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Jason Burke
For Jason Burke's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2014
Lessons to be learned from Modi's popularity
One reason that 63-year-old Narendra Modi, the likely winner in India's parliamentary election, inspires fear in Delhi is that he did not go to the best Indian schools, eats simple food and is otherwise unlike many members of the political and bureaucratic elite.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 20, 2014
For Hindu nationalists, a chance to right wrongs
From a distance, the scene is as colorful as any in India. Men dressed as Hindu deities, with tinsel crowns and tridents, wait for their turn on the stage. Teenagers saunter by trucks carrying effigies of mythological heroes and listen to speeches.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Mar 30, 2014
Afghanistan at crossroads as Karzai era ends
Amid the dust and traffic of today's Kabul, three things remain almost as they were a decade or so ago. In winter, and when the wind clears the smog that is a side effect of years of economic boom, the blue sky above the snowcapped peaks that ring the city is as impressive as ever. Then there is the Arg, the sprawling palace at the city's center and the apparently calm eye of a turbulent storm of a country. The complex is home to the third element that has remained constant since the end of the Taliban's grim regime in 2001: Hamid Karzai, now in his 13th year of power.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 27, 2013
Rajapaksa: Sri Lanka's affable authoritarian?
Down in the deep south of Sri Lanka, where life usually moves at a leisurely pace, there is one small town that is less tranquil. Hambantota — population 20,000 — is expanding fast. There is a vast new deepwater port, built with $360 million of borrowed Chinese cash; a new 35,000-seat cricket stadium; a huge convention center; and a $200 million international airport. A broad-gauge railway is under construction. Powerful people have ambitions for Hambantota. None is more powerful or more ambitious than President Mahinda Rajapaksa, born nearby in 1945.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2013
Nairobi shows jihadist terror still poses a threat
We cannot defend every shopping mall in the world against terrorist attack. We are just going to have to live with the threat, and for some considerable time to come.

Longform

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