PRAGUE ― The grim spectacle of young monks, nuns, and lay people setting themselves on fire to protest conditions in their homeland is a stark reminder of the gloom and despair that now prevails on the Tibetan Plateau. These acts of self-immolation ― at least 36 since March 2011 ― have been staged to protest the increasingly heavy controls that China’s government in Beijing has imposed on Buddhist religious practices. At the end of May, a self-immolation occurred for the first time, in Lhasa, th

ROME ― The romantic side of the Germanic soul has always loved the Italian volksgeist. Like Goethe, northerners have long sought to escape, if only on temporary vacations, an unforgiving ethos of prudence and discipline in search of the charming inefficiency and sensuality of Mediterranean climes and culture.The single European currency, combined with the burdens of the Bismarck-invented welfare state that faces demographic demise and competition from the rising rest around the globe, has put an

NEW YORK ― Western media describe my friend and colleague Chen Guangcheng as a blind activist who made a flight to freedom when China allowed him to journey from Beijing to the United States. What is essential about Chen is neither his blindness nor his family’s visit to the U.S., but the fact that he upholds a vision of universal human rights, a vision that can be fully realized only when, and if, China honors its promise to allow him one day to return home.China has a history of forcing schola

The escalation of ethnic and sectarian violence in Myanmar has not only raised questions about the future of the democratic reforms in the country but also highlighted the plight of the country’s Muslim minority.The unrest in Myanmar’s Rakhine state erupted last week when around 300 Arakan Buddhists allegedly attacked a bus in which Muslims were traveling, killing 10 passengers apparently in retaliation for the rape and killing of an Arakan girl allegedly by three Rohingya suspects. The ensuing

Doctors are threatening to stop treating patients in protest against the government’s plan to introduce a mandatory fixed-rate system for seven illnesses starting July 1.Ophthalmologists have already declared they will not perform any cataract operations during the first week of next month, asserting that the new plan would cause a significant drop in the quality of their services. Obstetricians, orthopedic surgeons and otolaryngologists have also decided to temporarily stop conducting some of t

The prosecution has again disappointed us by coming up almost empty-handed after three months of reinvestigation into the allegations that officials of the Prime Minister’s Office illegally spied on civilians.Prosecutors did not bother to get to the heart of the scandal, leaving many central questions unanswered. Who was the mastermind behind the illegal surveillance? How deeply was the Office of the Senior Presidential Secretary for Civil Affairs involved in the affair? Had President Lee Myung-

All the debate about the pros and cons of a Greek exit from the euro area is missing the point: A German exit might be better for all concerned. Unless Europe’s leaders take some kind of radical action, such as adopting and executing some of the many reform ideas they have floated, the currency union is headed for disintegration. The problems of Greece, Ireland and Portugal have spread to Spain, the fourth-largest economy in the euro area. Italy is probably next. The other members of the currenc

Reports that the U.S. and Israel have tried repeatedly over the years to derail Iran’s nuclear weapons program by using malicious computer codes to cause machines at the country’s Natanz nuclear facility to malfunction have lifted the veil of secrecy over the war unfolding on the world’s newest battlefield. The elaborately designed and executed series of cyber-attacks reportedly slowed Iran’s progress toward getting a bomb, but they also raise troubling questions about the United States’ own vul