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August 07, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Mar 6, 2006

Heavyweight media visionary of the times

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- This will be a simple column about a relatively simple man who himself believed in keeping things simple. His name was Otis Chandler, surfer, champion weight-lifter, newspaper-builder. Last week, he died, at 78 years of age. He will go down in U.S. media history as a great man.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 5, 2006

Doomed voice of truth screams out still against evil

By Roger Pulvers

Among the writers who most astutely characterized the morality of the 20th century, none may have been more accurate than the Norwegian novelist, essayist and playwright Jens Bjorneboe. His was a powerful voice of truth, and we need now, more than ever, to listen to it.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 4, 2006

Reshaping the welfare state

By Hans-Werner Sinn

LONDON -- A market economy is efficient, but it is not just. Because wages are determined by the law of scarcity, some people cannot earn enough money to live a decent life.

COMMENTARY

Mar 3, 2006

The black hole for U.S. aid

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI -- Despite making the spread of freedom the rallying cry of his second term, U.S. President George W. Bush has found it difficult to visit the world's largest democracy, India, without also stopping to meet the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 2, 2006

Diplomatic reposturing in the Mideast

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- Certain Middle East nations are repositioning themselves diplomatically, a move that holds great significance in the international arena.

COMMENTARY

Mar 2, 2006

Solving the energy puzzle

By David Howell

LONDON -- Energy security and politics do not mix well. Energy security requires huge long-term investment, freedom from political interference and social tranquillity. Politicians live in the short term, love to interfere and tend to deliver nasty surprises that economic forecasters usually fail to...

COMMENTARY

Mar 2, 2006

Blow to Philippine democracy

By Ronald Meinardus

MANILA -- In democracies, governments have a constitutional right, even an obligation, to protect the democratic order against the enemies of the state. In line with this basic principle, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo recently justified the imposition of emergency rule as a preemptive action against...

COMMENTARY

Feb 28, 2006

Thoughts better left buried

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- Japan offers the world a culture of surpassing elegance, intellect, literature and political achievement, but it still remains something of an enigma. The great novelist Haruki Murakami understands, perhaps as well as anyone, this aspect of his country. His recent "Kafka on the Shore,"...

COMMENTARY

Feb 27, 2006

Nuclear carrier unwelcome

By Kiroku Hanai

The U.S. Navy recently announced a decision to deploy a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, dismaying residents of the area. Following the decision -- made in conjunction with the reorganization of U.S. forces in Japan -- the mayor of Yokosuka, the prefectural...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Feb 27, 2006

Criticism of Japan skips the finer points

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- By way of criticizing Taro Aso as "Japan's Offensive Foreign Minister," a Feb. 13 New York Times editorial came up with a sweeping condemnation of the Japanese and their society by asserting that "public discourse in Japan and modern history lessons in its schools have never properly come...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 26, 2006

Has America's conscience fallen victim to 9/11?

By Roger Pulvers

On the 15th of this month, the Australian television station SBS broadcast one of the most awful and horrendous programs I have ever seen. The images aired -- many for the first time anywhere -- were still photographs and raw videos of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These were abuses committed...

COMMENTARY

Feb 24, 2006

Insults reserved for Islam

By Gregory Clark

Recently, when a Danish newspaper published cartoons offensive to Muslims, Muslim protests met claims that our Western democracies had to uphold the sacred principle of free speech. Under no circumstances could we Westerners be expected to give up that important right simply because others objected to...

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

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

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