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September 13, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Sep 21, 2004

Anwar release burnishes Badawi's image

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has unexpectedly taken a meaningful stride away from the authoritarian rule of former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad. As a result, the charismatic former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will now be free to influence the course of Malaysian...

EDITORIALS

Sep 20, 2004

Updating the defense program

The government is stepping up efforts to revise the 1995 Defense Program Outline, which sets guidelines for the buildup of the Self-Defense Forces. A revision is considered necessary in light of recent changes in the security environment surrounding Japan. Beyond adjusting to reality, though, it is essential...

COMMENTARY

Sep 20, 2004

'Fat liberation' movement declares war

By Doug Bandow

WASHINGTON -- Another civil-rights movement is stirring in America. A "fat liberation" movement. Complains Marilyn Wann of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, "We're living in the middle of a witch hunt."

COMMENTARY

Sep 20, 2004

Curb spread of WMD in U.S.

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The failure of Congress to renew a 10-year ban on the sale of assault rifles and other dangerous weapons may seem to politicians a simple price to pay to win the support of the National Rifle Association in the forthcoming presidential election.

COMMENTARY

Sep 20, 2004

Japan's diplomatic might

By Keizo Nabeshima

In late August, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi visited four Central Asian states to build a new framework of regional dialogue. The creation of the "Central Asia Plus Japan" forum means that Japan is pushing strategic diplomacy in the geopolitically important Silk Road region, surrounded by Russia,...

EDITORIALS

Sep 19, 2004

Please mute that sunflower

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American transcendentalist philosopher, once said that the rose speaks all languages. Little did he know it could sing, as well -- or at least that 168 years after he uttered his profoundly metaphoric remark a literal-minded Japanese corporation would invent a way for roses and...

COMMENTARY

Sep 19, 2004

Indo-Pakistani relations: the next phase

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- The upcoming meeting between Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh marks another important phase in the nine-month-old peace process between South Asia's two nuclear-armed neighbors.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 19, 2004

Chechen-Arab connection goes far back

By Nonna Chernyakova

CHICAGO -- As gunmen seized a school full of hostages in southern Russia last week, President Vladimir Putin had held a meeting that might have seemed to some like a distraction.

COMMENTARY

Sep 19, 2004

Removing the thorn from Japan-China ties

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- Last month, when Japanese and Chinese teams faced each other in the Asian Games soccer final in Beijing, Chinese fans booed so loudly that they drowned out the strains of the Japanese national anthem. And when Japan won, the spectators pelted the Japanese players' bus with soda bottles and...

EDITORIALS

Sep 18, 2004

Strengthen monitoring in Sudan

The dispute that is continuing in the western part of Sudan is threatening the stability of the surrounding region. Peace negotiations mediated by the African Union have run into difficulties and there are no signs of an imminent settlement. The United Nations is reportedly considering imposing economic...

EDITORIALS

Sep 17, 2004

Mr. Putin's power grab

I t should come as no surprise that Russian President Vladimir Putin has used the horrific terrorist attack in Beslan in southern Russia to justify the consolidation of power in his own hands. Plainly, the Russian government has not been able to counter the threat posed by Chechen separatists. The problem...

COMMENTARY

Sep 17, 2004

An oil shock on the horizon?

By David Howell

LONDON -- The world is now drinking 84 million barrels of oil each day. The figure may be meaningless to most people but to energy planners, security strategists and environmentalists it spells growing disappointment and danger. Why so? Because only a short while ago the figure was 72 million barrels,...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.

The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight

By Mai Yoshikawa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

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