The protests in Inner Mongolia were the result of an unfortunate mixture of economic and ethnic grievances, which spilled into public protests after a Mongol herder was run over while trying to block a convoy of coal trucks coming in from the grasslands.The fatality galvanized latent discontent over the mining industry’s penetration of the region. Critics see this as resource exploitation that deg

June 7, 2011

What annoys you? Traffic jams, car alarms, flight delays, phone trees, junk mail? People who cut in line? People who talk loudly on cellphones? People who eat noisily and clip their nails in public? You’re not alone. These are just some of the irksome things we confront daily.Since annoyances are ubiquitous, and so many people are annoyed so much of the time, you might think that science could off

June 7, 2011

If you care about green, it’s hard not to view these as the worst of times, marked by looming climate, water and energy crises, vanishing fisheries, mile-a-minute deforestation ― the list is numbingly endless. In response, we have a largely apathetic public, an environmental lobby rendered toothless by said apathy, a political left and center paralyzed by fear that protecting the planet might hurt

June 7, 2011

Last week, tens of thousands of Israelis flocked to Jerusalem to celebrate the anniversary of the unification of the city in the Six-Day War. They gave us locals the usual traffic jams, they sang the praises of Jerusalem at the top of their lungs and then they went away, leaving us struggling with the realities of our city, which are becoming more complex every year.Jerusalem has always invoked de

June 6, 2011

I recently enlisted a friend to sit down with me while waiting for our boys to finish a class one Saturday, and we each tried to remember what we had done on the previous Sunday. It was an agonizing exercise that resulted in a blank. I could almost feel the cognitive path my mind was taking, and it always ended with a wall.Conversations with our respective wives revealed that my friend had spent m

June 6, 2011

On June 2, Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, reportedly told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the South Korean government doesn’t want the U.S. providing food aid to North Korea. He also announced that the U.S. would resume humanitarian food assistance to Pyongyang without political considerations. We heartily welcome this policy shift of the U.S. gov

June 6, 2011

Mitch Daniels would have added some much-needed substance to the national dialogue. His reason for not running for president is a sad commentary on the sideshow our elections have become.I spoke with Indiana’s popular chief executive last week. We discussed how he had turned a $200 million deficit into a $1.3 billion surplus without raising taxes. And how his insistence on drastic spending cuts ha

June 6, 2011

“White Americans See Anti-White Bias on the Rise.” That was a headline in the Wall Street Journal in May, and more than any other domestic index or statistic, it’s that sentiment that should worry you about America’s future.While many commentators saw Barack Obama’s election as signaling the emergence of a post-racial America, it might one day be seen instead as the symbolic moment all Americans b

June 5, 2011

WASHINGTON ― As head bartender of the National Press Club, “Big Jack” Kujawski had a prime vantage point to witness the sad demise of print journalism over the past 25 years. To say he didn’t like what he saw is an understatement of star magnitude.When Kujawski arrived at the NPC in the mid-1980s, its 14th floor bar overlooking the historic Willard Hotel was crowded with hard-drinking and heavy-sm

June 5, 2011

ISLAMABAD ― Large events sometimes have unintended strategic consequences. This is turning out to be the case following the killing of Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad, a military-dominated town near Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.The fact that the world’s most wanted man lived for a half-dozen years in a large house within spitting distance of Pakistan Military Academy, where the countr

June 5, 2011

Prosecutors investigating the irregularities at Busan Savings Bank abruptly suspended their probe Friday. They sent testifiers home and walked out of their offices. They did not come to work on Saturday or Sunday either. It was a protest against a decision by lawmakers to abolish the prosecution’s most powerful investigation unit ― the Central Investigation Department of the Supreme Prosecutors’ O

June 5, 2011

The government has come up with a set of measures to curb the deeply entrenched practice of high-ranking bureaucrats descending into high-paying private-sector jobs immediately after their retirement. The package allows ministers, vice ministers, assistant ministers and heads of provincial governments to take a private sector job immediately after retirement. But it bans them for a year after reti

June 5, 2011

Credit downgrades can elicit fascinating reactions. Take a January move by Standard & Poor’s to cut Japan’s rating to the same level as China’s. I expected the backlash to come from Tokyo. Instead, it was the Chinese who were aghast. Every Chinese official I’ve met since is bewildered that 10 percent growth and $3 trillion of currency reserves don’t buy a better grade than the AA- China shares wit

June 5, 2011