In a statement released this morning, on the terrible occasion of at least 34 dead, 45 and more wounded at a funeral for the wife of a leading anti-Taliban leader, Kala Khan, in Peshawar, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani “reiterated the government’s resolve to root out the cancer of terrorism from every nook and corner […]
Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara stepped down Sunday in the midst of a political funds scandal. Maehara received a 250,000-yen ($3000) donation from a South Korean woman whom he had known since childhood. The woman said she was unaware that the donation was illegal, and Maehara claimed to have been unaware of receiving the donation. […]
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., noted last week that Japan “has become a destination country, a haven, for international child abduction.” This has prompted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to urge Japan to join the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. This issue was in the news a lot in late […]
Amongst all the political upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, with people rising against dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere, this week China embarked on its annual legislative session. The legislative session of the National People’s Congress, which officially enacts legislation, will rubber-stamp the government’s 12th Five-Year-Plan (2011-2015), which was […]
I don’t know what’s worse: that the New York Times printed a quote from an estimable and important Bangladeshi that was off the mark; or whether, it’s worse that the quote in question was offered by the chairman of Bangladesh Human Rights Commission. Let’s start with the former issue. The quote in question was delivered […]
One of the top stories in Japan this week is the arrest of a 19-year-old boy who admitted to cheating on a college entrance exam. The Japanese media are focusing on how the boy was able to cheat in the first place, and calling for schools to update anticheating measures. However, I think it will […]
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s budget plan for the forthcoming fiscal year is more noteworthy for what it does not contain – realistic assumptions and a commitment to press ahead with critical items on the economic reform agenda.
Keio Electric Railway Co installed cameras on some of its trains in this past week in an attempt to curb groping. Train groping is a huge problem in Japan. In 2008, police handled 1600 groping incidents in Tokyo alone. And that number is a small fraction of actual groping incidents. According to a 2010 survey, […]
Sony and Japanese pop group, Kishidan, apologized this week for the band wearing costumes resembling Nazi SS uniforms in a Feb. 23 interview. A statement issued Monday from the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center called for an apology from MTV Japan for airing the interview. In the statement, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the […]
On Tuesday, nine years after 60 Hindu pilgrims were burnt alive when their train coach was set on fire, an Indian court in the Western state of Gujarat found 31 Muslims guilty of the crime.
Two years ago, I wrote a long post discussing the political and economic relationship between Mainland China (People’s Republic of China) and Taiwan (Republic of China) ahead of the implementation of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). The ECFA was signed on June 29, 2010, in Chongqing, PRC, and went into effect on September 12 […]
Is it likely that the government of Pakistan is trying to delay the onset of proceedings against Raymond A. Davis, the man accused of allegedly killing two motorists on the streets of Lahore? This in order to buy time as back-channel negotiations run up against public sentiment, the natural political deadline in these circumstances? Yes. […]
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