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August 07, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Oct 19, 2007

Brown-out week in Britain

By Hugh Cortazzi and Diego Areas Munhoz

LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently had a long, bad week, but he has only himself to blame.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 18, 2007

Feeling low exacts an extremely high cost

By Peter Singer

PRAGUE — Depression is, according to a World Health Organization study, the world's fourth worst health problem, measured by how many years of good health it causes to be lost. By 2020, it is likely to rank second, behind heart disease. Yet, not nearly enough is being done to treat or prevent it.

COMMENTARY

Oct 18, 2007

Signs of progress on Pyongyang problem

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG — What a difference a year makes. Last October, North Korea shocked the world by conducting a nuclear test. This month it agreed to disable all its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and to provide a full declaration of its nuclear programs by Dec. 31.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 17, 2007

A kinder way to tackle climate change

By Rajendra Pauchari

NEW DELHI — On Sept. 24, a major event took place in the United Nations with about 80 heads of state and heads of government meeting at the invitation of Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to discuss the subject of climate change.

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Oct 16, 2007

How long can Fukuda last?

In forming his Cabinet, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda surrounded himself with "heavyweights" of his Liberal Democratic Party — powerful figures who head their respective intraparty factions. Although Fukuda is older than most of them, there is no denying that his lower level of experience makes him look...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Oct 14, 2007

To embrace political renewal or cling to continuity

By Roger Pulvers

Every four years Americans want to believe they can reinvent themselves. Elections for the presidency offer them the opportunity, as they faithfully see it, to renounce the past and "get this country moving again."

COMMENTARY

Oct 13, 2007

Democracies' double standard

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI — The repression let loose by Burma's (Myanmar) military junta has fittingly drawn international outrage. But the indignation and new wave of U.S.-led sanctions also obscure an inconvenient truth: Promotion of freedom has become a diplomatic instrument to target not China — the world's...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 12, 2007

Fukuda could resolve issue over Yasukuni by visiting

By Hisahiko Okazaki

I believe it would be good for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to visit Yasukuni Shrine during the annual autumn festival. I am very well aware that the prime minister himself is extremely cautious about the visit. But, objectively speaking, the time is getting ripe to resolve the Yasukuni problem.

COMMENTARY

Oct 12, 2007

Forcing defeat from the jaws of victory

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON — This week is the sixth anniversary of the start of U.S. airstrikes against al-Qaida and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan. It was a very clever political-military operation, and by December of 2001 all of Afghanistan was under the control of the United States and its local allies for a total...

COMMENTARY

Oct 11, 2007

Six-party talks make progress

By Ralph Cossa

HONOLULU — The joint declaration from the recently concluded round of six-party talks in Beijing points to a significant step forward, provided Pyongyang follows through as promised with a significant series of denuclearization steps between now and the end of the year. As has often been the trend...

COMMENTARY

Oct 11, 2007

'Silly summit' produced serious results

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — It sure opened up as one big oddball of a summit.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 10, 2007

A role for Japan in Myanmar

By Kevin Rafferty

HONG KONG — If any good is to come from the murder of cameraman Kenji Nagai on the streets of Yangon, it must be that Japan recovers its moral voice. So far there has been a small stirring of conscience and murmurs that aid may be cut as a mark of dissatisfaction with the murderous Myanmarese military...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.

80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped

By Elizabeth Beattie

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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

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

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