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August 26, 2025

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COMMENTARY / World

Jul 23, 2012

Dreams of isolation imperil island populations

By Guy Sorman

The Japanese and the British may seem very different, but a closer look reveals something akin to a parallel destiny for these two island peoples.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 23, 2012

Court judgment in Canada may set guidelines for physician-assisted death in terminal cases

By Peter Singer

Gloria Taylor, a Canadian, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Over a period of a few years, her muscles will weaken until she can no longer walk, use her hands, chew, swallow, speak and, ultimately, breathe. Then she will die.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jul 22, 2012

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto: 'What Japan needs now is dictatorship'

By Roger Pulvers

Confrontational, outspoken, feisty and highly focused, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto is a self-made man determined to redraw the loci of power in Japan. He is clearly using the local platform from which to spring into the national arena. The question on everyone's mind is: Will Hashimoto ever be the prime...

COMMENTARY

Jul 21, 2012

A telling tale of two Koreas

By Gwynne Dyer

What has been happening in North Korea recently is straight out of the "Hereditary Dictatorship for Dummies" handbook. Kim Jong Un, the pudgy young heir to the leadership of one of the world's last communist states, is removing powerful people who were loyal to his father and replacing them with men...

COMMENTARY

Jul 20, 2012

Overhauling the anachronistic U.N. groupings

By Ramesh Thakur

Come October, Australia will be competing with Finland and Luxembourg for two of this year's five elected two-year seats on the U.N. Security Council. Why against Finland and Luxembourg and not others also contesting for the total of five seats up for grabs? Well might you ask.

COMMENTARY

Jul 20, 2012

Italy's curse of the undead: Berlusconi to 'bunga' again?

By Gwynne Dyer

Abraham Lincoln was right: You can fool all the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Unfortunately, his dictum is irrelevant to modern Italian politics.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 19, 2012

Marx: the return of the giant

By Marcello Musto

If an author's eternal youth consists of his capacity to keep stimulating new ideas, then it may be said that Karl Marx has without question remained young.

COMMENTARY

Jul 19, 2012

Time to dial down Senkakus friction

By Michael Richardson

Japan's ambassador to China warned last month that plans by the Tokyo municipal government to buy islands in the East China Sea claimed by Beijing but administered by Japan could trigger an "extremely grave crisis" between East Asia's two top powers.

COMMENTARY

Jul 19, 2012

Character assassination on the campaign trail

By Robert J. Samuelson

It's getting down and dirty in election land. Last week, President Barack Obama's campaign suggested Mitt Romney might be guilty of a felony for filing misleading papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (a charge The Washington Post discounted); and Romney's team aired a new ad portraying...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 18, 2012

Obama playing the China card?

By Malcolm Fraser

According to the United States Federal Reserve, Americans' net worth has fallen 40 percent since 2007, returning to its 1992 level. Progress toward recovery will be slow and difficult, and the U.S. economy will be weak throughout the runup to November's presidential and congressional elections. Can any...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 18, 2012

East Asian miracle revisited

By Xiao Geng and Andrew Sheng

Almost two decades ago, the World Bank published its landmark study "The East Asian Miracle," analyzing why East Asian economies grew faster than emerging markets in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere. These economies, the study concluded, achieved high growth rates by getting the basics right, promoting...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 18, 2012

'Picking' a winner in Afghanistan

By Michael O'Hanlon

American debates over the war in Afghanistan tend to focus on how fast we can get our troops home and whether we can work with President Hamid Karzai's government to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban. But at least as important to whether the country will hold together, and whether a return of the...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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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