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August 23, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2010
Pakistan: a question of water
By Gwynne Dyer
This may not be the most tactful time to bring it up, with much of Pakistan underwater and many millions homeless, but Pakistan's real problem is not too much water. It is too little water — and one day it could cause a war.
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2010
Save overseas assistance
By Hugh Cortazzi
LONDON — The British government, faced with the need to make drastic cuts in government expenditure, has nevertheless decided to ring-fence the overseas aid budget and has pledged to continue to work toward the U.N. target of providing aid equivalent to 0.7 percent of GDP.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2010
March of folly into Afghanistan's cul-de-sac
By Jaswant Singh
NEW DELHI — When reports of WikiLeaks' disclosure of raw U.S. intelligence data from Afghanistan hit computers worldwide, commentators in Pakistan reacted with vitriolic broadsides. One spoke of "Neocon vampires" . . . "bloodthirsty Islamophobes" . . . "think tank irredentists" . . . (Indian) revanchists...
COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2010
Shameful road to the Commonwealth Games
By Gautaman Bhaskaran
CHENNAI, India — India's Commonwealth Games, which are set to roll in New Delhi from Oct. 3, have turned into the nation's biggest shame. At a cost of $7.5 billion — excluding improvements and additions to city infrastructure — these will be the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2010
Globalization's benefits are moot unless everybody gets to play
By Ryo Takahashi
One aspect of the globalized world today is that the world has plunged into fast-paced, turbulent times where everyone is connected — so much so that British sociologist Anthony Giddens has been compelled to write of today's age as one where "the local and the global are inextricably intertwined."...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 23, 2010
LDP riding out momentum with unhappy campers
The mood within the No. 1 opposition Liberal Democratic Party is far from jovial even though the July 11 Upper House election saw it regain some of the ground it lost to the Democratic Party of Japan in last year's general election.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2010
Weak START for the mindset of deterrence
By Bennett Ramberg
LOS ANGELES — A strange sense of deja vu is gripping Washington these days, as the debate over ratification by the U.S. Senate of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia heats up. Spats have broken out among the Obama administration, future presidential contenders, senators,...
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2010
Flying the humanitarian flag among Muslims
By Tom Plate
NEW YORK — What's the one major issue the West absolutely and totally must get right in the years ahead? If the obvious answer is not peaceful international relations with an increasingly assertive China, then it has to be the West's ever-more complicated relationship with the world's Muslims.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 22, 2010
How to stand, individually, against your nation on the warpath?
By Roger Pulvers
A dilemma confronts each and every citizen of a country at war: what to do if you believe that your country is in the wrong?
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2010
China's cautionary tale
By Gwynne Dyer
Will the 21st century belong to China? For a while, perhaps — but only in the sense that it was said to belong to Japan in the 1980s. Looking back now, that seems ridiculous, but at the time best-selling books were predicting that Americans, not to mention the rest of the planet, would be reduced to...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2010
Hostility against Jews increasing in Sweden
By Ronald S. Lauder
VIENNA — Last month, firecrackers were thrown at the only synagogue in the Swedish city of Malmo, breaking three windows. The day before, a bomb threat had been left at the building, warning of what was about to happen. Two weeks earlier, another attack was launched against the same synagogue.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2010
Consequences of U.S. debt
By Mario Margiocco
MILAN — Italians and other Europeans have serious problems addressing their own national debts, public and private, so it may seem immodest for a European to discuss America's growing and grave debt problem.
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Women-only communities flourish in China
Chen Yani (right), nicknamed "Keke," eats lunch with friends and guests in a female co-living space she founded called "Keke's Imaginative Space" in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on July 14.
Demystifying the manufacturing success of China
China’s massive scale, strong education system and competitive local governance have enabled it to reach the technological frontier and dominate high-tech manufacturing despite its low per capita gross domestic product.
Infectious diseases to watch for in Japan this summer amid surge of cases
An illustration of a colony of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough. As of Aug. 10, there were 64,467 cases reported this year, according to the latest data from the Japan Institute for Health Security.
Alicia Keys closed Summer Sonic, but J-pop owned it
Summer Sonic’s 2025 lineup demonstrated its strength, showcasing the latest in J-pop, including “new kawaii” act Fruits Zipper.
Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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