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August 07, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Apr 18, 2004

Death of Deng's triangular relationship

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- One certainty emerges amid the democratic turmoil in Taiwan and Hong Kong and amid the authoritarian turmoil in the higher reaches of the Chinese Communist Party, which is skilled at concealing its innate factionalism: The triangular relationship between China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as envisaged...

EDITORIALS

Apr 17, 2004

Hostage release no peace gesture

The three Japanese taken hostage in Iraq have been set free. The joy felt at their release has been tempered by news that two other Japanese have been seized, the savage murder of an Italian security guard by his kidnappers and the knowledge that nearly 20 other foreigners are still being held in Iraq....

EDITORIALS

Apr 16, 2004

Cyprus at a crossroads

If a U.N. reunification plan is accepted by both Greek and Turkish residents in referendums later this month, the island will be reunited, ending four decades of ethnic conflict. If it is rejected, the people of Cyprus will have missed a historic opportunity for both peaceful reconciliation and to join...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 16, 2004

Alternative road map to launch Myanmar's democratic future

By Nyunt Shwe

T he ruling States Peace and Development Council of Myanmar (SPDC) has raised hopes that it will hold a national constitutional convention before the end of this year after its March 30 announcement that it would convene one on May 17. It had also hinted that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi could...

EDITORIALS

Apr 15, 2004

Making nuclear energy safer

With the Japanese public remaining skeptical of the safety of nuclear power plants, the government's latest white paper on nuclear safety focuses on an appropriate subject: risk assessment. The message, simply put, is that the safety of nuclear facilities and equipment can be assured more reliably through...

EDITORIALS

Apr 14, 2004

Hostage nightmare continues

Patience is running thin as efforts to have three Japanese hostages in Iraq freed drag on with no apparent progress. The crisis appeared to have been nearing a resolution on Sunday morning when the kidnappers issued a statement saying that they would release the civilians within 24 hours. But the deadline...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 14, 2004

Further thoughts on Yasukuni

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Although I am among those who wish that the Yasukuni Shrine controversy be put to rest quick- ly, I realize that the solution must come from inside Japan when conditions mature. Those with some distance from the emotional core of the issue may wish to ponder the new dynamic that...

EDITORIALS

Apr 13, 2004

Little hope for Sri Lanka

Thirty years of civil war have done irreparable harm to Sri Lanka. The fight by the island's Tamils to secure a homeland has claimed more than 60,000 lives and deeply fractured the nation. A peace process appeared to be making progress, but divisions among Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority derailed those...

COMMENTARY

Apr 13, 2004

Pakistani military tightens grip on power

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD In a year when Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has promised to step down as head of the military and continue only as a civilian president, his decision to back the Parliament's approval of a new national security council, or NSC, raises fresh concerns over the future of democracy....

COMMENTARY

Apr 12, 2004

Disillusionment over Iraq

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- In March 2003, British Prime Minister Tony Blair apparently believed that there was an imminent threat that Iraq might use weapons of mass destruction. A majority of British voters were accordingly persuaded that Britain was probably justified in taking part in an attack on the tyrannical regime...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 11, 2004

India girds for world's biggest tamasha

By Ramesh Thakur

Between April 20 and May 10, staggered over five rounds, Indians will vote in the 14th general election since inde- pendence in 1947. When Florida caused such a fuss in the last U.S. presidential election four years ago, Indians were bemused and amused in equal measure. They suggested that Americans...

EDITORIALS

Apr 11, 2004

Turn off the television

Of all the modern technological conveniences, the one that gets the worst press -- worse even than the cell phone -- is the television. The ubiquitous box has been accused of destroying traditional cultures, contributing to the breakdown of community, fragmenting family life and promoting obesity and...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.

80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped

By Elizabeth Beattie

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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