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COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE

Nov 24, 2003

End in sight for campaign-finance limits

By Bob Keefe

WASHINGTON -- The experts are calling it the end of the road for the public-finance system that has propped up our presidential nominating system for 30 years. Candidate George W. Bush started the ball rolling by declining the opportunity to take federal money in his race in 2000 -- opting instead for...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Nov 24, 2003

Navigating the deep Internet

By Constantine Pleshakov

MOSCOW -- There could hardly be a tougher opponent for a struggling college professor than the Internet. You ask your students to write an essay about Moscow, and you end up with the papers based on sources like www.moscow-taxi.ripoff.com and www.moscow-hotels.dump.ru. When, fuming with rage, you inform...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 23, 2003

U.S. takes first step away from S. Korea

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's visit to South Korea this past week should be seen for what it really was, an early step in a long, gradual disengagement of U.S. land forces from South Korea and a greater reliance on sea power to maintain an American security posture in Asia....

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 22, 2003

Weaker LDP worries ASEAN

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- Japan's Nov. 9 general election was generally regarded as a political setback for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his reforms program. His Liberal Democratic Party emerged with fewer seats in the Diet than before -- but bolstered by a political merger with a smaller party, the governing...

COMMENTARY

Nov 22, 2003

Balancing act gets tougher

By David Howell

LONDON -- It is getting ever more difficult to assess what is actually happening in Iraq.

COMMENTARY

Nov 22, 2003

World must denounce anti-Semitic terror

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Istanbul sits astride the Bosphorus, a sophisticated, tolerant place that seamlessly mixes Occident and Orient. Now it has been stricken by the cancer of terrorism.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 21, 2003

Chen winning back respect for Taiwan's position

By Alexander K. Young

NEW YORK -- Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan's president, recently made a whirlwind international tour. During a three-day transit in New York three weeks ago, he received the 2003 award from the International League for Human Rights. He attended centennial independence anniversary celebrations of Panama, then...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 20, 2003

Exposing the roots of Islam

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The former dynamic leader of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, again made big waves, this time at his departing salvo. Most of the world's reactions focused on his remarks about Jews, but there were other interesting aspects in his comments regarding Islam that were perhaps overlooked....

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 20, 2003

Worlds apart: a tale of two Asian cities

By David Wall

LONDON -- I have spent most of the last two months traveling in the poor areas of western China (the mountain areas in south Ningxia, Qinghai and Gansu) and in Uzbekistan. What a contrast! You could describe the development process in western China as two steps forward and one step back, while in Uzbekistan...

COMMENTARY

Nov 19, 2003

China's social mores shift as economic growth soars

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- The profound economic changes that China has undergone in the last quarter century have resulted not only in dramatic skyscrapers in all its major cities and a marked rise in the standard of living, but also in changing social mores, with attitudes today contrasting sharply with those of...

COMMENTARY

Nov 19, 2003

Freedom of choice and the ACLU don't quite go together hand in hand

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, has written to ask me to become a "card-carrying member" of the ACLU. She explains: "There is no higher calling, nor greater reward, democracy can offer an individual than the opportunity to stand up for fundamental freedoms...

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 19, 2003

Islamic scholars: America's natural allies

By Amir Butler

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Since the tragic events of 9/11, millions of words have been written attempting to understand and explain the causes of Muslim terrorism and the extremist ideologies that underpin it. Many have suggested that terrorism is simply a reaction to social injustice, whereas others have...

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

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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