A British parliamentary committee hearing into the transgressions of media baron Rupert Murdoch offered a surprising Benny-Hill pie-in-the-face moment on Tuesday. But the day’s Academy Award for legislative farce still went to the U.S. House of Representatives.By a margin of 234 to 190, House Republicans rammed through a bill labeled “Cut, Cap and Balance,” the purpose of which is to Starve, Gut a

A madman calling himself a Christian fundamentalist or an anti-Islam crusader can be as dangerous to global peace as al-Qaida. The horrible fact is that the man who killed 93 in a few hours on Friday hailed from Norway, reputedly the last place to spawn terrorism on earth.As investigation into Anders Breivik’s bombing of a government building in Oslo and his shooting at hundreds of youths on a pol

Chinese President Hu Jintao presented China’s foreign policy doctrines and strategies at the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party of China on July 1. Actually, it was a summary of the section dealing with Chinese foreign policy in his speech at the 17th Party Congress in 2007. Hu has elaborated on Chinese foreign policy on many other occasions. The key word for Chinese foreign policy is “a harm

The FBI opened an inquiry late last week into Rupert Murdoch’s media empire amid allegations that British reporters tried to access cellphone messages and records of Sept. 11 victims. Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., among the members of Congress who sought the investigation, wrote to FBI Director Robert Mueller, citing news reports that reporters attempted to obtain phone records of victims through br

President Barack Obama says that if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, the consequences will be dire. A long list of economists and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce agree. Even the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate agrees.But there’s also another view.Many House Republicans ― even those who believe the debt ceiling must be raised ― aren’t buying the doomsday scenario. And they’re no

NEW YORK ― The eurozone crisis is reaching its climax. Greece is insolvent. Portugal and Ireland have recently seen their bonds downgraded to junk status. Spain could still lose market access as political uncertainty adds to its fiscal and financial woes. Financial pressure on Italy is now mounting.By 2012, Greek public debt will be above 160 percent of GDP and rising. Alternatives to a debt restr

Few would dispute that high school education is enough for the lowest two administrative positions on the one-to-nine scale. Nor would anyone deny that it does not take much formal education to sweep streets. But this common sense does not prevail in Korea, as shown by examples below.Last year, the Seoul metropolitan government selected 415 recruits to fill the vacant positions of grades eight and

ROME ― The euro contagion triggered by Greece’s sovereign-debt crisis has now infected Italy. Silvio Berlusconi’s government, together with a fiscally conscious opposition, managed to secure ― in only a few days ― parliamentary approval of a package of measures worth more than 50 billion euros, in order to restore market confidence in the soundness of Italy’s economic fundamentals.In the absence o

Michele Bachmann, meet Ben Haney.In other circumstances, Ben could have been a real asset to your campaign. He’s a 28-year-old Republican with experience as a traveling advance man for John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008. Ben was born and raised in the critically important suburbs of Philadelphia. Having taught government at a high school, Ben now runs his own real estate investment company and co

Suddenly, all the major pro-Israel organizations are anguishing about “delegitimization.” Those who criticize Israeli policies are accused of trying to delegitimize Israel, which supposedly means denying Israel’s right to exist.The concept of delegitimization has been used as a weapon against Israel’s critics at least as far back as 1975, when then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patr

WASHINGTON ― As the Obama administration steps up its support for regime change in Syria, the Arab Spring is moving into what could be its hottest phase. The puzzle is how to help the Syrian opposition gain power without foreign military intervention ― and without triggering sectarian massacres inside the country. For months, as protests mounted in Syria, President Obama waited to see if Bashar al

In 1989, following the collapse of the Communist Party of Burma, a number of armed ethnic armies entered into a series of ceasefire agreements with Rangoon. The fighting stopped, to a degree, but deep down nobody believed it would last. It was just a matter of time before the various groups resumed fighting.For more than two decades, the so-called peace deals rested on shaky ground with little eff

The wheels of justice turn slowly in Cambodia, but they grind nevertheless. Last month, a United Nations-backed tribunal began the second war crimes trials that attempt to hold accountable the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge. This trial is proving more contentious than its predecessor ― in which the defendant accepted both the legitimacy of the tribunal and the need for an accounting. This time,

The globalization issue is the most misunderstood and confusing topic today. In the last 20 years, there was a dominant view that globalization was good for everyone. But the Asian and global financial crises, caused in part by volatile global capital flows, have proved that there is what I called “global gain, local pain.” It does not mean that we reject globalization, but that there are risks th

Kansai Electric Power Co. manually shut down the No. 1 reactor at its Oi nuclear power plant in Oicho, Fukui Prefecture, on Saturday (July 16) to investigate what caused the pressure to drop inside a tank in the reactor’s emergency cooling system.The Oi nuclear plant is a major source of power, with an output capacity of nearly 1.2 million kilowatts. Kansai Electric, which depends on nuclear power

On July 7, News Corp, one of the world’s most powerful media organizations, announced that it was closing News of the World, Britain’s largest-selling newspaper. This decision was taken in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that first emerged in 2007, but which has deepened significantly over the past few weeks. Although Rupert Murdoch has claimed that News of the World was closed on moral grou

It was assumed that the ratification of the free trade agreement with the United States would be the focal point of contention when the National Assembly opens its August extraordinary session. The ruling Grand National Party had selected the motion for ratification as one of the main bills to act on in the face of fierce resistance from the opposition Democratic Party.The ruling party had apparen

Shortly after he was inaugurated in February 2008, President Lee Myung-bak selected 52 daily necessities and put their prices under tight control. Still, items whose prices gained continued to outnumber those whose prices fell.Since inflationary pressure started to build appreciatively during the second half of last year, the Lee administration has been monitoring changes in their prices around th

Although the presidential election in South Korea is more than a year away and a field of politicians vying to succeed current President Lee Myung-bak includes more than a dozen candidates, one name surfaces repeatedly as the likely winner. Rarely in modern Korean presidential politics has one unannounced candidate become so dominant over the rest of the competition more than a year before the ele

The European Union announced on the July 4 that it was to provide 10 million euros ($14.3 million) of emergency food aid to North Korea to be distributed through the World Food Program over the next three months ― until the end of September, just prior to the arrival of this year’s harvest. This aid represents a much delayed response to an initial request for humanitarian assistance sent by Foreig