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Marcus Noland
For Marcus Noland's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 2001
Hopes for peace are fading
WASHINGTON -- Last year, U.S. President Bill Clinton spent his final months in office trying to cobble together a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Today, the Middle East teeters on the edge of the largest-scale violence since the Persian Gulf War and the greatest involving Israel since its invasion of Lebanon nearly 20 years ago. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was unwilling or unable to accept the olive branch offered by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and now confronts Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a man known primarily for his belligerence.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2000
Modest hopes for summit between Koreas
Last month, the leaders of North and South Korea stunned the world with an announcement of plans to meet in Pyongyang in June at the first ever summit between the two nations. It is an event fraught with both danger and opportunity.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 1999
Losing the battle in Seattle
Last Tuesday, a crowd in downtown Seattle assembled in front of a McDonald's restaurant. First, a French dairy farmer, defending European agricultural export subsidies, denounced the World Trade Organization. Next, a Brazilian farmer, harmed by those same European export subsidies, excoriated the WTO. Then an American rancher, hurt by the European Union's ban on hormone-fed beef, condemned the WTO. Finally, a vegan attacked the WTO. By rights, the three farmers should have been at each others' throats, and the vegan presumably wanted to put both the Frenchman and the American out of business, but in the topsy-turvy world of Seattle, the four joined together and smashed the windows of the McDonald's.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 1999
U.S. trade policy all at sea
When Pat Buchanan launched his third campaign for the presidency of the United States, the protectionist candidate visited the archetypal steel town of Weirton, West Virginia. Buffeted by a surge in imported steel, Weirton offered a natural backdrop for Buchanan's xenophobic fulminations.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores