In 2011, we witnessed the fall or death of dictators in various countries. For example, Mubarak in Egypt had to dishonorably resign from his post after 30 years of ruthless rule, forced out by mass protests by the Egyptian people. In October, Gaddafi of Libya was killed by angry rebels after 42 years of iron-fisted rule. Who in the world would have expected that the mighty Gaddafi, who had wielded absolute power as the “King of Kings” in North Africa, and had antagonized the West with various te

NEWPORT BEACH ― A new economic order is taking shape before our eyes, and it is one that includes accelerated convergence between the old Western powers and the emerging world’s major new players. But the forces driving this convergence have little to do with what generations of economists envisaged when they pointed out the inadequacy of the old order; and these forces’ implications may be equally unsettling.For decades, many people lamented the extent to which the West dominated the global eco

NEW YORK ― The world’s greatest shortage is not of oil, clean water, or food, but of moral leadership. With a commitment to truth ― scientific, ethical, and personal ― a society can overcome the many crises of poverty, disease, hunger, and instability that confront us. Yet power abhors truth, and battles it relentlessly. So let us pause to express gratitude to Vaclav Havel, who died this month, for enabling a generation to gain the chance to live in truth.Havel was a pivotal leader of the revolu

SEOUL ― According to North Korean state television, the heart attack that killed Kim Jong-il on Dec. 17 was “due to severe mental and physical stress from overwork.” That report instantly raised a question in my mind: if we accept the regime’s diagnosis, why did Kim need to work so hard, despite his frail health? In some sense, his sudden death seems to symbolize the helplessness of a desperate leader confronting overwhelming challenges.Seen in this light, the more important question is whether

The defining political issue of 2012 won’t be the government’s size. It will be who government is for.Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government.But the surge of cynicism engulfing America isn’t about how big government has become. It’s a growing perception that our government is no longer working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street and the very rich.In a recent Pew Foundation poll, 77 percent of responden

The career of Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” was marked by a series of historical firsts ― most of them dubious at best. He was, to begin, the first ruler of a Marxist-Leninist state to inherit absolute power through hereditary succession from his father, “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung, founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK.He was also the first ruler of an urbanized, literate society to preside over a mass famine in peacetime: The Great North Korean Famine of the

KABUL, Afghanistan ― Gen. John Allen insists that there is “no daylight” between him and President Obama about policy for continued troop withdrawals from Afghanistan next year. That may be technically true, but a political battle is brewing over the future pace of the U.S. military drawdown here. Allen, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, says the White House hasn’t given him any timetable for further cuts after September 2012. That’s when the last of the 30,000 “surge” troops Obama di