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COMMENTARY

Apr 23, 2001

Signs of political upheaval on the horizon

By Kenzo Uchida

A preliminary election tomorrow for the new president of the Liberal Democratic Party will decide how a total of 141 votes cast by representatives of the party's local blocs will be shared among the four candidates. Final results will be determined by the election in which 246 LDP Diet members will cast...

EDITORIALS

Apr 23, 2001

Minimum restraint in the Middle East

Violence flared again in the Middle East last week, with a tit-for-tat confrontation in Gaza that briefly threatened to escalate into a wider war. Although the incident ended with condemnation of Israel, both at home and abroad, for what was widely viewed as a military and diplomatic fiasco, the lesson...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 23, 2001

Musharraf sets his sights on illegal guns

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- Stemming the flow of thousands of illegal weapons throughout Pakistan is not an easy task, but the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf has promised this month to do just that with its launch of an aggressive cleanup campaign.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 23, 2001

Bush may not be wrong to reject Kyoto

By Christopher Lingle

U.S. President George W. Bush has announced his opposition to an international global-warming treaty, citing the harm it could do the U.S. economy and the costs it would impose upon its workers. Predictably, this decision not to pursue approval of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change generated a firestorm...

EDITORIALS

Apr 22, 2001

Poetry and the people

When the poet Chaucer saw that it was April, one year in the late 1300s, he wrote cheerily about its sweet showers piercing the drought of March to the root. When T.S. Eliot saw that it was April, some five and a half centuries later, he wrote bleakly about it being the cruelest month, "breeding lilacs...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 22, 2001

Europe seeks a greater role in Korea

By Ronald Meinardus

SEOUL -- Whatever their personal opinions about U.S. President George W. Bush may be, supporters and foes must agree that his foreign policy has not received good grades in European capitals.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 22, 2001

Should the U.S. help China to get rich?

By Robyn Lim

How long will the United States continue to believe that it should help China to get rich by keeping American markets open? That's the key question now that the 24 servicemen and -women from the downed U.S. surveillance aircraft have been allowed to return home. Never before has America allowed a potentially...

COMMENTARY

Apr 22, 2001

LDP must reform for the nation's good

By Ryuichiro Hosokawa

For the past decade, the Japanese political scene has remained extremely unstable. Things have gone from bad to worse since the Liberal Democratic Party formed a coalition government. The root cause of the instability was the LDP's loss of majority status in both Houses of the Diet.

COMMENTARY

Apr 22, 2001

Overlooking the real victims of foot-and-mouth disease

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- Americans and Japanese have been shunning Britain because of the stories and images of burning animals in the foot-and-mouth-disease scare. One Japanese, I hope in jest, asked if we had enough to eat. We responded that we did not need food parcels just yet! Another group to whom I had promised...

EDITORIALS

Apr 21, 2001

A reassuring signal from the Fed

One question uppermost in the minds of political and business leaders the world over probably is whether the slowing U.S. economy will pick up in the second half of this year. The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday provided its answer by cutting key interest rates for the fourth time since January. The...

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 21, 2001

China faces a dilemma in ties with U.S.

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG -- In the end, China released those 24 members of the crew of the U.S. EP-3E reconnaissance plane just in the nick of time. The end of the crew's detention -- plus China's decision not to put any of the crew on trial, as some hardliners had advocated -- came just in time to undercut a growing...

COMMENTARY

Apr 21, 2001

Koizumi takes an early lead

By Minoru Tada

Political turmoil is brewing as the governing Liberal Democratic Party gears up to elect its next president April 24. Whoever is elected will replace the unpopular Yoshiro Mori as prime minister.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.

A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan

By Hanako Lowry

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