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COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2001

Lack of leaders is destroying the LDP

By Ryuichiro Hosokawa

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori announced that the date for electing the next president of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party would be moved up. This was tantamount to him expressing his intention to resign.

COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2001

The power of the camera

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI -- For three years as Indian prime minister, the aging Atal Bihari Vajpayee was treated deferentially by the national media and intelligentsia. They portrayed him as a great leader, to whom there was no credible alternative. Even when his physical condition began to slip visibly, no questions...

COMMENTARY

Mar 30, 2001

Jockeying to replace Mori

By Minoru Tada

Executives of the governing Liberal Democratic Party have reportedly decided to hold the party's presidential election around April 20, although Prime Minister and LDP President Yoshiro Mori claims he has never expressed his intention to resign. Mori and the LDP are totally irresponsible.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 30, 2001

Young Asian forum already has impressive pedigree

By Phar Kim Beng

The recently concluded Boao Asian Forum on Hainan Island had all the appearance of a simple nongovernmental conference.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 29, 2001

Reform out of reach for Kim Dae Jung

By Ronald Meinardus

SEOUL -- Some weeks ago, I attended an academic conference that attempted a critical evaluation of the performance of administration of South Korea President Kim Dae Jung three years after its inception. I sat on a panel with probably the most prominent liberal political scientist in South Korea today,...

COMMENTARY

Mar 29, 2001

Time to act is running out

By Tom Plate

The captain of a sinking cruise ship was trying to persuade his male passengers to let women and children board the lifeboats first. But he quickly learned he'd have to customize his pitch according to the nationalities on board. The Englishmen were easy; the captain simply appealed to their sense of...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 28, 2001

Australians try to sort good economic news from bad

By Alan Goodall

SYDNEY -- With the government of Prime Minister John Howard still reeling from a by-election humiliation, along comes a morale booster -- a corporate deal that makes Australia the dominant player in global-resources trade. Comeback Kid Howard has done it again, although his chances of staying prime minister...

COMMENTARY

Mar 28, 2001

Understanding 'leadership' in Japan

By Glen S. Fukushima

An American scholar who recently proposed writing a book about leadership in Japan was told by his colleagues, "A book? You'll be lucky to find enough material to write a chapter, or more likely a newspaper article, on the subject!"

COMMENTARY

Mar 27, 2001

The limits of public opinion

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- Speaking to the House of Commons on Nov. 11, 1947, Winston Churchill said, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Mar 26, 2001

Russians living 'la vida loca'

By Constantine Pleshakov

This semester I am teaching a Dostoevsky course. Implausible plots, stumbling dialogues, everybody in love with everybody, romantic triangles overlap like mating frogs, passions mount, money changes hands and is thrown into the fire -- the normal Dostoevsky stuff.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 26, 2001

Never say you've apologized too much

By Hiroaki Sato

When Ursula Smith, my publisher friend up in Vermont, wrote to say, "I can't close without offering some (futile) form of apology, as one national to another, for that unfortunate accident off Hawaii," I said there was no need to apologize to me. It was an accident, and I wasn't too clear about the meaning...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 26, 2001

Bush's crash course in global diplomacy

By Brad Glosserman

U.S. President George W. Bush has just concluded a crash course in Northeast Asian politics. In the past three weeks, he has hosted South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen. Now Bush has to make sense of those visits, digest the various messages...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.

If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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