Recently in Bangkok, I found myself wandering through the strange but distinctive arena for one of Asia’s latest conflicts: CentralWorld, supposedly the biggest shopping mall in Southeast Asia. Protesters supporting Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s populist ex-prime minister, had set up base camp in the mall’s plaza in May 2010. During a widely covered clash with security forces, they had set the building on fire, destroying much of it. The newly renovated mall ― and the traffic outside, restored

In 1982, I interviewed Syrian Information Minister Ahmed Iskander in Damascus, shortly after the regime had killed at least 10,000 people in the city of Hama.On his office wall hung a painting of an old Hama neighborhood with one of the waterwheels for which the city was famous. “That is our lovely city of Hama,” he told me calmly. “It’s perfectly peaceful. You should visit it someday.”He knew that I knew this neighborhood had been leveled to the ground.Back then, under the regime of Hafez al-As

The rest of the country may be tiring of it, but the drawn-out, high-decibel battle for the Republican presidential nomination is just fine with the Obama campaign.Why? Because the president’s strategists still expect to be facing Mitt Romney in the general election, and his unexpectedly tough fight to sew up the nomination has forced him to keep emphasizing his credentials as a conservative instead of moving toward the center, where the swing voters are.“The long primary fight is driving indepe

It being the feast of Saint Valentine, today (Feb. 14) is a favored moment to give or receive that ultimate lovers’ gift: a diamond. This year, however, isn’t a good one for those who want to know for sure that the stone’s origins are above reproach. That’s because the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, the international regime designed to disconnect human suffering from the rough-diamond supply chain, is losing its sparkle. As the chairman of the process for 2012, the U.S. is positioned to

Nothing better illustrates America’s sliding status in today’s Arab world than Egypt’s decision to try 16 Americans who work for pro-democracy groups there.On the surface, the strange story of this “criminal” case looks far less important than the Syrian government’s repression of its people. But this crisis has the potential to wreck U.S. relations with Egypt, a country that is still considered a key ally. And these charges graphically illustrate the decline of U.S. leverage in the new Middle E

Spurred by a study showing that whites were four times likelier than minorities to receive a presidential pardon, the House Judiciary Committee has asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to explain changes he plans to make in the pardon process. Eliminating disparities is easier said than done, but some reforms are obvious.Although presidents can issue pardons for any reason and without consulting anyone, typically applications are processed by the Justice Department and then forwarded with r

Mitt Romney appears to have all the foreign-policy savvy of someone who once visited Euro Disney, and it’s freaking me out. Not to say that President Obama is any more knowledgeable on that front, but at least he seems aware of his limitations, outsourcing foreign leadership to the French, the Brits, Hillary Clinton and private contractors.Never has the world been so interconnected, with power and influence becoming decentralized and regionalized. America’s problems ― economic or otherwise ― can