STANFORD ― Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, by winning an outright majority of seats in his country’s parliament for the first time since assuming office, continues a remarkable series of national election victories, backed by voters demanding at least a pause, and perhaps some reversal, of the growth of the welfare state.Moreover, Harper’s victory follows the Republican Party’s resounding

Asia has not forgotten the “Asian Monetary Fund” (AMF). In fact, the case for the AMF has been much strengthened by the difficulty in reforming the governance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).On May 4, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its three Northeast Asian partners China, Japan and South Korea met in Hanoi, Vietnam, and took an important step toward establishing the AMF.

Taipei offers exotic tradition as well as vibrant youth cultureTAIPEI ― Taipei is a city of red and green.It’s red because a traditional food market, a Buddhist temple and a bustling night market are all colored very much with the redness of foods, red Buddhist lanterns and reddish wax apples. It’s green because the Taiwanese capital’s clean streets and roads are almost always decorated with green

Exhibitions“Isabelle Huppert: Woman of Many Faces”: The photo exhibition shows the lesser known sides of Isabelle Huppert, France’s star actress. It features more than 110 portrait photos of the actress taken by around 70 photographers including Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Chun Kyung-woo and filmmaker Ronald Chammah, Huppert’s husband. The touring show was held in seven cities includin

Tristan Prettyman“Twentythree,” “Hello”Warner Music KoreaSan Diego-based singer-songwriter Tristan Prettyman’s first and second studio albums “Twentythree” (2005) and “Hello” (2008) have been belatedly released in Korea. Probably best known as fiancé of Jason Mraz, the 29-year-old’s music style is pretty much like that of her partner, in that her songs are mostly based on the sounds of the acousti

Mama (Korea)Opening June 1Drama. Directed by Choi Ik-hwan. Featuring the stories of three different mothers and their children, director Choi Ik-hwan’s “Mama” tells what mothers mean to the traditional and contemporary Korean mentality. Hyung-seok, a 5-year-old boy who suffers from a fatal heart disease, lives with his mom Dong-sook (Uhm Jung-hwa) alone. Being a single mother, Dong-sook works as a

Barring the end of the world (it didn’t happen Saturday, did it?), or the even less likely scenario in which no one bothers to go out next weekend to see three guys wake up completely blotto, there will be a “Hangover: Part III.”“Obviously, it will depend on the success of the second one,” says Bradley Cooper, whose participation in the inaugural “Hangover” had more than a little to do with his ro

Stabbing my walking stick into the muck and sliding my feet forward, I waded into the swamp, one eye on the lookout for alligators, the other trying to spot the elusive orchids that draw so many people to South Florida’s Fakahatchee Strand Preserve, a 100-square-mile state park that is home to one of the largest concentrations of native orchids in North America.Towering trees formed a dense tropic

Life of NYC’s most tribal borough The Devil She KnowsBy Bill Loehfelm(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)Maureen Coughlin, a 29-year-old cocktail waitress at a seedy Staten Island bar, has dropped out of college and is lying to her mother about it. She tells herself she’s saving money so she can go back to school, but she knows that is also a lie.She pictures herself flirting for tips from drunks until she