Western sanctions on Iran are as comprehensive and punishing as they have ever been. And yet they haven’t worked and probably never will.The sanctions are intended to block oil sales and banking transactions. But they are providing far less than a hermetic seal. In fact, new leaks are springing almost every day. And, as the United Nations pointed out a few days ago, Iran is galloping forward with its atomic-weapons program, while denying that it’s underway.Late last week, leaders of 120 nations

Because of its historical beginnings as a British colony, Australia didn’t need to make hard choices on the international stage. It simply followed Britain, the mother country.During WWII when Japan was overrunning one Asian country after the other pushing Britain out of the region, Australia feared for its security, drawing closer to the United States. After WW11, it became part of the U.S.-led ANZUS alliance.But now with the rise of China and the resultant strategic competition between it and

For analysts, a company as innovative as Apple could never be Asian. A recent example is Samsung being found guilty by a Californian court of stealing Apple’s intellectual property. With the next iPhone imminent, Apple appears more invincible than ever. And yet, this victory may well signal both the peak and start of the decline of the Apple Empire. The man who created the personal computer as we know it ― the Macintosh of 1984 ― did it again, not just once, but twice. The iPod (2001) and iTunes

The recent spate of violent sex crimes has reignited the old debate on the death penalty. On one side of the debate are people enraged by the appalling kidnapping and rape of a 7-year-old girl in Naju, South Jeolla Province. They are calling for execution of those who commit heinous sex crimes.These people urge the government to lift the moratorium on executions, which has been in place since 1998, as it contributes to increasing violent sex crimes. They also argue that keeping death row prisone

Was it to blackmail an opponent or to give advice to an old friend? An aide to Ahn Cheol-soo, a strong potential presidential candidate, alleged Thursday that a Saenuri Party official threatened to expose skeletons in the entrepreneur-turned-professor’s closet.Geum Tae-sup, a lawyer with close ties to Ahn, claimed that Jeong Joon-gil, a Saenuri media relations official, called him Tuesday and said the ruling party would disclose allegations about Ahn’s “bribery and woman problems,” if he decided

By now, it should be pretty clear to anyone with even the faintest pulse that regardless of who ends up winning any future elections, they aren’t going to change your personal economic reality quickly enough to suit your liking. And that’s only if they even manage to find the courage to sufficiently cut through all the lobbyists and special interests to implement any significant ideas at all ― which is unlikely in all cases. Forget relying on politicians to determine your fate. Take charge of yo

Election pledges are just conditional promises ― nothing more, nothing less. For the promises, no presidential candidate gains a mandate or assumes an obligation until after he or she wins the election. This holds true even if the candidate is the standard-bearer of the ruling party.But Rep. Park Geun-hye, the presidential nominee of the ruling Saenuri Party, is putting pressure on President Lee Myung-bak and his administration to endorse her election promises.Her undue request comes at a time w

According to a survey conducted shortly after the 19th National Assembly was launched in late June, two in three respondents favored the idea of cutting the pay for lawmakers.What those favoring a pay cut were saying was that lawmakers were underperforming. They had apparently been nursing a grudge against their representatives who had frequently boycotted legislative sessions, used violence on the floor and demonstrated their incompetence in other ways.The pay level is at issue again, this time

The deadly shooting by a mentally disturbed gunman in Montreal on Wednesday was a horrific capstone to what had been acrimonious and unsettling provincial elections in Quebec. Pauline Marois, the leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois, now becomes premier and vows to push for a referendum on secession for the French-speaking province. Shortly before her victory celebration was thrown into chaos by the gunman, she proclaimed, “The future of Quebec is to become a sovereign country.” The Quebecoi

The Cabinet Office’s Central Disaster Prevention Council said last week that a megaquake of magnitude-9 in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coasts and its ensuing tsunami could kill up to 323,000 people in 30 prefectures including Tokyo, with about 70 percent of the deaths tsunami-related. Malfunctioning water gates would cause 23,000 more deaths.The estimated number of victims shot up from the 2003 estimate of some 24,700 deaths. By comparison, some 19,000 people died or went missing in the 3/

There are just over two months left until the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 6.The Republican Party, aiming to reclaim the office after a four-year absence, held its national convention in the state of Florida last week and officially nominated former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as its president and House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan as its vice president.In his acceptance speech, Romney sharply criticized U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration for its mism