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August 26, 2025

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EDITORIALS

Feb 24, 2009

Breaking the U.S.-Iran deadlock

In his attempt to find a new U.S. policy toward Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama is trying to engage the nation through direct dialogue, a move that Iran appears to have responded to rather positively. The Iraq war provided Iran with an opportunity to increase its influence on Arab nations and Mr. Obama...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 24, 2009

Unbalanced bargaining game with China

By Du Tran

SINGAPORE — The territorial dispute in the South China Sea — referred to as the Spratly Islands dispute — used to be described as a major regional security flash point. Although core issues remain unresolved, economic integration and globalization, since the beginning of this decade, have temporarily...

COMMENTARY

Feb 23, 2009

Crisis hits the weak spots

By Kiroku Hanai

The worst crisis in a century is eroding the Japanese economy as a growing number of "nonregular" workers lose their jobs. The unemployment rate in December reached 4.4 percent, up 0.5 percentage point from the previous month — the steepest increase ever. The labor ministry estimates that by the end...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 23, 2009

Success of Kosovo is Europe's responsibility

By Wolfgang Ischinger, Martti Ahtisaari and Albert Rohan

PRAGUE — On Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence and has so far been recognized by more than 50 countries representing close to 60 percent of the world's economic power. Interethnic violence — which many feared — has largely been avoided and the mass exodus of Serbs that some also predicted...

EDITORIALS

Feb 23, 2009

State of the world's children

With the media paying so much attention to the casualties of the economic slowdown, it would be easy to overlook a vital report on the grave situation faced by the world's two most vulnerable classes of citizens — women and children in impoverished countries.

EDITORIALS

Feb 22, 2009

The freedom of Mr. Khan

On its face, the decision to release Mr. Abdul Qadeer Khan from house arrest in Pakistan is a slap in the face of international opinion and a blow to efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons. According to Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, the work of the world's greatest proliferator "is a closed...

COMMENTARY

Feb 22, 2009

Sea bump echoes Cold War risks

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON — A ship I once served in had a small brass plate on the bridge with a quotation from Thucydides, the Greek statesman, historian and seaman of the fourth century B.C.: "A collision at sea can ruin your whole day." It is still true.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 22, 2009

Shiftless apathy to the victims makes all Japanese guilty for the past

By Roger Pulvers

"When we speak of guilt about the past, we are not thinking about individuals, or even organizations, but rather a guilt that infects the entire generation that lives through an era — and in a sense the era itself.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 22, 2009

Shiftless apathy to the victims makes all Japanese guilty for the past

By Roger Pulvers

"When we speak of guilt about the past, we are not thinking about individuals, or even organizations, but rather a guilt that infects the entire generation that lives through an era — and in a sense the era itself.

EDITORIALS

Feb 21, 2009

New approach to a dispute

In a meeting in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin, Prime Minister Taro Aso and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to accelerate efforts to solve the sovereignty dispute over four islands off Hokkaido by pursuing a "creative and unconventional approach." They also agreed that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir...

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 21, 2009

U.S. policy shift in South Asia

By Harsh V. Pant

LONDON — The recent visit by U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke to South Asia comes at a time of growing unease in the region and underscores the Obama administration's efforts to formulate a new strategy for winning the Afghan war.

EDITORIALS

Feb 21, 2009

Third strike against smoking

As if there already weren't enough good reasons for kicking the cigarette habit, doctors have found yet another: thirdhand smoke. That's the term doctors at MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston have given to the invisible particles and gases that linger on clothing, hair, carpet, furniture and...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.

From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

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