Castro’s playbook is different from Mubarak’s

Somewhere in Havana, Fidel Castro is probably laughing out loud to see Hosni Mubarak lose his grip on power after 30 years of undisputed leadership. In Castro’s eyes, no doubt, the octogenarian Mr. Mubarak brought a world of trouble on himself by trying to mollify Western critics through the creation of a phony democracy that would give his regime a veneer of respectability.Mr. Mubarak was never a

Feb. 16, 2011

Don’t hinder EPA from regulating emissions

Temperatures in Wisconsin are expected to rise by midcentury by an annual average of 6 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists and others in state government. Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record based on global surface temperature. It was also the wett

Feb. 16, 2011

[Marifeli Perez-Stable] Education is the key to success

Is the United States in decline? Twenty-five years ago Americans feared Japan would make us No. 2, but then in the 1990s our economy boomed and Japan’s stagnated. Now the fears have returned.China, India, Brazil and other emerging economies are roaring ahead. China, our closest competitor, holds more than 20 percent of the $4.3 billion in U.S. Treasury securities purchased by foreigners.Deficit re

Feb. 16, 2011

[Joshua Muravchik] Revolution germ will spread in the Arab World

Few bets are safer today than that we will see more uprisings in the Middle East in 2011, though maybe not everywhere. One of the ironies of revolution is that it is hardest to do where it is needed most. Hosni Mubarak was a dictator, but his rule was neither absolute nor bloodthirsty.Revolutions often produce something worse than they replace. But in the case of Egypt the nature of the protests g

Feb. 16, 2011

[Matthew Lynn] Women can win corporate sex war without Ackermann

If there is one German banker who isn’t taking gender equality seriously, it is Josef Ackermann.The Deutsche Bank AG chief executive officer is in hot water over flippant remarks he made about women serving on bank management boards. Now some German ministers are calling for mandatory quotas to be introduced, forcing companies to appoint women to top positions.If it happens, it will be following a

Feb. 16, 2011

Don’t let territorial dispute just drift along

During their meeting in Moscow last week, Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, discussed the bilateral territorial dispute over four islands off Hokkaido but failed to reach agreement as they reiterated their countries’ conventional stances.Japan-Russia relations have become seriously strained since Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited one of the four isl

Feb. 15, 2011

[Martin Khor] A new dawn, but many questions linger

People across the world were mesmerized last week by the remarkable images of the dramatic events in Egypt that eventually propelled President Hosni Mubarak out of office on Friday.In the end, the courage, determination and fighting spirit of the millions of mainly young people that packed into streets in protest in many cities overcame a president who had been entrenched in power for over 30 year

Feb. 15, 2011

[Trudy Rubin] Egyptians must handle revolution carefully

As Cairo erupted in jubilation on Friday over the announcement that Hosni Mubarak had stepped down, I remembered another celebration of revolution I witnessed in 1979.I was visiting some Syrian leftists in a rickety wooden house in the heart of the old city of Damascus as they gathered around a crackly short-wave radio set and broke out the whiskey. They were celebrating the return of Ayatollah Ru

Feb. 15, 2011

[David Pauly] Rumblings may lead to Arab democracy

Is this 1989 in the Arab world?Twenty-two years ago, the Soviet Union’s police state began collapsing under its own weight ― leading to democracy and capitalism throughout Eastern Europe.A striking parallel is developing in the Mideast.Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, protesting peacefully, forced President Hosni Mubarak, 82, to resign last week after 30 years of autocratic rule.The Egyptian ma

Feb. 15, 2011

Getting serious about reducing national debt

As the nation struggles to revive a stalled economy, the Obama administration and House Republicans are on a collision course over whether to lift the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling before it expires on March 4. The two sides must reach agreement within days to avoid stifling the economic recovery that is barely under way.The administration insists that there is no alternative to raising the debt cei

Feb. 14, 2011

[Kevin Hassett] Laffer curve pays billions if Obama just asks

The U.S. is about to have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world because our competitors have noticed that revenue goes up as rates go down. Multinational corporations today nimbly move their profits to the friendliest environment, rewarding tax havens like never before.It looks as if President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are going to miss out on the single biggest poli

Feb. 14, 2011

[William Pesek] Roubini’s next crisis is scary food for thought

Forget Egypt for a moment. Skip the water crisis in China. Look past angst on the streets of Bangladesh. If you want to see how extreme the effects of surging food prices are becoming, look to wealthy Japan.So big are the increases that economists are buzzing about them pushing deflationary Japan toward inflation. Yes, rising costs for commodities such as wheat, corn and coffee might do what trill

Feb. 14, 2011