Only a few days after Kim Jong-il returned to Pyongyang from a week-long tour, it may be premature to assess the outcome of the North Korean leader’s latest China visit, his third in about a year. News dispatches by official Chinese and North Korean outlets provide few clues to substantial economic gains for the North but the visit again demonstrated the deepening ties between the two neighbors an

Editorial May 30, 2011

The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-il paid a successful visit to China from May 20 to 26. The attention-grabbing event marks the further consolidation of relations between the two neighbors. It also sends a strong signal to the outside world that the two will make joint efforts to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. This is Kim’s third visit to China

Viewpoints May 30, 2011

Voices critical of Prime Minister Naoto Kan appear to be getting louder within the Democratic Party of Japan. One cannot give high marks to Kan for his performance as the nation’s leader in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.Even so, as Japan faces the difficult task of reconstruction and bringing the nuclear accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant under control, DPJ poli

Viewpoints May 30, 2011

I recently returned from a week in Iraq, where I trained an elite security force unit on human rights and the law of combat operations. Discussions regarding the responsibility of commanders for the acts of their forces migrated to the issue of the United Nations’ International Criminal Court. One Iraqi officer asked me, “If the United States believes in accountability over impunity, why are you n

Viewpoints May 30, 2011

Prosecutors are investigating a bribery case involving a top Board of Audit and Inspection official ― a scandal that will have grave political implications. It is regarded as one of the numerous scandals of similar or greater magnitude that will certainly come during the final years of the Lee Myung-bak presidency.The criminal suspect, Eun Jin-su, is the first BAI commissioner to resign on suspici

Editorial May 29, 2011

The perseverance that people in northeastern Japan have shown after the massive earthquake and tsunami devastated their communities March 11 has impressed many people around the world.In Northeast Asia, anti-Japan feelings in China and South Korea seem to have receded since the catastrophe, thanks to Tohoku people’s dignified behavior.Under these circumstances, Prime Minister Naoto Kan held meetin

Viewpoints May 29, 2011

Jason Lamoreaux will graduate June 14 from Upper Merion High School. Last year at this time, he was navigating the college-application process, which includes the writing of a personal statement and this dilemma: Do I tell them what I think, or what I think they want to hear? Lamoreaux took what some might view as a risk. Instead of addressing world hunger or carbon emissions, he offered an honest

Viewpoints May 29, 2011

The phone call came in the middle of the night last month, when my brother Todd and I were visiting our father in a suburb of Portland, Ore. Todd’s fiancee, Dorothy Parvaz ― also my good friend and former colleague ― was missing. An editor from Al-Jazeera English, where she works, told Todd that no one had heard from her in 24 hours, not since she left Qatar to report on the violence in Syria.As a

Viewpoints May 29, 2011

Rarely have the differences between a U.S. president and an Israeli prime minister been so prominently displayed as they were last week when Barack Obama hosted Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Netanyahu’s visit capped a week of activity: Jordan’s King Abdullah visited a few days before and then Obama delivered a speech outlining his views of an eventual peace agreement.To no one’s surprise,

Viewpoints May 27, 2011

My grandmother didn’t have much money. She was a widow who had raised five children on her husband’s paycheck from the textile mill. So when she tried to give me $1,000 not to go into the Peace Corps, it was a very big offer.I told her that I wanted to serve and that it wasn’t about money.And I went ― to Togo, West Africa, in 1983. My grandmother’s fears were about the kind of men I would meet the

Viewpoints May 27, 2011

Last week, Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the club of leading male political figures who are known to have cheated on their spouses. Other members have included presidents (John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example), members or former members of Congress (among them, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich and John Ensign), and governors (including Eliot Spitzer and Mark Sanford).So w

Viewpoints May 26, 2011