An anxious world, watching for signs of instability after the death of Kim Jong-il, has been reassured for the time being. After 37 years of brutal rule marked by firing squads and concentration camps, a father’s arrangements for transfer of power to his third son, Kim Jong-un, appear to be moving along smoothly. But in the end, Kim’s legitimacy and political survival depend on whether or not he can resolve the ever-present threat of hunger and achieve economic reforms that could obviate a regim

CAIRO ― “Whatever the majority in the People’s Assembly, they are very welcome, because they won’t have the ability to impose anything that the people don’t want.” Thus declared General Mukhtar al-Mulla, a member of Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).Al-Mulla’s message was that the Islamists’ victory in Egypt’s recent election gives them neither executive power nor control of the framing of a new constitution. But General Sami Anan, Chief of Staff and the SCAF’s deputy hea

As Newt Gingrich lashes out at “liberal elites,” Mitt Romney is casting the 2012 campaign as “free enterprise on trial” ― and Romney defines free enterprise as achieving success through “risk-taking.” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue, defending Romney, explains “this economy is about risk. If you don’t take risk, you can’t have success.”But who do they think is bearing the economic risks? The higher you go in today’s economy, the easier it is to make a pile of money without taking

Even as two-thirds of Americans now say that there are strong conflicts between rich and poor, another great American division is slowly healing. As National African-American History Month begins tomorrow (Feb. 1), we should celebrate the decline of racial segregation in America for the fourth consecutive decade. While there are far too many children ― of all races ― who are raised in the midst of poverty and desperation, the lessening of segregation reminds us that our nation continues to have

BERKELEY ― Neville Chamberlain is remembered today as the British prime minister who, as an avatar of appeasement of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, helped to usher Europe into World War II. But, earlier in that fateful decade, relatively soon after the start of the Great Depression, the British economy was rapidly returning to its previous level of output, thanks to Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain’s reliance on fiscal stimulus to restore the price level to its pre-depression tra

This month another new slate of judges will be appointed to serve in the South Korean courts. One of the most striking aspects of this process is the large number of youthful faces among the new appointees. Many of the new judges will be less than 30 years old as they are appointed to one of the most powerful positions in Korean society. In this position they have the power to free or imprison their fellow citizens, to separate parents and children or to make or break the businesses and liveliho