The spread of popular revolt in the Middle East to Libya has exacerbated a spike in oil prices and gasoline costs at the pump. In turn, this has stimulated widespread complaints about the lack of a coherent U.S. foreign policy toward despots in the region. This is not the first time this has happened. More than four decades ago, a military coup, led by a 27-year-old Moammar Gadhafi, overthrew Li...

Hugo Chavez is trying to come to the rescue of his friend and fellow “colonel,” Moammar Gadhafi. The Venezuelan president has offered to mediate Libya’s civil war, and warned against any foreign intervention in support of Libya’s opposition, which now controls much of the east of the country, including the port of Benghazi, home of the Hugo Chavez soccer stadium. The Venezuelan government even ra...

Japaneses Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara has admitted in a meeting of the House of Councillors Budget Committee that he received political donations from a South Korean resident living in Kyoto. This is a problem that cannot be forgiven just because the amount of money involved was small or because he may not have received it intentionally. The Political Funds Control Law prohibits politicians ...

It would take most of us a few dozen lifetimes to amass 2 million followers on Twitter. And yet Charlie Sheen managed it in less than a week. Last month, CBS Corp. discontinued the hit comedy show “Two and a Half Men” after Sheen’s public jousting with senior management over a binge that the wild-man actor has described as “epic” and “radical.” Since then, he has become one of the biggest names ...

Japan’s relations with its immediate neighbors have taken a drastic dip in recent times. One major problem is the disputed territorial claims that Japan faces with China, South Korea and Russia. Japan controls Senkaku Islands (Diaoyutai in Chinese), a chain of islands also claimed by China and Taiwan. In early September 2010, Japanese patrol boats clashed with a Chinese fishing trawler near the ...

The 2012 presidential campaign is finally stirring to life, with would-be Republican candidates Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee musing about whether Mitt Romney should be disqualified by similarities between Massachusetts’ Romneycare and Obamacare. As if on cue, President Barack Obama defended his health care overhaul in remarks to the nation’s governors by associating it with Romney’s, an embra...

Always eager for more revenue, the Taiwanese government is now seeking to take from the rich with a proposed new “luxury tax.” Estimated to be capable of generating NT$15 billion ($511 million) a year, the proposed new tax is intended to close the ever-widening wealth gap and curb real property speculation, which has been rampant since Taiwan’s economic fortunes began turning around last year. T...

Around the world, authoritarian regimes have tried to keep their citizens from hearing news of the protests raging throughout the Middle East and in their own countries. Some have tried shutting down cellphone and Internet service, but that has only sparked new flames of anger and discontent. Even the Chinese government, which has unleashed the most sophisticated Internet blocking system in the ...

The Internet and the airwaves are clogged with contradictory predictions of what the Mideast upheavals will mean to the region ― and to us. I have conservative readers calling me an idiot for not understanding that the Egyptian revolution is a huge victory for the Islamists, even as Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., extols the hope for secular democracy in Cairo alongside his buddy, Arizona Republica...