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COMMENTARY / World

Jul 28, 2000

Pessimists in the mist: Japanese still mired in crisis of confidence

By Brad Glosserman

It's hard to find a word that has so traumatized a generation as has "globalization." The term has become a convenient shorthand for all the uncertainties and unknowns of daily life, a catch-all for the problems that tug at economies and threaten to unravel traditional social structures.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 28, 2000

Yasser Arafat draws the line

By David Hirst

BEIRUT -- At one fraught moment during Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak reportedly warned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat: "If we don't finish the job now, at the next meeting I will no longer be prime minister." To which the Palestinian leader retorted: "If I give in on Jerusalem, I will...

EDITORIALS

Jul 27, 2000

Don't concede the peace

After 15 days of intense discussions, the Middle East peace talks at Camp David have ended in failure. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat could not agree on the final status of the city of Jerusalem, and broke off negotiations. Both men return home weakened. The failure...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 27, 2000

A tale of two protests in Bangkok and Beijing

By Philip Cunningham

BANGKOK -- Last week, rural adherents of the Falun Gong movement in China surreptitiously made their way from provincial towns to stage short-lived protests in the heart of Beijing's Tiananmen Square. At the same time in rural Thailand, thousands of Thai peasants boarded trains for Bangkok to take an...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Jul 27, 2000

Wily Putin seduces the world

By Constantine Pleshakov

Josef Stalin hated international travel: He suspected somebody might attempt to kill him. Nikita Khrushchev loved it: He enjoyed shocking foreign hosts with his erratic behavior. Leonid Brezhnev was happy to travel to any country that would give him a new Mercedes as a state gift. Mikhail Gorbachev had...

EDITORIALS

Jul 26, 2000

The latest summer hazard

The end of the rainy season has brought the high temperatures and soaring humidity that typify Japanese summers everywhere except at mountain resorts or in Hokkaido. It also brings a risk most people seldom seem to consider: the very real danger of food poisoning.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 26, 2000

Russia gets back into the Korean fray

By John Barry Kotch

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union re-established itself as a major player on the Korean Peninsula largely as a result of U.S. initiatives in dividing the country, for administrative convenience, between two zones of military occupation. In doing so, the Americans displayed great ignorance...

COMMENTARY

Jul 26, 2000

Ethics for a turbulent age

By Hugh Cortazzi

There is much justifiable concern in Japan and Britain about rising levels of crime and bad behavior, especially among young people. The responses have been varied, including the usual calls for heavier punishments combined with "zero tolerance" policing. Yet few have much idea how this is to be enforced...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 26, 2000

Testing times for Sino-Pakistani friendship

By Farhan Bokhari

ISLAMABAD -- There was a familiar ring to recent allegations in U.S. newspapers, reportedly based on intelligence sources, that China is continuing to aid Pakistan's plans to build long-range nuclear-capable missiles. It is not the first time such allegations have surfaced in the United States, especially...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 26, 2000

Swastikas under the onion domes

By Russell Working

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia It is a muggy Wednesday afternoon in the nation's largest Pacific seaport, and as people meander home, a handful of men and boys position themselves around the central square, an asphalt plaza decorated with a monument to the communist revolutionaries who conquered the Far East.

EDITORIALS

Jul 25, 2000

G8 shapes up for a new century

Despite presummit speculation about possible exchanges of views on issues not on the summit agenda, the leaders of the Group of Eight countries generally focused their debates over the past three days on issues contained in the scenario developed by working-level officials. Such speculation had preceded...

COMMENTARY

Jul 25, 2000

Media credibility is at risk

By Kiroku Hanai

Two recent incidents have revealed the cozy relationship between government and the media in Japan. One is the appointment of a former Yomiuri Shimbun chief editorialist as a member of the National Public Safety Commission. The other is the fact that a member of the Cabinet press club wrote a memo for...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.

What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji

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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