Benjamin Netanyahu is so eager to see Mitt Romney elected president that he’s making a fool of himself.For the last couple of weeks, the Israeli prime minister has been the featured player in a Republican-sponsored TV ad playing in Florida. It shows excerpts from Netanyahu’s United Nations speech last month in which he tacitly attacks President Obama for his failure to set a clear red line for Iran’s nuclear program.“The world tells Israel: ‘Wait, there’s still time,’” he says. “And I say, wait

Viewpoints Oct. 17, 2012

NEW DELHI ― This month marks the 50th anniversary of China’s military attack on India, the only foreign war that communist-ruled China has won. Yet that war failed to resolve the disputes between the world’s two most populous countries, and its legacy continues to weigh down the bilateral relationship. While their economic heft is drawing increasing international attention, their underlying strategic rivalry over issues ranging from land and water to geopolitical influence in other regions usual

Viewpoints Oct. 17, 2012

Let me tell you about the worst thing I ever did to my son. When he was 4, I took him to a small basement apartment in a Manhattan brownstone. I then paid a man to give my son an intelligence test.The test was an attempt to deliver my son from the chaos of “normal” public school in my adopted hometown of Harlem into a gifted-and-talented program on the tony Upper West Side. My son performed pretty abominably. This did not shake me, as I was not very confident in how well I would have done had I

Viewpoints Oct. 17, 2012

PARIS ― America has collective attention deficit disorder, and in one way it’s a bigger threat than terrorism, cybersecurity dangers and the never-ending Middle East drama: Those other problems at least have the potential to be solved.We witnessed this phenomenon last week during the first presidential debate. Washington pundits and policy wonks tried to sift through the rhetorical sandstorm for logical solid ground amid such concepts as Mitt Romney’s revenue-neutral tax cuts and Barack Obama’s

Viewpoints Oct. 16, 2012

The first debate between incumbent U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney was widely judged to have gone in the latter’s favor. He came across as more focused, personable and yes, presidential, than the unusually tepid performance by Obama. No sooner had pundits declared the clash between the two vice-presidential candidates last week a draw, and minds were already focusing on the next big showdown between their respective bosses on Tuesday. Thus has the U.S. presi

Viewpoints Oct. 16, 2012

As she fights for her life in hospital, Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for demanding that she and other girls go to school, is rightly becoming the icon for 32 million girls worldwide who are out of primary school.Today, the girl from the Swat valley of Pakistan, who was forced to flee her village when the Taliban forced the closure of her school, should be adopted by the world. As she fights the Taliban, who labeled her campaign for girls’ education an “obscenity,” her

Viewpoints Oct. 16, 2012

The Jeongsu Scholarship Foundation is again haunting the Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate Park Geun-hye. According to news reports, the foundation has decided to sell off its stake in Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. and the Busan Ilbo, the largest daily in Busan, and use the sales proceeds for welfare projects in Busan and its surrounding South Gyeongsang Province.The foundation’s president Choe Phil-lip recently met MBC officials and agreed to sell its 30 percent stake in the broadcaster to the

Editorial Oct. 15, 2012

Recently, chaebol business groups have been slammed for encroaching upon business areas considered more suitable for small-business people, such as bakeries, pizza shops and restaurants. One more item needs to be added to the list ― tobacco retail.Lotte Group, the nation’s fifth largest chaebol with presence in diverse business fields including distribution, is under fire for using illegal means to earn profits from tobacco sales. Under the law, only shop operators who directly sell cigarettes t

Editorial Oct. 15, 2012

Salman Rushdie just published his memoir about his years under the “fatwa” by Ayatollah Khomeini. It is named “Joseph Anton” after the alias he used in those years. He was interviewed by Patt Morrison for an article that recently appeared in the Los Angeles Times. ― Ed.Q: In the new book you write that the protagonist ― you ― chooses ethics and the universality of freedom over fundamentalist religion and moral relativism. Is this the defining conflict of the epoch?A: I think so. I really wanted

Viewpoints Oct. 15, 2012

In the 1930s, Fortune magazine called weddings a “depression-proof” business; these days, the term is “recession resistant.” That isn’t exactly true, but there’s no denying that the U.S. wedding industry is big business today: Even in a sluggish economy, the average cost of a wedding in 2011 was $26,501, according to a Brides magazine survey. Much of the debt incurred by marriage-bound couples and their families stems directly from a desire to follow tradition ― to purchase the goods and service

Viewpoints Oct. 14, 2012