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August 06, 2025

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COMMENTARY / World

Aug 21, 2007

Islam's message of tolerance

By Mohammad Habash

DAMASCUS — I am often invited by religious authorities in the Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia to attend meetings that are held to urge people to follow Islamic faith and law, while avoiding any debate connected to politics or political rights. Political rights, my hosts insist, are maintained...

COMMENTARY

Aug 20, 2007

Know that the devil is in the derivative

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — Although Warren Buffet does have — I reluctantly admit — more money than I do (like maybe $50 or so billion more?), we do share a pair of common traits. The first is that this internationally famous investment banker (known as the "Sage of Omaha") tends to favor cautious, carefully...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Aug 20, 2007

Why can't Americans give up their guns?

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK — Is there anything comparable to the numbing obstinacy, the utter blindness to reality, that politicians display toward the consequences of untrammeled gun ownership in this country? So I wondered, once again, when I stumbled upon President George W. Bush's answer to what some now call "the...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 19, 2007

Why not let doping close the gene gap?

By Peter Singer

PRINCETON, New Jersey — There is now a regular season for discussing drugs in sports, one that arrives every year with the Tour de France. This year, the overall leader, two other riders and two teams were expelled or withdrew from the race as a result of failing, or missing, drug tests. The eventual...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 19, 2007

Something's up as 'buy' confidence slips

By Robert J. Shiller

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — The sharp drop in the world's stock markets on Aug. 9 — after BNP Paribas announced that it would freeze three of its funds — is just one more example of the markets' recent downward instability or asymmetry. The markets have been more vulnerable to sudden large drops than...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Aug 19, 2007

Can justice possibly 'flower' in Japan's new courts?

By Roger Pulvers

A new poster at subway stations in Tokyo shows a smiling young woman confidently clutching her handbag along with the slogan: "About the time I turn 20, the courts will change. I guess both the law and the courts will become more familiar then."

COMMENTARY

Aug 18, 2007

China's tough leap forward

By Glyn Ford

BRUSSELS — Ever since Deng Xiaoping's aphorism "Black cat, white cat, who cares as long as it can catch mice" was burned into Chinese souls by the successive horrors of the Great Leap Forward, its resulting famine and the Cultural Revolution's shambolic savagery, China has seen 10 percent-plus growth...

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 17, 2007

Roh's trip to Pyongyang puts three scenarios in play

By Michael J. Green

WASHINGTON — There is much speculation about what President Roh Moo Hyun will do when he meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang during Aug. 28-30.

COMMENTARY

Aug 16, 2007

Japan, India: natural allies

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, weakened by a mortifying defeat in Upper House elections, will address the Indian Parliament later this month. This is an honor that U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao did not get during their state visits to India last year. India and...

COMMENTARY

Aug 16, 2007

Scrambling among the Arctic players

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON — Among the headlines I never expected to see, the top three were "Pope marries," "President Bush admits error" and "Canada uses military might," but there it was, staring up at me from a British newspaper: "Canada uses military might in Arctic scramble."

COMMENTARY

Aug 16, 2007

Taiwan sets itself up for yet another fall

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — Of all the countries of Asia, Taiwan deserves to be near the top of the list in terms of having earned the world's respect. Therein we find the tale.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 15, 2007

U.S.-India agreement threatens to fuel nuclear proliferation as well as arms race

By Sandeep Pandey

PRINCETON, New Jersey — The United States is having a difficult time trying to justify the U.S.-India nuclear deal that will be brought into effect by the "123 agreement" that has just been concluded between the two countries.

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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