With his signature last week, President Obama ended the military’s distasteful policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” In doing away with this discriminatory practice, he also ushered the American armed forces back into the mainstream of American life. One salutary consequence is that some of the nation’s most prestigious universities now are willing to host Reserve Officer Training Corps units on thei

Europeans have grown accustomed to seeing government workers shut down their countries when provoked. At this time of huge deficits from Washington to the smallest towns, government workers in the U.S. also face significant cutbacks.Americans may have had their first taste of what that will mean.New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor David Paterson are both calling for an inve

When Dmitry Medvedev became president of Russia two years ago he pledged to combat “legal nihilism,” the disrespect for law that feeds corruption and backwardness in his country.Any hope that Medvedev might behave differently from his mentor, and Russia’s real ruler ― Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ― has been doused by the biggest show trial since the days of the Soviet Union. A week ago, the forme

What’s the biggest financial decision facing Europe in 2011? Easy. The choice of a new president of the European Central Bank.When Jean-Claude Trichet steps down from the post in October, the leading candidates to succeed him will be Bundesbank President Axel Weber and the governor of the Bank of Italy, Mario Draghi.Neither is the right man. Weber would be intolerable to the peripheral euro countr

Applications for the Basic Korean Language Proficiency Test on Jan. 30 will close Friday. The Basic KLPT is designed for beginner Korean-language learners who have taken between 150 and 200 hours of lessons and tests listening, grammar and reading. The Basic KLPT is held quarterly at nine centers around the country and is designed at a lower level than the main KLPT, which takes place in spring an

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting South Korean businesswoman in 2009 that he had ordered the removal of a missile launch scene from his country's mass propaganda show because "Americans did not like it," according to a U.S. diplomatic cable.   The cable, found on WikiLeaks and released this week by a New York-based blogger, offered a rare look into how the aging but omnipotent leader