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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.
Somalia was a failed state for more than 20 years. But now it has come back enough for the U.N. Security Council to partially lift the embargo on arms sales.
North Korea apparently has carried out its third nuclear explosion test since 2006, defying international efforts to keep it from becoming a nuclear power.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. North Korea decides, for whatever reason, that it is time to once again challenge the international community by conducting missile and nuclear tests. It announces a “satellite launch” and proceeds, despite international condemnation and warnings of ...
A half year has passed since the Dec. 17, 2011, death of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The “military first” policy is his legacy. North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, his youngest son, should pursue the path of giving priority to ...
The situation in Syria continues to worsen. While accurate information is difficult to acquire, all indications are that the country hovers on the brink of a civil war. The most recent atrocity is a massacre in the town of Houla that left at least ...
The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea, meeting in Beijing on Sunday, agreed to strengthen cooperation toward preventing a nuclear explosion test by North Korea and to launch talks this year on a trilateral free trade deal. But their joint statement, issued one ...
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 ...
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 ...
As the conflict in Syria churns out a ghastly human carnage, diplomatic efforts to halt the violence are shadowed by last year’s intervention in the Libyan conflict, which resulted in a six-month-long military operation to topple a tyrant. So, when the U.N. Security Council ...
The recent public-television documentary on the Clinton presidency has focused attention anew on the scandal involving Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Overlooked is the important role this affair played in the confrontation with Iraq in 1998. As the story was breaking, I happened to ...
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 ...
The perennial conflict between Iran and the West has entered a dangerous new phase, with tensions rising in the Persian Gulf since Iran has threatened retaliation for last week’s assassination of a chemical engineer linked to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. What accounts for ...