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COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 8, 2003

Watching the detectives

There's something to be said about Japanese police attitudes towards foreigners.
EDITORIALS
Jul 5, 2003

Mr. Taylor must go

Liberia, Africa's oldest republic, was founded by freed American slaves more than 150 years ago. The country was once considered a model African nation, prosperous and stable. Today it is a war-torn country, shattered from decades of conflict that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and destroyed...
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2003

Pyongyang: keep the gloves on for now

LONDON -- There is no question that the anachronistic communist regime in North Korea threatens the peace in Northeast Asia. In the absence of good intelligence, however, it is difficult to estimate the extent of the threat. American intelligence on Iraq was faulty, and it is doubtful whether the CIA...
BUSINESS
Jun 27, 2003

Apologies the norm at shareholders' meetings

Top managers at several major firms apologized to shareholders Thursday over a variety of corporate scandals, including the arrests of former board members.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2003

Envoy seeks meeting with Suu Kyi

Ambassador to Myanmar Yuji Miyamoto is trying to confirm the whereabouts of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi following revelations by a U.N. envoy that she was being held in a Yangon prison earlier this month, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2003

Envoy seeks meeting with Suu Kyi

Ambassador to Myanmar Yuji Miyamoto is trying to confirm the whereabouts of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi following revelations by a U.N. envoy that she was being held in a Yangon prison earlier this month, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano said Thursday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 1, 2003

Plagued by military politics

MILITARY POLITICS AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN INDONESIA, by Jun Honna. London: RoutedgeCurzon, 2003, 300 pp., $904 (cloth). With the collapse of a fragile ceasefire in Aceh, the Indonesian government has decided on a military solution to this long-festering problem. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has fought...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 20, 2003

Iraqi revival will cost Russia

MOSCOW -- It is a commonplace to say the war in Iraq was not only about former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but also about oil. No matter how dangerous Hussein's regime was and how badly the White House needed an impressive victory for the 2004 elections, oil -- as today's key commodity -- was very much...
EDITORIALS
May 12, 2003

A great leap forward in China?

Back-to-back calamities are forcing China's leaders to adopt new approaches to governance. A government accustomed to ruling without challenge is now under pressure to restore public confidence in its leadership. Hopes that this might lead to more broad-based political reform are premature, however....
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2003

Avoid hasty reaction to a probable bluff

LONDON -- "They don't negotiate like we do," explained Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and one of the North Korean regime's few channels of communication with the United States, after meeting with Pyongyang's representative in January. "They believe that...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 27, 2003

U.S. seeks Japan's help on Pyongyang

Japan and the United States agreed Saturday that the two governments should hold a trilateral meeting with South Korea "at the earliest date" to discuss how to deal with the North Korean nuclear crisis, Japanese officials said.
BUSINESS
Apr 26, 2003

Nikkei plumbs new depths

The Nikkei index closed Friday at a fresh 20-year low, battered by sales of technology stocks that were pushed down by Sony's bearish earnings outlook released the previous day.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 19, 2003

Silvio Vita

Silvio Vita leads an enviable life. He says perhaps he is lucky. That may be true, but it is not the whole story. He is also hardworking, and his work has done more than luck to bring him recognition and reward. He is a Roman, born in Romulus' fabulous city, which, built over seven hills by the Tiber...
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2003

Cluster bombs held by ASDF defended

The Air Self-Defense Force possesses cluster bombs and has no plans to get rid of them, the government's top spokesman said Thursday.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2003

Confident Ishihara plots even more radical course

Emboldened by an easy win in Sunday's gubernatorial election, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara indicated he will pursue even more eyebrow-raising policies during his second four-year term.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2003

Futility felt by journalist drives him to show war's true face

Hearing U.S. bombs find their targets and feeling the ground shake under his Baghdad hotel, Kosuke Tsuneoka was struck by the futility of his plan to serve as a "human shield" and stop the war.
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2003

Hope at last for the DRC

For four years, the Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered a bloody conflict that has been practically invisible to most of the world. Rival factions and greedy neighbors have fought over the country's spoils, leaving death and destruction in their wake. As a result, one of Africa's richest countries...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2003

Handicapping the Iraq war's outcome

Back in autumn, there were reports that some people were betting on when war would start. Now that it's begun, it's worthwhile thinking about how it might end. Here are some thoughts on five possible outcomes, from worst to best, and the likelihood of each:
COMMENTARY
Mar 27, 2003

Warfare that stymies protest

LONDON -- This, we were promised, would be the most politically correct war in history. Harlan Ullman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says the strategy of conquering Iraq by "shock and awe" bombing, was devised simply because this is the most unpopular...
EDITORIALS
Mar 17, 2003

Human rights abuses behind bars

Human rights violations in prisons are nothing new. But what happened last year at Nagoya Prison is alarming. Six prison guards, including a deputy warden, stand accused of physical abuses that resulted in the death of an inmate and caused severe injury to another. On the first day of their trial earlier...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2003

How the U.S. piqued Pyongyang

CAMBRIDGE, England -- If it weren't for the fact that the lives of several million people are at stake it could be fun watching the game of diplomatic poker being played by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and U.S. President George W. Bush. Those lives are at stake, however, as is the future stability...
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2003

Pyongyang fires another missile

North Korea fired a ground-to-ship missile into the Sea of Japan on Monday -- the second such launch in two weeks -- in what appeared to be further provocation aimed at gaining Washington's attention.
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2003

Alarm bells ring in Iran

Conservatives claimed victory in local elections held throughout Iran last week. Hardliners are rejoicing over the results -- not only did they win the ballots, but the turnout also suggests that reformers have lost heart. Warnings of a backlash are not without foundation, but the hardliners' control...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2003

Official handed suspended term

The Tokyo District Court handed a former Foreign Ministry official a suspended prison term Thursday for misusing funds and rigging bids for government aid projects for Russia.
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2003

Japan plays down North Korean missile provocation

The government tried Tuesday to play down the impact of North Korea firing a surface-to-ship missile into the Sea of Japan, saying launches of short-range missiles do not violate the Pyongyang Declaration.
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2003

Fueling U.S. planes that attack is legal: official

U.S. aircraft receiving fuel provided by the Self-Defense Forces and subsequently attacking Iraq would not constitute an act of collective defense, Osamu Akiyama, Cabinet legislation bureau director general, said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 19, 2003

Facts are first casualty in U.S. march to war

WAR PLAN IRAQ: Ten Reasons Against War on Iraq, by Milan Rai. Verso, 2002, 240 pp., $15 (paper) When Richard Butler, head of the first U.N. weapons inspections team in Iraq, said in 1997 that "Truth in some cultures is kind of what you can get away with saying," he was referring to the regime of Iraqi...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami