zimbabwe saga now seems to be moving to a moment of catharsis. Opposition leader Morgan Tsangvirai has sent a desperate appeal to the United Nations, almost like the last cry of a free country about to be obliterated, warning of imminent descent into civil strife that will threaten...

COMMENTARY

Nov 25, 2002

Flawed civil service proposal

By Kiroku Hanai

To carry out the first major reform of the national civil service system in 50 years, the government plans to introduce legislation in the Diet next year to revise the national public service law. Under present plans, the new law would be implemented beginning in fiscal 2006. A task force of the Cabinet...

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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