25
P/SUNNY
The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
The biannual meetings of the world’s leading financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are generally pretty staid affairs — after all, how riled up can gatherings of central bankers and finance officials really get? In recent years, the answer is ...
While international attention has been focused on North Korea’s failed “satellite launch,” India last week successfully test-fired a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 5,000 km. This development has the potential to shift the regional strategic balance and introduce new uncertainties into Asia. ...
BRICS is back. The five-nation group that comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa held its fourth summit last week, convening in New Delhi to present their collective views on global problems. While their opinions are increasingly relevant given their growing weight and ...
To combat the decline in Japanese students studying abroad, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry is finally taking action. Special five-year grants of ¥100 million to ¥200 million will be offered to 40 universities for study abroad programs. These grants are a ...
The scandal over the repellent way the World Bank president is appointed has obscured an equally scandalous situation: the appointment process of the rest of the senior managers at the bank and the International Monetary Fund. They too are selected through opaque, quota-driven negotiations ...
The last two decades were the era of hypermarkets — massive superstores that could dazzle customers with an astonishing array of standardized products. But there are signs that the superstore’s age of dominance may be over. In recent months, hypermarkets around the world — ...
As it prepares to hold its latest annual summit in New Delhi on March 28-29, the BRICS grouping — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — remains a concept in search of a common identity and institutionalized cooperation. That is hardly surprising, given ...
President Vladimir Putin in Russia, President Bashar Assad in Syria and President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe are detested by many of their fellow countrymen who would like to see them overthrown and tried for human rights abuses. They depend on a close coterie of ...
When India selected 126 French Rafale fighter aircraft (£13 billion) over the U.K.-manufactured Typhoon involving a consortium of European countries, some British politicians and commentators demanded that aid to “ungrateful” India, a fast-rising economic power, be stopped. The press dredged up Finance Minister Pranab ...
Can the United States and the European Union apply sanctions on Iran to curb its nuclear program without boosting oil prices and undermining economies in Asia as well as the West? The answer is particularly critical for Asia because it is has to bear ...
Talleyrand said of the Bourbon dynasty that ruled France both before and after that country’s revolution: “They have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing.” Today, with the same shortsightedness, Europe’s leaders stick unblinkingly to policies that the whole world can see have already failed. ...
Ten years after the formulation of the responsibility-to-protect (R2P) principle as a guide for driving international intervention in a country, it is worth making three points: • First, as shown in Libya last year, R2P is the norm of choice for galvanizing moral outrage ...