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August 31, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Oct 19, 2007

Timely apology calms an Asian storm

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — Donald Tsang, the executive leader of Hong Kong, recently apologized to his good citizens for something he said he didn't really mean. But the people of Hong Kong said they thought they heard it right the first time: that he believed the territory's rapid democratization, which many people...

COMMENTARY

Oct 19, 2007

Brown-out week in Britain

By Hugh Cortazzi and Diego Areas Munhoz

LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently had a long, bad week, but he has only himself to blame.

EDITORIALS

Oct 19, 2007

Confidentiality of a murderous motive

Public prosecutors have arrested a Kyoto psychiatrist on suspicion of leaking secret investigative materials to a journalist on a 17-year-old boy who was tried in family court in connection with a fire that killed his stepmother and two siblings. The freelance journalist later published a book using...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 18, 2007

Feeling low exacts an extremely high cost

By Peter Singer

PRAGUE — Depression is, according to a World Health Organization study, the world's fourth worst health problem, measured by how many years of good health it causes to be lost. By 2020, it is likely to rank second, behind heart disease. Yet, not nearly enough is being done to treat or prevent it.

COMMENTARY

Oct 18, 2007

Signs of progress on Pyongyang problem

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG — What a difference a year makes. Last October, North Korea shocked the world by conducting a nuclear test. This month it agreed to disable all its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and to provide a full declaration of its nuclear programs by Dec. 31.

EDITORIALS

Oct 18, 2007

From awareness to action

It was almost anticlimactic when Mr. Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last week won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Climate change has steadily climbed the global public policy agenda, and is now the first action item at most international gatherings. Some would call this...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 17, 2007

A kinder way to tackle climate change

By Rajendra Pauchari

NEW DELHI — On Sept. 24, a major event took place in the United Nations with about 80 heads of state and heads of government meeting at the invitation of Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to discuss the subject of climate change.

EDITORIALS

Oct 17, 2007

Prepare for any possibility

For the second consecutive time the government has extended its economic sanctions on North Korea another six months from Oct. 14, citing no progress on the issue of the abduction of Japanese nationals by Pyongyang. Although the extension was unavoidable, the government needs to prepare for its next...

EDITORIALS

Oct 17, 2007

Subprime crisis not over

Stock markets appear to be enjoying a resurgence and there is a view that the worldwide financial crisis caused by the subprime mortgage fiasco in the United States has peaked. But it is too early to think that the crisis is over. The total picture of the damage to financial institutions caused by the...

COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE

Oct 16, 2007

How long can Fukuda last?

In forming his Cabinet, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda surrounded himself with "heavyweights" of his Liberal Democratic Party — powerful figures who head their respective intraparty factions. Although Fukuda is older than most of them, there is no denying that his lower level of experience makes him look...

EDITORIALS

Oct 16, 2007

The long shadow over Turkey

Domestic politics once again threatens to roil U.S. relations with a key ally. This time the offended nation is Turkey, which is angered and insulted by a U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee vote to label as genocide the deaths of Armenians killed in Turkey nearly a century ago. More...

EDITORIALS

Oct 14, 2007

Framed by the police

In a retrial of a man who had been found guilty of rape, the Takaoka branch of the Toyama District Court acquitted him Wednesday. Noting that his pretrial oral statements on which investigators had based their case against him were not trustworthy, the court ruled that the man is not the perpetrator....

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

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

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