Japan’s largest crisis is neither the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant nor the recovery from the March 11 earthquake/tsunami. The Japanese will eventually overcome and move on from both these problems. The crisis Japan is facing is one of demographics. Japanese women are obsessed with fashion. I commented last week that […]
It has been a little more than one year since the street protests which rocked Bangkok and resulted in at least 50 deaths took place in the heart of the Thai capital. After stalling for months since the unrest when he had announced a reconciliatory roadmap for the main political parties with elections to follow […]
Has U.S. military aid to Pakistan over the past 50 years helped that country in any desirable way? Or is U.S. aid partly the cause of Pakistan’s dire security and development situation? Has aid to the military, and the ill-advised redistribution of that aid to other, less savory agents, fundamentally crippled governance and social and […]
Miyu Uehara, a Japanese celebrity known locally as a “tarento” (talent), hanged herself early Thursday morning. (Some news sources are mistakenly reporting her name as Miyui or Miyuki.) She had just turned 24 on May 2. Uehara was a model who had been “discovered” when she was 18 working at a hostess club (a pricey […]
History seemingly repeated itself as a mini-Ramayana played out this week – except of course, Rama was a steely Indian-born prosecutor, the location was a Manhattan courtroom, and the charges against the Sri-Lankan born defendant – a.k.a Ravana – were more serious than an abducted wife: he was accused of orchestrating “the largest hedge fund insider trading scheme in history.”
Rather than give my take on something in the headlines today, I will take a moment to explain an apparent contradiction that baffles many visitors to Japan. One paradox in modern Japan that often baffles foreigners is how a country that is decidedly xenophobic so quickly embraces fashion and pop culture from outside. A first-time […]
I urge all our readers who live on the East Coast of the United States to tune into PBS stations at 10pm for “Bhutto”, a two hour investigative documentary on Benazir Bhutto, the assassinated former Prime Minister and PPP leader. An examination of the life and politics of Benazir Bhutto -once popular leader, assassinated in […]
U.S. experts and politicians are starting to hone into the ‘dangers’ of R&D and technology transfers to China, as the most serious long-term threat to the U.S. economy and national security. U.S. comparative advantage (innovation and new technologies) is being undermined by outsourcing of manufacturing to China, the relocation of R&D facilities to Chinese tech-parks, […]
Decades have passed since Pakistan’s elected government, the opposition, the military and the media spoke the same language on one issue. The last time when one saw overwhelming consensus among all these segments of society was perhaps the war with India in 1965. The killing of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in a […]
After raising 5 million won (about $4,560) it raised for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, the South Korean city of Yangju is instead using the money for a scholarship after the Japanese government approved a textbook claiming the Liancourt Rocks are Japanese territory rather than […]
Former National Security Adviser James Johns has questioned the feasibility of the plan for relocating a U.S. Marine base within Okinawa Prefecture. Secretary General of the People’s New Party Mikio Shimoji told reporters in Washington on Friday that Johns, an Obama aide until last November, said the best option is integrating Futenma Air Station with […]
I recently came across an interesting paper at Brookings by Wang Feng, The Future of a Demographic Overachiever: Long-Term Implications of the Demographic Transition in China. The title of the paper is self-explanatory as to the subject. Through his research, Wang found a consistent continual demographic decline in China. This is not necessarily news, but […]
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent call to eradicate poverty in South Asia through an international cooperative effort is a welcome move. She proposed such a moved during a celebtration of the life and the work of the great Rabindranath Tagore (Thakur). During her term in office Sheikh Hasina has raised Bangladesh’s profile on the international […]
By Malik Siraj Akbar Foreigners who have never heard of Pakistan’s Balochistan crisis are often comforted by the fact that they are not the only ones who do not know much about the raging conflict. Even most Pakistanis are equally ignorant about the gruesome developments taking place inside Balochistan because of a nearly complete blackout […]
A Japanese woman who was found guilty of smuggling methamphetamine into Malaysia is unlikely to escape the death penalty, her lawyer said Friday. Mariko Takeuchi, 36, was arrested Oct. 31, 2009, for attempting to smuggle 3.5 kilograms of methamphetamine into Malaysia through Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Under Malaysian law, anyone possessing a minimum of 50 […]
