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November 22, 2024

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EDITORIALS

Apr 4, 1999

Lunchtime in Lotus-land

Is nothing sacred? Even though we live in a place famous for its workaholic habits and stressful schedules, there has always been the comforting thought that in other, warmer countries people do things differently. In these Lotus-lands of the imagination, or so we believed, workers hardly merit the name:...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 4, 1999

The United States is drowning in hubris

By Doug Bandow

Superpowers, like individuals in love, never have to say they are sorry. At least, that seems to be the lesson of U.S. President Bill Clinton's promiscuous use of force overseas.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 3, 1999

Rethinking joint strategy on North Korea

By Brad Glosserman

North Korea continues to confound the world. The country's economy is on the rocks; it is estimated to have shrunk by more than 50 percent between 1992 and 1996. The government is unable to feed its own people; hundreds of thousands are thought to have died as a result of malnutrition-related diseases...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 3, 1999

The autonomy imperative

By Chalmers Johnson

In these post-Cold War days, the governments of the United States and its allies still routinely expose their citizens to the risks of death and destruction in the name of national security. The people of northern Italy complained for years about low-flying U.S. military aircraft, but Rome simply ignored...

EDITORIALS

Apr 3, 1999

In praise of Irish 'fudge'

This year, British and Irish people alike are feeling a good deal more somber than they did on Good Friday last year. Then, Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland found common ground for a peace agreement designed to end 30 years of sectarian violence that had claimed more than 3,200 lives. Today,...

EDITORIALS

Apr 2, 1999

Stumbling over Myanmar

Relations between Europe and Asia continue to be the weakest link in the three-legged global economy. Efforts to remedy that defect have been made. One of the most important is the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process that began in 1997. Those meetings have made some progress, but a deeper dialogue between...

EDITORIALS

Apr 1, 1999

A warning to tyrants everywhere

In a landmark decision, Britain's Law Lords last week ruled 6-1 that Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, could be extradited to Spain on charges of human-rights abuses during his rule. The vote was even more decisive than the earlier 3-2 ruling that dismissed Mr. Pinochet's immunity claim...

EDITORIALS

Apr 1, 1999

Russia's shaky vote of confidence

Russia and the International Monetary Fund this week agreed on a framework that will permit the organization to resume lending to the beleaguered country. Only the outlines of the deal have emerged; final details are to be worked out next week. But the particulars of the package are less important than...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Apr 1, 1999

Russia's new paranoia

By Constantine Pleshakov

If one nation is totally infuriated by the current bombing of Serbia, it's Russia. After numerous assaults by angry crowds, the imposing building of the U.S. Embassy in downtown Moscow now looks like an expensive piece of furniture despoiled by a wild party, its walls covered with ketchup and ink. It...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 1, 1999

Pinochet advances human rights after all

By Myint Zan

Both the anti-Pinochet crowd that had gathered outside the House of Lords in London and the Pinochet supporters at the Pinochet Foundation in Santiago, Chile, cheered and celebrated soon after the seven Law Lords gave the gist of their judgments live on radio and television. Both pro-Pinochet and anti-Pinochet...

EDITORIALS

Mar 31, 1999

A token gesture ...

Here is an apt symbol for our era. At a news conference in New York earlier this month -- actually, on the very day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly bested the 10,000 mark for the first time -- the U.S. toy and game maker Hasbro Inc. announced the results of a campaign to choose a new token...

EDITORIALS

Mar 30, 1999

Prodi steps into the breach

Wasting no time, the leaders of the 15 members of the European Union last week nominated former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to be the new president of the European Commission. Mr. Prodi replaces Mr. Jacques San ter, who resigned March 15 along with the 19 other commission ers after an independent...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.

A boom for business tourism in Japan?

By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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