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November 30, 2024

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EDITORIALS

Feb 8, 2004

Over-exposed in Houston

Say this for U.S. President George W. Bush: He might have wrong-footed the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but he struck just the right note when asked to comment on the flap over singer Janet Jackson's risque performance in the Super Bowl halftime show in Houston the night before. Mr....

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 8, 2004

Resist the attempts to recognize Taiwan

By Glyn Ford

TAIPEI -- The Cold War may be over in Europe, but it is very much still with us in Asia. The North-South division on the Korean Peninsula is still possibly the world's most dangerous political stand-off. Not far behind is the tension between China and Taiwan. A civil war between the two was frozen just...

COMMENTARY

Feb 8, 2004

Politicians born of the media

By Ronald Meinardus

MANILA -- The media has become a decisive factor in electoral politics in democracies throughout the world. I would even argue that it is impossible to find a democratic country today in which a candidate could win a majority without using the media. Whenever political parties or candidates campaign,...

EDITORIALS

Feb 7, 2004

Pakistan and the nuclear bazaar

Pakistan has long argued that it had tight grip on the country's nuclear-weapons program. Despite mounting suspicions, Islamabad assured the world that neither it nor its scientists were involved in the proliferation of such weapons to other countries. In recent weeks, Pakistan has changed its tune....

COMMENTARY

Feb 7, 2004

Flu brings out worst in Asia

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- Amid the spread of bird flu, developing Asian nations face a challenge they are failing to meet, because a degree of modernity is required that they are unable to attain. On the one hand, Asia pursues the skyscrapers, the summit conferences, the high-tech industries seen as symbols of modernity....

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 7, 2004

Japan crosses the Rubicon

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- Japan has crossed the Rubicon, with surprisingly little opposition at home or abroad, by starting to dispatch armed soldiers to Iraq in their first deployment to a combat zone since World War II.

EDITORIALS

Feb 6, 2004

Little hope for six-nation talks

The six-nation talks, aimed at finding a negotiated solution to halting North Korea's nuclear development, are scheduled to resume in Beijing on Feb. 25 after a six-month interlude. Since the resumption of the talks has been struggling to make headway along a slippery road, we would like to hope that...

COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE

Feb 6, 2004

Candidates in sudden death

By Bob Keefe

WASHINGTON -- What a difference a month can make in the campaign to win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. As the election year started, we had a front-runner with a big bankroll and double-digit leads in the polls: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was threatening to run away with the nomination,...

EDITORIALS

Feb 5, 2004

Set to resume political donations

Nippon Keidanren, or the Japan Business Federation, is moving toward the resumption of donations to political parties. As a preliminary step, the organization has published a report evaluating key policies of the two largest parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan. The...

COMMENTARY

Feb 5, 2004

Musharraf must convince skeptical public

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has taken the unprecedented step of ordering an investigation of some of the country's top nuclear scientists on charges that they helped transfer nuclear-weapons technology to Iran. While the investigation has been hailed in the West as a decisive...

EDITORIALS

Feb 4, 2004

More turmoil in Iran

Every year, Iran marks the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to his home country in 1979 with a 10-day celebration that begins on Feb. 1. This year, Iranians will have a special opportunity to ponder the meaning of the Islamic Republic that the Ayatollah created as Iran is in the midst of an unprecedented...

COMMENTARY

Feb 4, 2004

The not-so cordial entente

By David Howell

LONDON -- 2004 marks the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale -- the accord between Britain and France of 1904 that marked a new era of friendship, the ending of numerous disputes and, as it turned out, intimate military alliance in two world wars.

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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