Briefs There are, in the Taipei Times where I work, sections called “Briefs” on the local and international pages. Consisting of a page-lon...

A Noisy Wakeup I don’t know if it is like this throughout the non-English-speaking world, but at least here in Taiwan, there is this assumpt...

North Korea’s Gift “It seems impossible to gain any worthwhile insights into the North Korean view of the [Korean] war, as long as Kim Il-su...

Night Out Saturday night, after we were done putting together Sunday’s edition of the Times , those of us who were up for it grabbed a cab a...

Titters in Beijing It seems that the campaign to oust Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is one of those things that just won’t go awa...

The Arar Commission Sets a Precedent The release on Monday of Dennis O’Connor’s public report on the events relating to Maher Arar demonstra...

Canada’s Fallen One of the drawbacks, if you can call it that, of having studied at a military college is that when soldiers are deployed on...

The Moral Slide We should be alarmed at the state of the world when the “good guys” in the battle that is currently going on inside the US a...

A Most Precious Democracy I am constantly surprised by the position that many Taiwanese people my age and younger have taken on the Taiwan S...

Five Years (and One Day) Later There probably were more articles, opinion pieces and editorials about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New ...

Japanese Drums and Day 1 at the Times My life as editor at a newspaper officially began yesterday at 3pm. Knowing that the job and learning ...

Colors Shown The level of personal involvement in politics in Taiwan is unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Not only are the news...

The Last Day, A Much Lighter Offering Today represents my last day working as an editor and writer for three English-language magazines in T...

"Shocking" and "Immoral" This is how the UN's humanitarian Chief, Jan Egelund, describes Israel's incomprehensib...

Beijing's Unsportsmanlike Conduct Considering that the International Children's Games, which this year were held in Thailand, have a...

You Won't Get your Answers, Wolf It was journalism at its poignantly most painful last night on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitze...

Right Mandate, Albeit One-Sided The new rules of engagement for UNIFIL troops in Lebanon should assuage the concerns of the potential contri...

Iran's Stubbornness Passes Through Iraq Considering the historical belligerence between Iran and the United States, the Islamic Republic...

Strange War, Strange Peace The 34-day assault of Israel against Lebanon stuns by the lack of objectives that have been achieved. What ostens...

Fewer Cartoons, and No Horror Starting on September 1, foreign cartoons will be banned from prime-time television in China. This is part of ...