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...more than five decades of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), they also elected a record number of women to high office. The Diet now includes 96 women among its 722 members in the upper and lower houses. More than one-fourth of them are serving for the first time. (See the new activism of Japan's youth...
...catalyst for the flurry of agreements appears to be the BP-CNPC deal, Iraq's first international oil contract in nearly four decades. The British and Chinese companies won the right to drill for 20 years in what is believed to be one of the world's four largest fields with potential reserves of about 65 billion barrels. Though it will earn only $2 a barrel, BP says it aims to keep expenses down by using low-cost Chinese labor and equipment. The group promised Iraq's government that it will nearly triple the field's output from 1 million...
...early stages of the new Diet's first session, Fukuda says her focus as a lawmaker includes increasing access to Japan's health care system, including streamlining the drug-approval process so that life-saving medications can become available more quickly. "We need good social systems so people don't lose hope," she says. "There's so much uncertainty in society right now, so many suicides, so much worry and despair." This emphasis on issues of social justice leads some observers to hope that Ozawa's princesses can make a difference. By running for office, "These women weren't just...
...your article asking "Why the Wall Came Down" [Nov. 9]. What a swizz, claiming Reagan did it! Surely it was the epochal election of a Polish Pope, the most charismatic in centuries, and his triumphant return to Poland, that widened earlier cracks in the wall. Margaret Thatcher was the first Western leader to recognise Gorbachev as "someone we can do business with" while Washington policymakers stalled. Paddy McGarvey, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND...
...Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has spent nights in poor townships across the country to hear residents' concerns. Zuma himself has established a hotline to the presidency and in August gathered hundreds of school principals in Durban to answer their questions on reform. The same month, in the first of what he promises will be a series of surprise presidential inspections, he caught the mayor of the northern town of Balfour playing hooky. (See Jacob Zuma's profile in the 2008 TIME...