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COMMENTARY

Feb 17, 2003

Fears of 'anti-Americanism' overblown

By Ronald Meinardus

MANILA -- In 1996 Samuel Huntington published his epochal work "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order." In it, he argues that, since the demise of the Cold War, cultural divides have become the focal points of international conflicts. Judging from recent editorials in American and...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 16, 2003

Profits perpetuate horrors of child labor

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

MADRAS, India -- There is Dickensian distress in India, where child labor persists despite a law and a court order. Fifteen million children below 14 continue to work in the most horrific of conditions in blatant violation of the Indian Supreme Court ruling, which had called for the enforcement of the...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 16, 2003

Democracy in Myanmar going nowhere

By Nyunt Shwe

Myanmar has no formal greeting words. A surprise? But we have variations that are more practical to our lives, depending on the time and circumstances. If you meet someone along the way, the most common words are: Where do you come from? Where are you going? Or, how are your father's, mother's or your...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 16, 2003

Bush agenda will boost world economy

By Michael R. Czinkota

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President George W. Bush's new economic agenda is entitled "Taking Action to Strengthen America's Economy," but it is more than that. While some critics claim to have discerned a very narrow focus, the dividend component in particular will have far-reaching implications for the global...

COMMENTARY

Feb 15, 2003

Why hasn't Saddam killed all Americans?

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Americans all should be dead. At least, Americans all should be dead if the Bush administration is correct about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It believes there is nothing today that prevents a weak and isolated Iraq from striking the United States, the globe's dominant power.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 15, 2003

Few hawks in Southeast Asia

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- As the world awaits the outcome of another report by United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, and perhaps a second resolution (following U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441), war drums are beating ever louder in the United States, Britain and some allied nations.

COMMENTARY

Feb 14, 2003

Blair makes a case for war

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair recognizes he has a tough task ahead to persuade Britons to support war on Iraq. In a Feb. 6 television program, he demonstrated that the case against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a strong one and emphasized the dangers of allowing the Iraqi dictator to...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 13, 2003

Time for a Japan-Chile free trade accord

By Noboro Hatakeyama

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos is currently visiting Japan at the official invitation of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. I suppose that one of the aims of his visit is to ask Japan to begin a joint study with Chile on the possibility of a free trade agreement, or FTA, between Japan and Chile. I say,...

COMMENTARY

Feb 13, 2003

No shortage of reasons why South Koreans dislike the U.S.

By Brad Glosserman

WASHINGTON -- Opinion polls from around the world show increasing numbers of people believe that the United States is arrogant, unilateralist and indifferent to key concerns of other nations -- even friends and allies. There is a rising belief that the U.S. has become a source of international tension...

COMMENTARY

Feb 13, 2003

The 'vision thing' still matters

By David Howell

LONDON -- In the ideal Middle East "dream scenario," U.N. weapons inspectors, gently prompted by American and British intelligence information, stumble on stores of chemical and biological weapons hidden in Iraq.

COMMENTARY

Feb 12, 2003

Koizumi shirking top duty

By Keizo Nabeshima

Over the past year, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appears to have all but lost his enthusiasm for military contingency legislation. Protecting the lives and property of the Japanese people from armed attack is the most important duty of the prime minister as the supreme commander of the Self-Defense...

COMMENTARY

Feb 11, 2003

Sacrifices for material gain

By Takamitsu Sawa

In the 1980s, Japanese economists used to boast of their country's economic prowess and deride U.S. economic decline. To be sure, the U.S. manufacturing industry in those years fell into a miserable condition, and the nation suffered from ever-expanding trade and budget deficits. Yet things began changing...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.

A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan

By Hanako Lowry

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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

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

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