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COMMENTARY

Apr 29, 2003

Will Chirac's luck run out?

By Andre Fontaine

PARIS -- When he had to appoint a general, Napoleon Bonaparte would ask if the candidate possessed the main quality for the job: luck. No politician in French contemporary history meets that condition more than President Jacques Chirac.

EDITORIALS

Apr 29, 2003

A crucial contingency package

How should Japan deal with a military attack from abroad? This question has acquired greater urgency amid heightened regional security concerns. However, military contingency legislation now before the Diet should be debated from a long-term perspective. At stake is the fundamental question of how to...

EDITORIALS

Apr 28, 2003

Pyongyang's self-destructive strategy

North Korea has played another nuclear card, giving a more dangerous twist to its game of brinkmanship. Pyongyang claims that it already has nuclear weapons and has reprocessed thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods in its possession -- a step that could lead to the production of more atomic bombs. Given...

COMMENTARY

Apr 28, 2003

Asian politicians slowly embrace the Net

By Ronald Meinardus

MANILA -- Irrespective of ideological leanings, all politicians are keen on receiving media coverage. As one U.S. political campaign publication noted, "If you don't exist in the media, you don't exist."

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 28, 2003

A silver lining to the SARS epidemic

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is sending shivers down the spines of Asian governments and citizens alike. China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam have been the most affected by this scourge, while other Asian countries are desperately trying to prevent the disease...

COMMENTARY

Apr 28, 2003

Mixed marks for the Iraq war

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The removal of the evil despotism of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is an important benefit for the peoples of Iraq and the world in general. The ending of his regime will be welcomed by some neighboring countries that felt threatened by Iraq. It should in the long run be beneficial to the Arabs as...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Apr 28, 2003

America is the greatest abuser of WMD

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- One duplicitous aspect of the United States' war on Iraq has been the use of the term "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD). No, I am not talking about the kinds of weapons that are assumed in the question raised by the conservative Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak on April 7 -- "Where...

COMMENTARY

Apr 28, 2003

Fair, transparent foreign aid

By Kiroku Hanai

Last September the Japanese government was stunned by a lawsuit filed with the Tokyo District Court by 3,861 residents of Indonesia's Sumatra Island. The plaintiffs said their life had been disrupted by a dam for hydroelectric power and flood control built with Japan's official development assistance....

EDITORIALS

Apr 27, 2003

Iraqis and their antiquities

The looting, ransacking and burning of Baghdad's great repositories of historical antiquities came as a shock to many -- including, apparently, U.S. troops in the field -- even though scholars all over the world had warned that a war could cause catastrophic cultural damage in Iraq. But now the damage...

COMMENTARY

Apr 27, 2003

Bush faces long-term burden of triumph

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI -- Aggression pays, and naked aggression pays handsomely. That may sound like the moral of America's occupation of Iraq after a faster-than-anticipated military triumph that threatens to herald a more muscular U.S. foreign policy. That moral may be reinforced by the way the Bush administration...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 27, 2003

War vindicates U.N. stance

By Ramesh Thakur

Are not the scenes of joy and jubilation from Iraq an embarrassing indictment of the United Nations' failure to support the war? Well, no, not really. On the contrary, the course and outcome of the war is a strong vindication of the U.N. stance. To argue that military victory bestows legitimacy is to...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 27, 2003

A shorter leash on China's Communists

By Jonathan Fenby

LONDON -- Governments and political parties habitually find it hard to admit to having made mistakes. Ministers and party officials who resign after getting things wrong cover their tracks with talk of seeking new horizons or spending more time with their families. The more authoritarian a regime, the...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.

What comes after 100?

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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