During my junior high school years in the 1950s, we were taught Oriental history, mainly of China, in the first year, Western history in the second and the national (Korean) history in the senior year. It was shortly after the Korean War and teachers were strongly patriotic, and thoroughly anticommunist, of course.In the first and second years, we enjoyed the stories of the heroes of China, Europe and America as if we were reading fairy tales. But in the senior year, we learned chapter after cha

DOHA ― “They are armed I am not going to fight a losing battle and kill my men over a demolished shrine,” said Fawzi Abd al-’Aali, the former Libyan interior minister, before he “resigned” last August. He was referring to the armed Salafi groups that were accused of destroying Sufi shrines. One of the accused groups was the Ansar al-Shariah Brigade, which was quick to support the demolition, but denied any responsibility for it.Ahmed Jibril, Libya’s deputy ambassador to London, has now accused t

When people reach a comfortable standard of living, they often turn to cultural activities such as watching movies, attending concerts and visiting art exhibitions to enrich their lives. When big corporations make a fortune, they donate money to libraries and museums as a goodwill gesture of returning their profits to society. Sometimes, they establish a cultural foundation through which they can promote cultural exchange. (The Daesan Foundation, for one, comes to mind). And when movie directors

WASHINGTON, D.C. ― Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have again hit a wall, but the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appears unconcerned. Indeed, Khamenei seems convinced that neither the United States nor Israel will attack its nuclear facilities ― at least not before the U.S. presidential election in November. Ironically, while Khamenei is no fan of democracy, he relies on the fact that his principal enemies are bound by democratic constraints. Khamenei controls Iran’s

NEW DELHI ― The ongoing disruption of the “monsoon session” of the Indian parliament has showcased both the resilience of India’s democracy and the irresponsibility with which its custodians treat it.Demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the allegedly improper allocation of coal-mining blocks to private companies, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has stalled parliament’s work for three of the session’s four weeks. The repeated paralysis of parliament by slogan-shou

PARIS ― With every passing week, the Syrian conflict increasingly resembles the Spanish Civil War. The images of warplanes bombing civilians and destroying cities have turned Aleppo into a latter-day version of Guernica, immortalized in Picasso’s masterpiece. But the real similarities between the two conflicts are to be found in the behavior of the international community’s main actors, which have again taken opposite sides. On one side stand Russia and Iran, cynically determined to buttress Pre

It’s a strange time to be a woman. I say this not because state legislatures enacted no less than 95 restrictions on reproductive rights this year. I say it not because, at the same time, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker repealed his state’s equal pay law and Wisconsin state Sen. Glenn Grothman conjectured that “money is more important for men.” Or because, just last month, an alarming number of male legislators demonstrated serious confusion about the birds and the bees.I’m saying it because Naomi W