Of all the things I expected to experience in Tokyo, hugging three Japanese female strangers in their 70s was never part of the plan. This city is no-public-display-of-affection central. The anti-Paris when it comes to spontaneous gestures of intimacy. When the ground begins to shake, protocol is the first casualty. So, when a big aftershock hit Shinjuku train station, we four panicked strangers...

The catastrophe that has happened in Japan over the past few days will not prevent the Japanese people from recovering. It will take a bit longer in comparison to the Kobe earthquake of 1995, but recover they will. Japan is unfortunate to be situated in an area that is prone to natural disasters whether they be earthquakes or tsunamis. The fact that tsunami is a Japanese word is testimony to the ...

The principal lesson from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan is that even the richest and most disaster-ready country in the world cannot have enough of disaster preparedness. Historically earthquake-prone and -battered, Japan is also temblor-hardened and -geared-up. But despite its legendary obsessive-compulsive ways that would leave no stone unturned as far as priming up for disasters...

The disabling of a nuclear power plant in Japan after an earthquake struck is certain to bring new thinking on the issue. This has been flagged by the extreme measures the Japanese authorities have used at the Fukushima Daiichi plant ― pumping in impure sea water that will ruin the reactor core so as to reduce heat buildup and prevent a meltdown. Although this reactor, which dates back 40 years, ...

Entire towns vanished. Simply gone. Thousands dead, thousands more missing and feared dead. Simply gone. And as individual families in Japan and the world as a whole begin to grieve last week’s horrific earthquake and tsunami, we are also learning firsthand about the vulnerability of nuclear energy. The technology that resource-scarce Japan harnessed to become an industrial powerhouse is now...

Pity President Obama: Every time he tries to compromise with Republicans on energy reform by backing dirty or dangerous forms of power generation, a disaster occurs to demonstrate why pursuing such strategies is a bad idea. It happened a year ago when a BP oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico after Obama had been talking up the advantages of expanded offshore drilling, and it’s happening again ...

The New York Times characterizes the tsunami that struck coastal Japan as “murderous,” while a friend writes that “Planet Earth is an unfriendly place.” I rode out the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in my seventh-floor apartment in San Francisco, which experience instilled in me an appropriate terror and respect for the fluidity of so-called terra firma. The epicenter of that 6.1 earthquake was loca...

Japan’s domestic nuclear crisis is going global in a hurry. Just ask Christine Lagarde, France’s finance minister, who wants to convene Group of Seven talks on a response to Japan’s earthquake. “I’ve asked for a G7 meeting at the level of finance ministers and central bankers to see how we can purchase their bonds and how to respond on the financial level,” she said. The internationalization of...

Supporters of the proposed free-trade agreement between the United States and South Korea argue that we should approve the pact to improve our economy and to reward an ally in a troubled region for its strong security relationship with the United States, and to solidify these strong security ties with a stronger trade relationship. Though there is no doubt South Korea is a close ally, we need to ...

A famous 1973 cover of National Lampoon showed a dog with a revolver held to its head, with the caption, “If you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog.” To hear defenders of publicly subsidized media, Republican efforts to cut funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System puts a gun to the head of Big Bird. That doesn’t have to be the case. The Corporation for Publi...

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan’s northeastern coast on Friday (March 11) ― the fourth largest in the world since 1900 ― has dwarfed all other headlines. The ensuing 23-foot tsunami traveled miles inland before receding and leaving in its wake a swampy wasteland of debris, buildings set ablaze and over 120 aftershocks. The disaster was brought to the global consciousness through b...