These days the news from abroad is mostly grim. So it was inspiring last week to watch Malala Yousafzai ― the Pakistani teen shot in the head by the Taliban because of her campaign for girls’ education ― standing erect on a U.N. podium on her 16th birthday. It was even more inspiring to hear her moving speech, delivered in a clear, confident voice, which called for free, compulsory schooling worldwide.She recalled the October day when a talib jumped into her school van, aimed at her forehead poi

MOSCOW ― In a recent speech in Berlin, U.S. President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to nuclear disarmament and proposed steps toward achieving that goal. But Russia has made clear that it does not plan to pursue further reductions to its nuclear arsenal any time soon.In the speech, Obama announced that the United States is prepared to cut its nuclear arsenal by up to one-third. He also proposed major reductions in the number of tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) deployed in Europe. Moreove

LONDON ― Egypt’s crisis has been called the worst in its history. But in fact, it bears a striking resemblance to a previous episode, almost 60 years ago.On February 28, 1954, almost a million protesters besieged Cairo’s Abdin Palace, then being used by Gamal Abdel Nasser and other leaders of the July 1952 coup. The protesters’ main demands were the restoration of Egypt’s fragile democratic institutions, the release of political prisoners, and the army’s return to its barracks.The two-month cris

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants a mandate in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, and voters look set to give him one. The question is whether he understands what he’s getting. Polls show that Japanese want Abe to fix the economy. Optimism and stock prices shot up earlier this year after the Bank of Japan began a massive quantitative-easing program and Abe’s government announced stimulus plans to rouse Japan from its 20-year funk. The prime minister now says he needs control over both cham

By now it’s clear that the U.S.’s new policy toward Syria ― we use the word “new” advisedly ― remains unclear. The question is what President Barack Obama is willing to do about it. A month ago, the administration announced it would begin training and arming opposition fighters in Syria. Now it emerges that this aid hasn’t yet hit the ground, and when it does, it will involve only small arms in uncertain quantities. What exactly is the administration’s policy here? If the goal is to roll back th

Japanese people can be surprisingly vague when stating their opinions. This can be seen either as a practical way to handle difficult topics without offending the other person or a way of avoiding humiliation.Questioned on his attitude toward Japan’s past, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is trying to be ambiguous by employing aimai, literally a doubled-edged approach.He complains that part of Japan’s history has been made a diplomatic issue, willfully ignoring the fact that Japan’s militarist

There is an irony to the sell-off in emerging markets recently. It is the result of a rare dose of uplifting news from the developed world ― the U.S. economy is showing enough strength to prompt the Federal Reserve to signal a paring back of its quantitative easing program.In tumultuous times such as these we must look at the economic fundamentals to separate the “signal” from the “noise.” The key question today is: Are the emerging markets fundamentally broken, or is this a brief phase in which

From the start, it was a world-class piece of political theater.The recent massive demonstrations involving millions of Egyptians are said to have persuaded the Egyptian military to throw President Mohammed Morsi out of office. Actually, however, military and opposition leaders along with government and business officials appear to have planned all of it in advance.What better evidence could there be than the sudden, overnight resolution of several major problems that infuriated millions of Egyp