CAIRO ― The air of hopefulness is so palpable in Egypt’s capital city ― as people try to digest what happened to them during their revolution ― that it’s easy to become a dreamer.This is Egypt’s interregnum of hope, a period that comes just after “people power” ousted a dictator, but before the meaning of the revolution has become truly clear. At this point, it’s still possible to imagine that Egy

PARIS ― Revolutions are known for devouring their children, but the people making the current revolution in the Middle East may prove indigestible. In greater danger are the Israelis. As for the United States, it faces a choice between jettisoning its traditional policy of supporting Arab dictators, or repositioning itself ― which is a paralyzing situation to be in.Most American commentators and a

It was a big week for glittery, over-the-top and slightly perplexing contests. First the Grammy Awards ceremony, with its requisite preening and prancing and bizarre outfits, then two evenings of the Westminster dog show, which offered more of the same.Not that the Leonberger or Finnish spitz showed up in a giant egg, as Lady Gaga did. Nor did fans of the bearded collie, which was among the runner

Surveying the GOP’s latest efforts to restrict abortion, I was recalled to a bit of personal history, which I try to not to think about.As with a lot of couples, the notice that me and my spouse would have a child was greeted with great joy. But about six months in, she started picking up weight at a rate that flummoxed and alarmed her doctors. Her body swelled like a water balloon, a description

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon has been fighting an uphill battle against the city council’s decision in favor of free lunches for all schoolchildren. The mayor, affiliated with the ruling Grand National Party, believes that it is a populist policy to provide lunch free of charge at primary schools regardless of the parents’ income levels. He demands free lunch be limited to those whose parents cannot aff

On Thursday, the European Parliament approved a free trade agreement with Korea. Now the Korean legislature is urged to speed up the process of ratifying the deal, which EU Ambassador to Korea Tomasz Kozlowski says will “more than double EU-Korea trade in the next 20 years as compared with a scenario without the FTA.”The FTA is a win-win deal to both sides, not a zero-sum game. As such, there is n

Last fall, President Obama offered a sweet deal to one of the most reviled regimes on Earth: If the government of Sudan would allow a referendum on secession by the southern half of the country and abide by the election results, the United States would take steps to remove the country from the State Department’s list of terrorism sponsors. The election went off, the south voted overwhelmingly to s

The results of the Nagoya mayoral and Aichi gubernatorial elections Feb. 6 were miserable for the Democratic Party of Japan, highlighting the DPJ leadership’s inability to think strategically to win elections. Prime Minister Naoto Kan and DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada should figure out why, starting with its defeat in the Upper House election in July, that the DPJ has suffered a series of el

Multiculturalism breeds terrorism. That’s what British Prime Minister David Cameron said Feb. 5 in a high-profile speech in Germany, thereby opening up an absurd new chapter in the never-ending debate over how much to embrace, exalt and protect cultural differences in Britain and beyond.Now I’m no fan of multiculturalism, which is essentially the belief that ethnic minorities should be encouraged

CAIRO ― There’s still a glow of liberation here, a week after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Young activists hand out flowers to visitors at the airport, and there is exuberant flag-waving at night in Tahrir Square. But already you can see the political cleavages that will test this young revolution. The secret of the Egyptian revolution was that it was inclusive. The street protests broug

I fear that Roy Cohn had a better understanding of American justice than John Adams.It was Adams who in 1780 sought to instill a sense of separate yet balanced power in the Massachusetts Constitution ― “a government of laws and not of men,” he wrote.Cohn had other ideas. During his life, legend has it, the famed lawyer (who was ultimately disbarred before his death), was fond of saying, “I don’t c

LONDON ― Two centuries ago, Napoleon’s arrival in Egypt heralded the advent of the modern Middle East. Now, almost 90 years after the demise of the Ottoman Empire, 50 years after the end of colonialism, and eight years after the Iraq War began, the revolutionary protests in Cairo suggest that another shift may well be under way.The three pillars upon which Western influence in the Middle East was

Soybeans, corn, cotton and canola ― most of the acres planted in these crops in the United States are genetically altered. “Transgenic” seeds can save farmers time and reduce the use of some insecticides, but herbicide use is higher, and respected experts argue that some genetically engineered crops may also pose serious health and environmental risks. Also, the benefits of genetically engineered

CAIRO ― For much of the past 30 years, the shadowy Muslim Brotherhood was almost a raison d’etre for the regime of President Hosni Mubarak: Egypt needed a strong authoritarian regime, the argument went, or it would be hijacked by Islamic radicals. That bugaboo went out the window with Mubarak’s ouster just over a week ago. It’s easy now, in the afterglow of the revolution that toppled Mubarak, to

Belatedly, the National Assembly is opening an extraordinary session on Friday. With so many bills and agenda items sitting on its calendar, the legislature will have to close the session on March 2 only to open another 10-day session the next day, as agreed by rival parties.The National Assembly has remained closed since the ruling Grand National Party rammed the administration’s 2011 budget requ

North Korea is a country of so many contradictions that it defies ordinary people’s attempt to understand it. Even outside foreign policy experts closely watching North Korea often feel baffled by presumably unexplainable events happening in the communist state. In short, it is a perpetual enigma to the outside world.The latest series of events concerning North Korea is a case in point. North Kore

Low-level, preliminary military talks between North and South Korea at the Panmunjom truce village collapsed on Feb. 9 when the North Korean delegation abruptly stormed out. It had been hoped that the talks, intended as a preparatory step for high-level inter-Korea military talks, would lay a foundation for lowering the tension on the Korean Peninsula. But the collapse of the talks has underlined

President Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2012 landed with a thud Monday, laying out short- and long-term tax and spending plans that disappointed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The proposal was a remarkably tame response to Washington’s fiscal problems, not the bold statement about belt-tightening that the White House had suggested was coming. Yet the biggest shortcoming is that it all but

“Mission Accomplished” read the hauntingly familiar phrase from Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim when the first word came that President Hosni Mubarak might step down. Ghonim delivered the words by Twitter, unlike George W. Bush, who had them printed on a banner. But in both cases, they were premature.As Richard Haas, a former top State Department official who now heads the private Council on Foreign

As the saying goes, success has many fathers. George W. Bush is not one of them.The former president’s aides and other neocons are mounting a furious effort right now to make the case that Bush’s pro-democracy campaign during his second term led inexorably to the uprising that drove Hosni Mubarak out of office last week.Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a canard. I know. I was there. I