Last week, when Hillary Clinton released a video announcing her support for gay marriage, Twitter went wild. It was totally expected ― her husband and daughter took the same position months earlier ― and didn’t have as much political import as Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman’s announcement this month that he now favors same-sex marriage. The rules are different for Hillary Clinton. No non-incumbent in the history of contemporary U.S. presidential politics ever looked so formidable three year

Viewpoints March 27, 2013

Philippine President Benigno Aquino faces a huge roadblock in his push to end the poverty weighing on his 106 million people: the Catholic Church. I was in the predominantly Catholic nation earlier this month when the Vatican named the first non-European as pope in more than 1,200 years. Filipinos rejoiced in the choice of a Latin American pontiff with a passion for helping the poor. One- fifth of Filipinos live in slum conditions even as the economy grows 6.8 percent. News of Pope Francis’s ele

Viewpoints March 26, 2013

I’m certain Sarah Palin spoke for many when she tweeted upon hearing the news that a New York judge had prevented implementation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to regulate sugary drinks:“Victory in NYC for liberty-loving soda drinkers. To politicians with too much time on their hands we say: Govt, stay out of my refrigerator!”No doubt those “liberty lovers” view dietary habits as a matter of free will and personal responsibility. If only things were so simple. There’s no question that most

Viewpoints March 26, 2013

President Obama gave a great speech in Jerusalem last week.He promised again to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, and pledged undying moral and military support for the Jewish state. Only then did he urge Israelis not to forsake efforts to negotiate peace with the Palestinians. His rhetoric was so powerful that it elicited repeated cheers from about 1,000 Israeli students in the audience.So, now what?One can’t help but recall that Obama also gave a great speech to students in Cairo in 2009, aimed at

Viewpoints March 26, 2013

President Park Geun-hye has started the process of building trust with North Korea by allowing a private organization to provide a humanitarian aid package to the isolated country. Last Friday, the Ministry of Unification permitted the Eugene Bell Foundation, an aid organization that has long provided humanitarian services to the North, to ship some 680 million won worth of medicine for treatment of tuberculosis patients in the North.The approval was the first granted by the Seoul government sin

Editorial March 25, 2013

One of the political reform pledges made by both the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party during the presidential election campaign was to stop nominating candidates for elections in the basic units of local government ― provincial cities, counties and districts of metropolitan cities. Now they face an early test of their commitment to political reform as by-elections are to be held in five constituencies on April 24 to elect new local government heads or fill vac

Editorial March 25, 2013

I hope President Obama won’t take it personally, but during his visit in my country I had important business in New York and Los Angeles. Had I known that his visit would finally bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians, I would have canceled my trip and stayed in Israel to be witness to history in the making.The fact that I decided to go anyway doesn’t mean that I wasn’t watching the visit closely. After all, the future of my children and my grandchildren is at stake here. I followed the v

Viewpoints March 25, 2013

The horse-meat storm that broke over Europe two months ago has been in one respect a tempest in a horseshoe, because it posed no threat to human health. That’s not a minor caveat in an industry where, in the U.S. alone, tainted food kills 3,000 people each year and sickens 48 million. The horse-meat substitution has struck a nerve, however, as people wonder what else they’re eating that isn’t what they think it is. It could be almost anything. The list of counterfeit foods Interpol found in worl

Viewpoints March 25, 2013

Start thinking the unthinkable. We as a nation have to start talking about the prospects for nuclear war. President Barack Obama says Iran might have a bomb in a year. To hold back the day, the U.S. and Israel have conducted cyberwar, and Israel has apparently assassinated Iranian scientists. But even if Israel attacks to stop Iran’s bomb making now, the day will dawn. What will we do if Israel threatens Tehran with nuclear obliteration? What if North Korea aims a warhead at Seoul? And what if t

Viewpoints March 25, 2013

Europe’s handling of a bailout for Cyprus is looking more chaotic by the minute. Negotiations have descended into a three-way game of chicken among the island nation, Russia and the euro area’s leaders. The initial plan to make insured depositors pay for part of the bailout was terrible. The Cypriot parliament rejected it, and now the European Central Bank has set a deadline of March 25, warning that unless a new deal is reached it will pull the plug on the funding that’s keeping Cyprus’s bankin

Viewpoints March 24, 2013