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August 24, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Mar 13, 2005

From Pretoria to Tshwane

Last week the city council of South Africa's capital, Pretoria, decided it was time the place had a name change. If the South African Geographic Names Council approves, as expected, the city as a whole will henceforth be known as Tshwane, which according to its Web site means "We are the same" or "We...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 13, 2005

The deep end of Indian state democracy

By Ramesh Thakur

PATNA, India -- In the early 1990s, a British travel writer described Patna, capital of the northwestern Indian state of Bihar, as the capital of hell on earth. There is indeed something rotten in the state of Bihar and things have only gotten worse. People live in a Hobbesian world, where life is nasty,...

COMMENTARY

Mar 13, 2005

Bad time to take a chance on arms sales

By Farhan Bokhari

WASHINGTON -- When China's National People's Congress convened in Beijing early this month, Premier Wen Jiabao highlighted his nation's military modernization campaign and breathed threats against Taiwan. It would be hard to find a worse time for Europe to offer China military aid.

EDITORIALS

Mar 12, 2005

Cedar Revolution? Knock on wood

The murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has unleashed mass protests in Lebanon. The demonstrations calling for the departure of Syrian forces from Lebanon have been tagged the "Cedar Revolution" in the West as if they, too, reflect the spirit of the democratic movements that swept Eastern Europe...

COMMENTARY

Mar 12, 2005

Opium again driving Afghan economy

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- This month's warning by the United Nations' main drug-monitoring watchdog that Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a narcotics-driven state should hardly come as a surprise.

EDITORIALS

Mar 11, 2005

Recalling the alternative to peace

It has been 60 years since U.S. bombers destroyed much of Tokyo in the spring of 1945. Survivors of the "Great Tokyo Air Raids" -- most of them now in their 70s and 80s -- are few and far between. Words like "B-nijuku" (B-29), "bokugo" (air-raid shelter) and "shoidan" (incendiary bomb) are no longer...

EDITORIALS

Mar 10, 2005

Last chance for Daiei's survival

Daiei Inc., Japan's ailing supermarket operator, is ready to make its third -- and final -- attempt at rehabilitation. On Monday, the state-run Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan (IRCJ) formally selected trading house Marubeni Corp. and investment fund Advantage Partners as Daiei's business sponsors....

COMMENTARY

Mar 10, 2005

Avoiding sham democracy

By David Howell

LONDON -- There is all the difference in the world between democracy and constitutional democracy.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 9, 2005

How diplomacy can defuse the North Korean crisis

By Eugene B. Kogan

WASHINGTON -- "The sure way to miss success is to miss the opportunity," a wise man once observed. Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura asked U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to visit Japan "at the earliest possible opportunity" during a bilateral security meeting in Washington on Feb. 19. When...

COMMENTARY

Mar 9, 2005

Beijing putting ball in Chen's court

By Ralph Cossa

HONOLULU -- The unprecedented direct flights between Taiwan and China during the Chinese New Year holiday period and Beijing's dispatch of two senior Chinese representatives to Taiwan for the memorial service of Koo Chen-fu -- who conducted breakthrough cross-strait dialogue a decade ago under the now...

EDITORIALS

Mar 9, 2005

Weak link in nuclear safety

The government's nuclear energy report for 2004 is a dismal reminder that public confidence in nuclear safety remains low. The report, prepared by the Atomic Energy Commission, follows the accident last August in which five workers died because of exposure to bursts of superheated steam from a ruptured...

EDITORIALS

Mar 8, 2005

Military threat is counterproductive

The agenda for the current National People's Congress of China reportedly includes an antisecession bill for preventing the independence of Taiwan. The Chinese leadership wants to have the bill enacted by the end of the session on March 14. The contents of the draft legislation have not been made public,...

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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