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September 18, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Mar 21, 2008

Tibet and Olympic Games

By Gregory Clark

Events in Tibet have turned ugly. Once again we see the harm caused by Beijing's heavy-handed bureaucracy, and its panicky, untrained soldiers used for crowd control. But even when combined with all of Beijing's other alleged sins — Darfur, pollution, human rights and other issues — does Tibet justify...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 21, 2008

Deterrence fails in a prison with no key

By Daoud Kuttab

PRINCETON, New Jersey — Every day in the Gaza Strip, strategic deterrence — the inhibition of attack by fear of punishment from superior military power — is being put to the test. The escalating spiral of violence by Israel and Gazan militants indicates not only that deterrence is failing, but...

EDITORIALS

Mar 21, 2008

Bank of Japan without a governor

The Upper House led by the Democratic Party of Japan has rejected the nomination of Mr. Koji Tanami, governor of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, as the next chief of the Bank of Japan. Appointments at the BOJ leadership require approval of both houses of the Diet. The rejection Wednesday...

EDITORIALS

Mar 21, 2008

Top court buries a skeleton

The Supreme Court on March 14 dismissed, on the strength of a legal technicality, a request to retry five deceased journalists convicted of promoting communism during the Pacific War years. The five had been convicted in the "Yokohama Incident," regarded as the worst case of free-speech suppression during...

COMMENTARY

Mar 20, 2008

Brace for the Arctic oil rush

By David Howell

LONDON — For decades the world's major oil companies and their engineering experts have been eyeing the Arctic region and wondering how to get at the oil and gas deposits that are said to lie, in almost legendary quantities, beneath the vast expanses of ice. With the price of crude oil now well above...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 20, 2008

Last chance for millions of Zimbabweans

By Tawanda Mutasah

PRAGUE — As the world rooted for former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in his recent efforts to end the violence in Kenya, many also found themselves wondering whether a weary Annan, or some other global leader, will be battling another fire by the end of this month: this time in Zimbabwe....

EDITORIALS

Mar 20, 2008

Getting serious about child care

The government is pushing improvement of child-care services and in doing so it aims to stem the decline in birthrate. It anticipates that the number of children aged 5 or younger who would use such services will increase by about 1 million to about 3 million in 10 years.

EDITORIALS

Mar 20, 2008

Usual foot-dragging over disclosure

Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Mr. Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Mr. Kim Kye Gwan, held talks in Geneva last week to resolve a snag in the North's denuclearization process under the framework of the six-party talks involving the United States, North Korea, China, Japan, Russia and South...

EDITORIALS

Mar 19, 2008

Litmus test for Mr. Hu

Around the time when anti-Chinese protests took place in Tibet's regional capital Lhasa last week, Mr. Hu Jintao, who calls for establishment of a harmonious society in China, was re-elected president of the country at a session of the National People's Congress in Beijing. How he will handle Tibetan...

EDITORIALS

Mar 19, 2008

Sacrifices for rehabilitation

One year has passed since the effectively bankrupt city of Yubari in Hokkaido began a special fiscal rehabilitation process under the internal affairs ministry's supervision. It must repay ¥35.3 billion debts by the end of fiscal 2024. In the first year, it repaid about ¥1.5 billion as required. But...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 19, 2008

No Tibetan independence

LONDON — The monks who marched through Lhasa on March 10 to mark the anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 did not want to wreck China's Olympic year, but they knew that Chinese troops would be less likely to shoot them this year than most. And so it proved: the monks were...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 18, 2008

Sentimental barrier to economic growth

By Bjorn Lomborg, Kym Anderson and Hasan Tuluy

Protectionist sentiment and fear of globalization are on the rise. In the United States, presidential candidates appeal to anxious voters by blaming the North American Free Trade Agreement for the erosion of the country's manufacturing base. Liberal trade initiatives have run into trouble in Congress,...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.

Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’

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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