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COMMENTARY / World

Oct 10, 2003

Bali summit moves ASEAN toward sense of community

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- At the Ninth ASEAN Summit in Bali, Indonesia, this week, the 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations signed the Bali Concord II, an action plan aimed at realizing a more integrated ASEAN in terms of economy, culture and security.

COMMENTARY

Oct 9, 2003

Small states seek bigger say

By David Howell

LONDON -- The meeting of European Union member states in Rome to begin discussing a possible new constitution has opened on a discordant note. The smaller countries of Europe do not like the way things are going. The worries are not just those of "the usual suspects" -- the British, Danes and Swedes....

COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE

Oct 9, 2003

Primaries and polls

By Bob Keefe

WASHINGTON -- Here we are less than four months away from the actual start of the 2004 presidential race. Delegates will begin to be selected in late January. The preliminary season is in its final stage. The third quarter of 2003 proved to be reasonably decisive for the Democrats.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 9, 2003

Charming the IMF in Dubai

By Kevin Rafferty

HONG KONG -- James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, made the most powerful speech of his career at the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund in Dubai last month. It was full of sharp sound bites driving toward a vital central theme that Wolfensohn enunciated...

COMMENTARY

Oct 8, 2003

Blair style reassures nonunion masses

By Sarah Benton

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair strides onto the platform, shirt and skin softly gleaming, his gait erect, his manner proud, determined, with a measure of sorrow and a tinge of repentance; his appearance is heart-winningly boyish with his large blue eyes and easy smile, but now there is an...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 8, 2003

Early round would test North Korea's credibility

By Ahn Byung Joon

In all probability, freezing North Korea's nuclear development activities will be the key to finding a diplomatic solution because time is running out for preventing the actual production of nuclear weapons. Pyongyang's most recent claim that it had finished reprocessing spent fuel rods into plutonium...

COMMENTARY

Oct 7, 2003

Japan's diplomatic needs

By Keizo Nabeshima

In his second Cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi retained both Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba. This promises continuity in Japan's foreign and defense policy, at least for the next three years in which Koizumi is likely to serve as...

COMMENTARY

Oct 6, 2003

Industry sounds out of key in its campaign against P2P

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- The recording industry seems to believe that there is no greater enemy of all that is good and wonderful than peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technologies. Thus the Recording Industry Association of America's campaign to sue grandkids and grandparents who violate copyrights by swapping...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 6, 2003

Taiwan trying to shake off the old labels

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- In ancient China, a rational sage named Hsun Tzu fashioned what came to be a principle of Chinese thought, the rectification of names. It was vital to clear thinking, Hsun Tzu said, that things be called by the right name.

COMMENTARY

Oct 6, 2003

Japan's priority: offsetting pull toward jobless recovery

By Takamitsu Sawa

U.S. President George W. Bush's military unilateralism has destabilized the world order to such an extent that, facing a dearth of low-risk, high-return investments, Western investors have descended on the Japanese stock market.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 6, 2003

British National Party must be stopped

By Glyn Ford

BRUSSELS -- There has been a step-change in the activity and success of the British National Party. It is now a serious element in electoral politics. Driven by new ways to attract voters, party members no longer cry "repatriation." Instead, their slogan "pensioners before asylum seekers" is aimed at...

COMMENTARY

Oct 6, 2003

China girds for wider influence in Asia

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- China's efforts to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis have been trumpeted in headlines around the world, but it has been just as active in other parts of the region, a reflection of its increasing regional influence.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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