Quiz question: What is the most important free speech ruling in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court?The best answer may well be New York Times v. Sullivan, decided 50 years ago this month. In that case, the court ruled, for the first time, that the First Amendment shields speakers and writers from libel suits.The court’s ruling has fundamentally affected not only our law but also our culture. Whenever you open a newspaper, visit a website or even do a Google search, the information that you se

In his keynote speech at the summit of the Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers on March 21, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario did not mince words when he warned: “Without regard for the rights of its neighbors, China has employed its naval and maritime vessels in a coercive manner, in gross violation of international law, to drive away fishermen from traditional fishing grounds, to intimidate its neighbors, to prevent exploitation of resources, and to prevent us from

The U.N.’s first survey of international wellbeing ranks Thailand second only to Singapore in our region.Two years after declaring March 20 the International Day of Happiness, the United Nations has released its first World Happiness Report. The U.N. has formally recognized the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human goal. It can be argued that the U.N. has far more important issues to concentrate on, but surely we can all agree that happiness is every human’s deepest wish ― and therefore a

Let’s acknowledge what’s obvious: The way Malaysia has handled the loss of Flight 370 has been pathetic. What’s less obvious is China’s role in this sorry spectacle.The biggest aviation mystery since Amelia Earhart disappeared isn’t over for Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, and it may never be. Not with the families of the 154 Chinese passengers (out of 239 people) on board the missing Malaysian Air jet accusing his government of a coverup. Not with puzzled observers around the world wonder

Several hundred students stormed and occupied Taiwan’s national legislature on March 18 over objections to a new trade agreement with China, which they claimed was railroaded through the legislative process. One week later they remain in the chambers, supported by thousands of protestors, and an influential coterie of Chinese celebrities (other protesters were violently evicted from the government’s executive offices on Monday), blocking a vote on the pact. Inadvertently, perhaps, they also now

PARIS ― One day, monuments to Vladimir Putin may stand in Russian cities, bearing the inscription: “The man who returned Crimea to Mother Russia.” But perhaps monuments will be erected on many European squares as well, acclaiming Russia’s president as “The Father of United Europe.” Indeed, Putin’s swift move to annex Crimea has done more to harmonize European governments’ views on Russia than dozens of bilateral or multilateral meetings.In Berlin last week, I heard French and German elites speak

One year into its risky experiment with monetary easing, Japan has a confidence problem on its hands.Let’s dispense with all this “Abenomics” stuff. Until Prime Minister Shinzo Abe serves up even just one of the epochal reforms he promised 15 months ago, Japan’s drive to end deflation and restore growth should bear the name of the man doing all the heavy lifting and taking all the risks: central bank Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda.As he marks his first anniversary at the Bank of Japan, Kuroda has some rem

A group of nerds and wonks is having some hideously boring meetings this week in Singapore. You should care: What they produce could change the nature of the Internet.On March 14, the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration said it would relinquish oversight of ICANN, the nonprofit group that has managed the name-and-address system of the Internet since 1998. To simplify a bit, ICANN ― the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ― is what ensures that you magi

It has become a truism in discussions of Russia’s takeover of Crimea that in the post-World War II international order, countries no longer rewrite borders through force ― or if they do, rarely find themselves faced with determined opposition from other states. As Secretary of State John F. Kerry put it, the Crimea campaign is a “19th century act.”Such statements ignore major pieces of inconvenient history. Though it is too early to say much about the 21st century, the late 20th century saw coun

As we note the 25th anniversary of the birth of Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web, the integrity of the Internet is threatened as never before. China and Russia are launching cyberattacks at unprecedented levels, and the NSA’s hacking and spying are destroying trust in technology.In that context, the Obama administration has announced it will give up U.S. control of the Internet to an international governing body. This has been in the works for more than a decade ― but the president needs to be c