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COMMENTARY

Sep 17, 2012

Greatest lib-con showdown in America since the 1960s

By Takamitsu Sawa

The presidential election in the United States is less than two months away. The Republican Party has nominated Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, to run against the Democratic incumbent, Barack Obama.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Sep 16, 2012

Beacons of hope and inspiration light even the darkest pits of despond

By Roger Pulvers

The renowned Polish-born film and television director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland has created a stunning work about life and death in the Lviv ghetto during the closing months of World War II.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 15, 2012

The Neil Armstrong I knew — and flew with

By Michael Collins

Before manned space flights began, officials pondered what background they should seek in the crew for this bizarre new venture: Danger lover? Bullfighter? Mountain climber? Should they search for people who were self-aware and calm in extreme conditions? A deep-sea diver, perhaps? Finally, they settled...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 15, 2012

Tehran's electoral strategy

By Mehdi Khalaji

Negotiations over Iran's nuclear program have again hit a wall, but the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appears unconcerned. Indeed, Khamenei seems convinced that neither the United States nor Israel will attack its nuclear facilities — at least not before the U.S. presidential election...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 13, 2012

Avoiding a sectarian split in the Middle East

By James Jeffrey

As the Assad regime hurtles toward deserved collapse in Syria, I often think back to a warning I received from a friend 18 months ago. I was serving then as the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad and was focused on Iraqi problems. But my confidant, an Iraqi Kurd with a strong commitment to a unified, multisectarian...

COMMENTARY

Sep 13, 2012

Airports: too few or too many?

By Hugh Cortazzi

A hot political question in London in recent weeks has been the need for more airport capacity to meet the needs of business in the 21st century. A neutral observer might think that this is essentially a matter that should be settled on the basis of supply and demand and the relationship between these...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 2012

Volatile risks accompany North Korea's reforms

By Andrei Lankov

Reports of unusual activity have been emerging from North Korea. Farmers were told in early July that, going forward, the state would take not their entire harvest but only 70 percent, and they would be allowed to keep the rest. The military's economic role was partially curtailed last month when some...

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 12, 2012

Japan's Russia diplomacy

By Mineo Nakajima

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for the first time during the June Group of 20 summit in Mexico. When Noda proposed holding substantive talks over the Northern Territories dispute on the basis of bilateral accords and documents as well as of the principle of law...

COMMENTARY

Sep 12, 2012

New ships give China's navy a stronger punch

By Michael Richardson

In the latest step in its naval modernization and expansion, China recently announced that it is accelerating serial production of an advanced destroyer. This will tilt the regional balance of power at sea in its favor and put it in a stronger position to enforce its sovereignty claims over Taiwan and...

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Sep 11, 2012

Troubled waters, bad bridge

A South Korean journalist in Seoul warns that Japan should not make light of the recent series of tough actions taken by Seoul against Tokyo because they represent the beginning of a sharp turn in South Korea's policy toward Japan.

COMMENTARY

Sep 11, 2012

Let posterity see how the Iraq war was created

By Ramesh Thakur

When the Iraq War Inquiry Group (of which I am a member) issued a public call for an inquiry into the decision-making that lay behind Australia's participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, members of the then-Howard government dismissed it in effect as yesterday's news.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Sep 9, 2012

Putin's siege-mentality Russia now firmly in the grip of a 'cold civil war'

By Roger Pulvers

There is an old Soviet-era Russian joke about two rival groups of archeologists who cannot agree on the age of a mummy discovered in Central Asia. At their wits' end, they call in the NKVD — the name of the dreaded KGB in Stalin's time — to settle the dispute.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.

That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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