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August 06, 2025

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COMMENTARY

Oct 31, 2004

In defense of a liberal agenda

By Ronald Meinardus

MANILA -- Today, hardly another political term is as misapprehended and misrepresented as is "liberal." A case in point is the United States in the runup to the presidential elections. For partisan reasons, the Republicans and the so-called neoconservatives have gone on a rampage to discredit liberalism....

EDITORIALS

Oct 30, 2004

Mr. Tsutsumi's lack of accountability

To the dismay of many people, the stock scandal involving Seibu Railway Co. has exposed a cloistered corporate culture. Seibu -- which went public more than half a century ago -- allegedly filed a false securities report to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It is also suspected of illegal insider trading....

COMMENTARY

Oct 30, 2004

Straw poll on Net lands knockout punch

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- In Japan, the Democratic challenger for U.S. president, Sen. John F. Kerry, has so far garnered 88 percent of the Japanese popular vote compared to 11 percent for the incumbent George W. Bush.

EDITORIALS

Oct 29, 2004

Blame game at the U.N.

Revelations about the U.N. Oil for Food Program get uglier and uglier. Designed to allow Iraq to collect revenues to pay for humanitarian supplies such as food and medicine, it appears to have been manipulated by Baghdad to reward friends of the regime and enrich the country's leadership. The damage...

EDITORIALS

Oct 28, 2004

Dealing with a murderous past

The 1970s in Cambodia is described as one of the darkest periods in modern history. That was when the Communist Pol Pot regime, or the Khmer Rouge, exterminated nearly 2 million people during its rule from 1975 to 1979. Now, a quarter of a century since the regime collapsed, some of its former leaders...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 28, 2004

Bleak outlook for Myanmar democracy

By Nyunt Shwe

After days of speculation over the fate of Myanmar Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt, the country's official media announced that he was permitted to retire for health reasons. The reasons given were usual for someone who had been removed from the inner circle.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 28, 2004

Bush foes keep fingers crossed

By John Barry Kotch

CAMBRIDGE, England -- While the world looks on, tens of millions Americans will go to the polls next Tuesday, along with millions of American expatriates, for what is being billed as the election of the century, or at least the most important election in our lifetime. And while non-Americans cannot directly...

EDITORIALS

Oct 27, 2004

Lessons from natural disasters

Only several days after we breathed a sigh of relief with the passage of typhoon No. 23 -- which wreaked the worst typhoon damage in 25 years and left 92 persons dead or missing -- the Japanese archipelago was rocked by a series of powerful earthquakes centering on the Chuetsu region of Niigata Prefecture...

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 27, 2004

U.S. has no reason to fear that ICC will abuse rights

By Alberto Zuppi and Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK -- After the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1998, laying out the foundations for the International Criminal Court, many believed that this organ of justice would never materialize. There were already indications that the United States would not support such a court in all its aspects. Rejection...

EDITORIALS

Oct 26, 2004

Troubling signs in Myanmar

A shakeup in Yangon has refocused international attention on the reclusive regime in Myanmar. The ousting of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt bodes ill for hopes of democratic reform in the country and will increase tension between Myanmar and ASEAN, and between ASEAN and the West. Concerned governments need...

COMMENTARY

Oct 26, 2004

British pension crisis looms

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- An important report on the pension crisis facing Britain was published Oct. 12. The report by the Pensions Commission, chaired by Adair Turner, a former director of the Confederation of British Industry, warned that, because of increased longevity and a shortfall in pension funds, British pensioners...

EDITORIALS

Oct 25, 2004

Subsidy reforms under siege

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's initiative to give local governments more fiscal freedom is meeting stiff resistance from within his own administration. He wants to achieve his goal by cutting state subsidies. To make up for subsidy cuts, the central government needs to shift more of its tax-collecting...

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

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

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