Mexico, battered by an interminable narco war, hasn’t found a firm consensus on how to combat organized crime. In Spain, which has been plagued by the violence of the Basque group ETA, such a consensus was slow to develop, until the escalating cruelty of the attacks drove the majority to join or support huge, public demonstrations against the separatists. This rejection helped cripple the ETA and drive the organization to its recent repudiation of terrorism. In Colombia, a long and brutal civil

Everybody knows what the federal budget’s long-term problem is. The president knows. The Republicans in Congress know. The Democrats in Congress know. The policy community knows. You know.It’s Medicare.I am a physician who has been studying Medicare data throughout my professional life. But now that I’m closing in on becoming a beneficiary, I am thinking more about what I’d like my Medicare program to look like.My Medicare would be guided by three basic principles:It should not bankrupt our chil

Oh, to be a fly on the wall to hear what Chinese officials want in return for saving the euro. Yes, President Nicolas Sarkozy, we will take France’s Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre as collateral. The Mona Lisa will look grand hanging in Beijing. Toss in the Champs-Elysees and Louis Vuitton’s flagship store and we’ll consider swapping more of our $3.2 trillion of reserves for your bonds. Hi, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Aside from invitations to your bunga-bunga parties, we would be happy wit

Bangkok has become not only the last front in the battle against surging flood waters, but also a big question mark for future mapping of Thailand’s policies. The debate on how far the Thai government should go to protect the capital has been largely politicized at present, which is sad, but somewhat understandable. When a crisis reaches its climax, self-interests naturally come to the fore. This debate, however, needs to be addressed with a totally open mind after the waters recede.The crux of

Was it, indeed, a victory for President Aquino’s “all-out justice” campaign in Mindanao? That’s how the Armed Forces of the Philippines is characterizing the fall of a rebel stronghold in Zamboanga Sibugay province a few days ago. Described as a former camp of a dissolved faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the site is said to have very thick vegetation riddled with land mines, and is twice the size of Camp Aguinaldo. It was overrun by government troops following the Aquino administrat

In an attempt to restore fisheries in the Tohoku region devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the government on Oct. 15 decided to allow new private enterprises to engage in coastal fishery farming if certain conditions are met. It plans to submit a related bill to the current Diet session. The proposed idea will be only applied to coastal fishery farming in “special restoration zones.”The total damage to Tohoku’s fisheries from the tsunami is estimated at 1.2 trillion yen. The prop

The decision of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization on Monday to grant Palestine full membership should not be used as an excuse for the United States to cut funding for the cultural arm of the U.N. Nor does it justify the Israeli response to expand its new Jewish settlement plans. Both countries should recognize the trend of our times, which sees the Palestinian pursuit of rights and interests on the international stage as righteous. Though regarded as a symbol

“You reap what you sow” used to be a widely understood principle. Today, we seem to have lost that understanding as we watch the occupation of Wall Street and cities across the country. For three years, we have been hearing how big business is bad and how the rich are avoiding their fair share of taxes. President Barack Obama has been leading that charge, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that we are now seeing the spread of the class warfare he has helped to kindle. Let me say from the outset that

If you’re astounded by Herman Cain’s rise to the top of the Republican pyramid, remember that Americans have long had a soft spot for the mythological outsider who rides to the rescue.Movie director Frank Capra was great at mining that fantasy, most notably in 1939, when Jimmy Stewart used his aw-gosh gumption to clean up corruption in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” And, far more recently in “Dave,” Kevin Kline played the amiable, innocent owner of a temp agency who accidentally becomes preside