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COMMENTARY / World

Mar 29, 2003

U.S.-ROK alliance in crisis

By Robyn Lim

America's alliance with South Korea is in crisis. Strangely, few in Japan seem to have noticed, let alone grasp, what it portends for their country. Japan is now on the spot in a way that was not the case during the Cold War.

COMMENTARY

Mar 28, 2003

China's systemic incompetence can sicken world

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- An ugly new strain of atypical pneumonia has medical scientists working overtime in their research laboratories across the world, as they strive to discover why a growing number of patients are now suffering and dying in many nations from this previously unknown virus that is being blamed...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 28, 2003

With Hu comes a hint of interesting times

By David Wall

HAINAN, China -- The 3,000-plus delegates to the annual two-week meeting of China's National People's Congress, or NPC, have packed their bags and gone home. It was an unusually important meeting this year. In addition to the usual rubber-stamping of the Chinese Communist Party's policy proposals for...

COMMENTARY

Mar 27, 2003

Warfare that stymies protest

By Sarah Benton

LONDON -- This, we were promised, would be the most politically correct war in history. Harlan Ullman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says the strategy of conquering Iraq by "shock and awe" bombing, was devised simply because this is the most unpopular...

COMMENTARY

Mar 26, 2003

Unrolling the map of a rejiggered EU

By David Howell

LONDON -- One early and significant casualty of the war with Iraq is the unity of Europe. The European continent is split clean down the middle. On one side sit France, Germany and Belgium. On the other side sit almost all the other nations of Europe, east and west.

COMMENTARY

Mar 25, 2003

Weak tobacco pact reflects Japan's lukewarm attitude

By Kiroku Hanai

The member-nations of the World Health Organization have recently approved a draft Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), putting an end to four years of negotiations. The draft is expected to be adopted at the general meeting of the WHO in May, and will take effect after 40 countries have ratified...

COMMENTARY

Mar 24, 2003

Smashing the payoff triangle

By Keizo Nabeshima

The history of the Liberal Democratic Party includes a long list of money scandals. The recent arrest of Lower House lawmaker Takanori Sakai, charged with violating the Political Funds Control Law, is the latest reminder.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 24, 2003

Don't write off U.N. just yet

By W. Andy Knight

EDMONTON, Alberta-- The hawks in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush finally got what they wanted -- in New York, as well as in the Middle East. The U.N. Security Council is deeply divided, the U.N. system itself seems paralyzed and a preemptive war is about to win "regime change" in...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 23, 2003

U.S. must rethink North Korea strategy

By Jing-dong Yuan

MONTEREY, Calif. -- On the eve of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's swearing-in ceremony, North Korea lobbed a land-to-ship cruise missile into the Sea of Japan. This provocation took place as the world's dignitaries -- among them U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 23, 2003

More relevant now than ever

By Ramesh Thakur and Andrew Mack

"A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens, set in revolutionary France, begins with the observation that it was the best of times and the worst of times. So might it be said, thanks in no small measure to France, of the tale of two cities of contemporary times, namely Washington and New York, the political...

COMMENTARY

Mar 22, 2003

Difficult task of buying a few good allies

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- The United States may dominate the globe, but it is almost alone in the war against Iraq. Even the offer of some $30 billion in aid could not procure basing rights from Turkey, a longtime ally.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 22, 2003

Saddening absence of options for Japan

By Masamichi Hanabusa

I don't wish to speculate on why the United States has embarked on a war against Iraq at this time. What is clear is that U.S. President George W. Bush and the influential aides in his administration believed -- without appearing to entertain the slightest doubt -- that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.

How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan

By Megha Wadhwa

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