The Institutional Revolutionary Party’s Enrique Pena Nieto has twice been declared the winner of Mexico’s presidential election, yet the runner-up, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, refuses to recognize the results. Instead, the leftist candidate is preparing to hold a demonstration Sunday and threatening to establish a kind of shadow presidency, just as he did in 2006, when he narrowly lost that vote.That’s unfortunate. Mexico can’t afford the kind of long and divisive battle that Lopez Obrador is t

Recent disputes among some of the United States’ closest Asian allies over largely uninhabited islands in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), the East China Sea and the South China Sea underscore the challenges facing Washington in moving beyond the classic hub-and-spoke structure of its security system in the Western Pacific and in crafting a more collective approach. For some time ― and as most recently reiterated in the 2010 National Security Strategy, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review report and

As the dust settles from the political conventions in Florida and North Carolina, one issue important to the health care of older Americans is rising into the sunlight and finally getting some of the attention it needs. We don’t mean Medicare; for months, the campaigns have taken regular shots at each other on that. We mean Medicaid, the program generally thought of as health insurance for poor families. Yet one-third of Medicaid’s budget ― about $120 billion ― goes to fund long-term care for th

NEW YORK ― The memories are still fresh at the National September 11 Memorial, where the names of the victims ― including some 150 from Asia and the Pacific ― are inscribed into bronze parapets surrounding twin memorial pools, located in the footprints of the Twin Towers of the destroyed World Trade Center.Eleven years ago this month, more than two dozen Koreans were among the nearly 3,000 people killed in the United States by terrorist attacks on a date now immortalized as “9-11.” That day, and

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

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