[Trudy Rubin] Behind Obama’s risky humanitarian mission in Libya

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

March 28, 2011

Pre-empt the next economic crisis in U.S.

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

March 27, 2011

[William Pesek] Lady Gaga is shaming those spending $309 billion

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

March 27, 2011

[Gwyneth Cravens] U.S. needs to leave Mideast bad guys alone

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

March 27, 2011

[Gwyneth Cravens] Nuclear power wins it over fossil fuel romance

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

March 27, 2011

Streamlining relief operations in Japan

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

March 25, 2011

[Rebecca Solnit] Surprised by the Arab revolutions

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

March 25, 2011

[Editorial] Can election end the Thai political impasse?

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

March 25, 2011

[Editorial] Pygmies now in Pakistan leadership positions

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

March 25, 2011

[Li Qinggong] Politics behind attacks on Libya

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

March 25, 2011

Put an end to the absurd budget farce

Last week, Congress passed yet another stopgap measure funding the U.S. government through April 8, but lawmakers still can’t decide on a final budget for the current fiscal year. It was the sixth such temporary extension since the budget year began. “It’s a terrible way to do business,” said Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va. Apparently, lots of frustrated Americans agree with him.A new Pew Research Cent

March 24, 2011

[Margaret Carlson] Girl power tests history’s great-man theory

There’s no better way to make the point that President Barack Obama is indecisive, dithering and prone to bow (literally) and scrape (figuratively) to foreigners than with a flood of reports claiming it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, watching Colonel Moammar Gadhafi turn back the rebels and strafe his own citizens, who declared war on Libya.Not by herself, of course, and not “war,” which

March 24, 2011

[Roger Bilham] Japan’s megaquake is template for U.S. west coast

As the world’s attention remains fixed on Japan’s crippled nuclear reactors, scientists are beginning to understand the details of the megaquake that brought so much ruin to Japan, saying it’s probably the largest temblor to hit the nation in 1,000 years.Seismologists have known for some time that over periods of millennia such megaquakes occur. They pack the punch of three or more major earthquak

March 24, 2011