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August 10, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Jun 28, 2004

Get a consensus on cloning research

Whether to sanction the cloning of human embryos remains a polarizing issue that has profound ethical and moral implications. In Japan, a government-appointed committee on bioethics late last year published a noncommittal interim report stating the pros and cons.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Jun 28, 2004

Japanese poetry loses a gentleman-scholar

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- Princeton professor Earl Miner, who died in April at age 77, was the one gentleman-scholar I had the honor of knowing.

COMMENTARY

Jun 28, 2004

Treading too softly on SOFA

By Kiroku Hanai

In April, an epoch-making event occurred in the history of the Japan-U.S. security alliance. Two Diet members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party met with U.S. State and Defense Department officials to ask Washington to consider overhauling the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 28, 2004

People of Myanmar need Asia's help

By Nyunt Shwe

Myanmar's stubborn military regime has decided to carry on with its controversial constitutional convention even as National League of Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her lieutenant, U Tin U, remain under house arrest. The last time a free and fair election was held -- in 1990 -- the NLD won a...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 28, 2004

Deflate tension with dialogue

By Ronald A. Rodriguez

HONOLULU -- Recent events confirm that maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea remain an issue for East Asian governments. Ownership of the Spratly Islands is claimed, in whole or in part, by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

EDITORIALS

Jun 27, 2004

Mr. Kerry's French

Every now and then, U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, lets slip that he speaks French. He chats with French reporters, has occasionally responded in French to a French-language question at a news conference, and once participated in a phone-in talk show in France....

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 27, 2004

Flagging heart for the EU

By Kevin Rafferty

LONDON -- More than 40,000 Britons have made a special trip to Portugal for a two-week European festival while, back at home, tens of millions of others are following the festival, alternatively rejoicing and groaning, on television screens in pubs and bars, city centers and homes. Euro 2004 is the most...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 27, 2004

Middle East policy banks on destruction

By Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- The decision by the Bush campaign to enlist thousands of religious congregations in the United States to distribute information and register voters for the November presidential election shows how close the connection has become between politics and religion, a situation not anticipated by...

COMMENTARY

Jun 27, 2004

Asian antiterror group finds its footing

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- Last week the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an international antiterrorist group formed by China, Russia and four Central Asian countries only months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, inaugurated a new antiterrorism center in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan....

EDITORIALS

Jun 26, 2004

A wakeup call for Europe

June has been a cruel month for the European Union. Euroskeptics were the big winners in elections for the EU Parliament, although apathy rather than outright opposition to the EU project best captures voter sentiment. Then, last week, a second attempt to agree on a new constitution made progress only...

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 26, 2004

Few surprises in EU elections

By Glyn Ford

BRUSSELS -- The European parliamentary elections June 13 turned out largely as forecast. Despite a sharp fillip in Britain's voter turnout, spurred by the rise of the anti-European U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP, voter turnout as a whole continued its generation-long decline across Europe, with less...

COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE

Jun 26, 2004

Internet revolutionizing American politics

By Bob Keefe

WASHINGTON -- The campaign of 2004 is different from any that came before. The reason is the Internet. For the first time, we have Meetup, MoveOn, Right March, Bloggers, E-Voting and political Spam. Good, bad or indifferent, the Internet is proving to be a major player in the prosecution of the presidential...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person

By Naoko Abe

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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

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

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