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August 22, 2025

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COMMENTARY / World

Mar 29, 2011

The false panacea of workforce flexibility

By Heleen Mees

AMSTERDAM — Competitiveness has become one of the economic buzzwords of our time. U.S. President Barack Obama trumpeted it during his State of the Union address in January, while European leaders and Japanese fiscal policy minister Kaoru Yosano have embraced it as a priority.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 29, 2011

Unrequited hope for Kan

By Kevin Rafferty

OSAKA/LONDON — More than two weeks after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a horrendous tsunami and crippling damage to a major nuclear plant in northeast Honshu, it is as if Japan is still sleeping through a raging nightmare. Initially, economists tried to play down the damage, saying that this...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 28, 2011

India's vexing flyover of Libya

By Harsh V. Pant

LONDON — Along with Germany, Brazil, China and Russia, India abstained the week before last from voting on the U.N. Security Council resolution that approved a no-fly zone over Libya and authorized "all necessary measures" for protecting civilians from Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Mar 28, 2011

Weeklies getting the gavel for targeting public figures

Fear is mounting within Japanese journalism circles, especially among publishers of popular weekly magazines, that their reporting may be severely constrained by the recent tendency of courts to award large compensation claims to plaintiffs in libel suits.

COMMENTARY

Mar 28, 2011

Firms prefer pushing tobacco to the poorest

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK — Facing greater restriction in the United States and other industrialized countries, multinational tobacco companies are increasingly marketing their products in developing countries, particularly among women and adolescents.

COMMENTARY

Mar 27, 2011

Hamas must sell a new vision

By Ramzy Baroud

SEATTLE — "Now it is time to naturalize the flow of history," wrote Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's minister of foreign affairs in the March 16 edition of The Guardian.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 27, 2011

Japan's crises spark wide alarm and some unlikely sympathizers

By Roger Pulvers

The outpouring of goodwill toward Japanese people since the triple calamities of March 11's earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear crises has overwhelmed the nation. There is generally so much indifference to — and criticism of — Japan in the West and parts of Asia, that the Japanese have...

COMMENTARY

Mar 27, 2011

Warning to the wise on nuclear plant risks

By Michael Richardson

SINGAPORE — Whether Japan's nuclear reactor and spent fuel crisis is contained or becomes worse, it has raised concerns about the risks of generating electricity from atomic power, especially in places that are prone to earthquakes and tsunami.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 27, 2011

Don't destroy that invader, it was here first!

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK — Among the most recent invaders of the United States to be exterminated that I learned about is the red lionfish. Before that, the Asian carp got all the attention. About the time the carp scare was quieting down the yellow jacket — yes, the wasp — came forward as a heinous invader to...

COMMENTARY

Mar 25, 2011

'Protect' the Syrians next?

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON — March 18 saw the first nationwide protests against the Ba'ath regime in Syria. If these protests develop into a full-scale revolt, the regime's response may dwarf that of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.

COMMENTARY

Mar 25, 2011

India's Supreme Court allows euthanasia

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

CHENNAI, India — India's Supreme Court ruled March 14 that an Indian citizen has the right to die with dignity. There are understandable riders to this landmark judgment that said thousands of people leading a vegetative life could have their artificial support systems withdrawn and thus end their...

COMMENTARY

Mar 24, 2011

Japan's moment of crisis

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON — Harrowing pictures of the sufferings of the Japanese people and the devastation of towns and villages along the northeast coast of Honshu as a result of the record-breaking earthquake and the unprecedented tsunami March 11 have dominated the British media for nearly two weeks.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.

The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers

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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