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COMMENTARY / World

Jan 30, 2005

Neglect led to higher Indian casualty toll

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

MADRAS, India -- In India, very few people had heard the word tsunami, let alone understood what these waves could do. Until Sunday, Dec. 26, hardly anybody had the vaguest inclination of the destructive ability of the sea.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 30, 2005

Looking up after bleak year

By Ramesh Thakur

Two years ago, the World Economic Forum launched a Global Governance Initiative that brought together a group of experts from around the world to map the state of the world on peace and security, education, environment, health, human rights, and hunger and poverty. The initiative provides an assessment,...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 30, 2005

Treading softly on Jakarta's sensibilities

By Eric Teo Chu Cheow

SINGAPORE -- Many observers believe the Dec. 26 tsunami disaster has opened up Aceh and the rest of Indonesia to the West. In fact, Aceh has been intermittently "closed" to international scrutin for 30 years amid the struggle by Acehnese secessionists to create an independent state. Now, as the Indonesian...

EDITORIALS

Jan 29, 2005

Airbus queuing up for a future

A irbus, the European plane maker, recently unveiled the Airbus A380, a superjumbo jet designed to transform the way people fly. The plane is a technological masterwork. It is the world's largest commercial jet, and accommodating it will be no small task for airports around the world. The decision to...

COMMENTARY

Jan 29, 2005

China's global impact grows

By David Howell

LONDON -- Suddenly China has become the No. 1 topic on the agenda of every Western policy forum and think tank. That the focus should be so sudden is in a way surprising.

EDITORIALS

Jan 28, 2005

Better use of talented people

Ms. Chong Hyang Gyun, a second-generation South Korean resident who is a public-health nurse for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, has been fighting a legal battle the past decade to take up a managerial post. The 54-year-old civil servant has argued that the metro government's rejection of her request...

EDITORIALS

Jan 27, 2005

Trimming a lifetime perquisite

The Japanese public has expressed anger over the fact that members of the Diet are entitled to such fat pensions. In response, a parliamentary panel has recommended that there be at least a 70-percent increase in premiums and a 30-percent cut in payouts. These proposals probably will take effect in fiscal...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 27, 2005

Foggy North Korean shuffle

By Soyoung Kwon and Glyn Ford

BRUSSELS -- Recent events in North Korea have been interpreted in various ways and, generally, the wish has been father to the thought. The truth is difficult to discern, but indications are that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has placed himself firmly behind a reform program that may finally bring...

EDITORIALS

Jan 26, 2005

A reason for long-term unity

The World Conference on Disaster Reduction, held last week in Kobe under the auspices of the United Nations, has produced concrete results, notably the Hyogo Framework for Action, a 10-year global action plan for reducing disaster risks, and an agreement to build a tsunami early-warning system in the...

COMMENTARY

Jan 26, 2005

Things look up to Downer

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES -- They say an optimist looks at the very same glass that the pessimist sees as half-empty and proclaims it to be half-full. By that measure, one of the world's foremost optimists has got to be Alexander Downer, Australia's minister for foreign affairs.

EDITORIALS

Jan 25, 2005

The fewer bond issues, the better

It has been a long time since Japan's bubble in stock and land prices collapsed. Now, however, there is concern that a new kind of bubble -- a "bond bubble" -- may be forming. Financial markets are already "saturated," according to analysts, with massive amounts of bonds that the government issues each...

COMMENTARY

Jan 25, 2005

Medical reform needs help

By Kiroku Hanai

In its first report on medical reform, the council to promote deregulation -- an advisory body to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi -- recently recommended lifting some restrictions on "mixed medical care," easing conditions for the private operation of hospitals and reorganizing the government's Central...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.

How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan

By Megha Wadhwa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Muji has been sustainable from the beginning

Muji has been sustainable from the beginning

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