Here’s a crucial fact that you may not realize, given the week’s headlines: Libya is only a tragic sideshow to the historic events in the Middle East.Egypt is the place that counts when we consider the prospects for Arab democracy. Bahrain is the locale where Iran and the Saudis are contesting for power. Yemen, whose president is about to fall, is the country where a strong al-Qaida branch is base

Falling house prices and a backlog of foreclosures have turned 2011 into the most desperate year yet for many American homeowners. The pain just keeps coming, and government programs have proven ineffective at assisting many of those in danger of losing their houses.In the short run, now would be the worst time to strip away government subsidies that support many of those same beleaguered househol

You know things are bad when pop stars a world away get more fired up about a humanitarian crisis than a nation’s own leaders.Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan would no doubt take umbrage at this assertion. Many of Japan’s 126 million residents wouldn’t, as television cameras that had been fixed on the nuclear fiasco in Fukushima turn further north. We are getting an eyeful of millions in earthqua

With the current military operation in Libya, the U.S. has taken on a third campaign for forcible regime change in the Middle East.No matter how we might try to convince ourselves otherwise ― that we are only “protecting civilians” or “implementing the will of the international community” ― Libya now joins Afghanistan and Iraq as cases where the U.S. military is using force to bring down a Muslim

Amid all the hysteria about nuclear meltdowns and radiation poisoning, here’s something to consider: U.S. commercial reactors have never caused a single death.Worldwide, nuclear power has the lowest accident rate based on the amount of energy generated by any source. Compare that record with the havoc caused by dam failures and the disease and deaths wreaked by fossil-fuel pollution and explosions

As more than 10 days have passed since the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated northeastern Japan, the government should quickly review its setup so that it can carry out its relief operations as efficiently and effectively as possible.The extent of the damage wrought by the March 11 quake dwarfs that of Japan’s last big disaster ― the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake ― and Pri

There were surprises in this year’s unfinished revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.Many in the West were surprised that the Arab world, which we have regularly been told is medieval, hierarchical and undemocratic, was full of young men and women using their cellphones, their Internet access and their bodies in streets and squares to foment change through direct democracy and popular power.And

After they parted some years ago when his trusted sidekick left his Chart Thai Party for the much more attractive Thai Rak Thai Party, Banharn Silpa-acha said his ties with Newin Chidchob were over and done with. That was just over a decade ago. But over a recent dinner between the Bhumjai Thai and Chart Thai Pattana parties, the two political veterans basically kissed and made up as their henchme

It is Pakistan Day on March 23. While it brings back to mind the promise that the nation showed 71 years ago, also puts into sharp relief the failings and the follies of the later as well as the present generations in not living up to that promise. It was a vibrant people then, charged with a mission that they fulfilled in mere seven years to the utter amazement of the world; now, it is a depresse

U.S., British and French forces began their military strikes against Libya on Saturday (March 19) in an operation the United States has codenamed Operation Odyssey Dawn.The military action followed a West-engineered United Nations Security Council resolution on the establishment of a “no-fly” zone in Libya and started with an hours-long bombardment of the North African country.Western countries ha