This year’s Arab Spring uprisings against authoritarian regimes included many prominent women: There was a Tunisian blogger who was among the first to alert the world to the country’s growing turmoil. And there were demonstrators, journalists, bloggers and tweeters in Egypt who forced the February ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.But since those inspiring days, the news from this region has paint

CAIRO ― In the months since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, his successors have signaled a shift in foreign policy by reaching out to former adversaries. Egypt’s government has welcomed Iranian diplomats and embraced the Palestinian group Hamas. Many interpret such moves as clear evidence of Egypt’s desire for a diplomacy that is not subordinate to American interests.But Mubarak ne

It is easy to see how a commercial against nuclear power could influence a voter. A Taiwanese family is enjoying supper when alarms ring out. Images of people in hazmat suits fill the television screen as an announcer reports horrific events: thousands dead, millions evacuated, parts of northern Taiwan unlivable for generations. This theoretical TV spot then ends with the tagline: “Is Nuclear Powe

Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear energy is a monumental policy shift that might threaten the competitiveness of the German industry.The country’s coalition government decided Monday to abolish all of its 17 nuclear reactors by 2022. Older nuclear reactors built before 1980, which have already been taken off the grid, will remain offline permanently. The remaining nine reactors will be phased

Philippine President Aquino told reporters in Brunei last week that a military confrontation between the Philippines and China would be “no contest.” In terms of military strength, China has “a great advantage,“ he said. “Even in a boxing match, there’s one and half billion of them, (while) we are barely 100 million.”All true, of course. But stating the obvious seems totally unnecessary and counte

Media reports that the prices of new homes in major Chinese cities are plummeting at double-digit rates amount to nothing more than bunkum and wishful thinking. Admittedly, shrinking sales of new apartments can be observed in most Chinese cities nowadays. But this is just a possible harbinger, not evidence, that property prices have begun to drop. China’s rocketing housing prices are so unpopular

The Pentagon is developing a new cyberwarfare strategy that calls for the use of military force ― including conventional weapons ― in response to certain kinds of damaging online attacks on U.S. institutions. That’s fine in theory; if foreign agents launch a cyberattack on, say, the nation’s electrical grid, it may be both reasonable and proportionate to fire missiles at, say, the attacker’s energ

The economic recovery is 2 years old this month. Isn’t that reassuring? I didn’t think so. As recoveries go, this one is as blah as it gets. Judging by the most recent indicators, we may be headed for a double dip, or perhaps a period of flatlining that feels just as bad.Job growth is sluggish and unemployment is again on the rise. In the first three months of this year, the economy slowed substan

The editorial in The Korea Herald, June 7, 2011, states that “The spreading of English-only lectures in Korean universities is likely to slow, as presidents and deans have concluded that they have been largely ineffective because of the unpreparedness from both professors and students.” This is not forward thinking in a global society that embraces English as the language of science and business.

Thirty years ago, on June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control published a notice of a strange illness affecting five Los Angeles gay men, two of whom died before the report could be published. The illness soon acquired the designation AIDS, along with a burden of fear and misinformation that it has never quite shaken.The decades of terror and rage and sacrifice and nobility that followed have