MELBOURNE ― With daily headlines focusing on war, terrorism, and the abuses of repressive governments, and religious leaders frequently bemoaning declining standards of public and private behavior, it is easy to get the impression that we are witnessing a moral collapse. But I think that we have grounds to be optimistic about the future.Thirty years ago, I wrote a book called “The Expanding Circle,” in which I asserted that, historically, the circle of beings to whom we extend moral consideratio

A Russian source recently brought an obscure but disturbing article to my attention. Published last month by a little-known online journal called the Oriental Review, the piece, “Active Endeavor And Drug Trafficking,” proposed that not a single gram of heroin has been confiscated on the Mediterranean Sea since the inception of NATO’s Operation Active Endeavor, a maritime operation launched a month after the Sept. 11 attacks with the mission of “monitoring shipping to help detect, deter and prote

Just over 100 years ago Shin Chae-ho, a Korean independence activist and historian, published a Korean history book in which he set forth the concept of Korean pure blood. He created this concept as a counter to the Japanese attempts to assimilate the Korean people. At that time the Japanese were trying to convince the Korean people that they were of the same racial stock. Shin’s new mythology was therefore necessary to protect Korea and its culture. Fast forward to the present day and South Kor

HAIFA ― Not long ago, a Dutch journalist interviewed me about the Iranian nuclear question. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has allegedly banned politicians from giving interviews on the subject, so the journalist had no choice but to seek other candidates, perhaps more “intellectual,” but with no authoritative information to offer. The journalist asked me, first, if I thought that Israel would launch an attack against Iran’s nuclear plants; second, if I thought that it would be worth

China is facing a product-quality scandal once again, another in a seemingly endless string ― though right now the blind dissident’s great escape last week and the Bo Xilai family cataclysm are smothering all news of it.Still, the new scandal and the Bo case derive from a single cultural cause.A few days ago, the state announced that it has detained 54 suspects, shut down 80 “illegal production lines” and seized 77 million gelatin capsules used for prescription drugs, all of them heavily contami

FRANKFURT ― On a recent trip to Germany, I was struck by two distinct narratives. One narrative features a robust German economy with low unemployment, strong finances, and the right competitive position to exploit the most dynamic segments of global demand. The other narrative describes an economy that is encumbered by never-ending European debt crises whose perpetrators seek to shift their responsibility ― and their financing needs ― onto Germany’s pristine balance sheet.Both narratives are un

Islamist politics in the Middle East cracked wide open with the Arab Awakening: Islamists have emerged on top in Tunisia, Libya, Iraq and Egypt. Western publics, lulled by the sight of iPhones and other social media at work, assumed that the demonstrations, rebellions and regime changes were all driven by Muslim wannabe Westerners and that Islamist politics were relics of the past.But when dictators started to fall, it shouldn’t have been any surprise that Islamists quickly came out on top. This

Lai Shing-yuan, chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), was asked a couple of days ago at the Legislative Yuan if Taiwan would cooperate with the People’s Republic of China in the defense of the small archipelagoes in the South China Sea. She said Taiwan would never do so, perhaps to please the Philippines, Vietnam and probably the United States as well. These countries are very concerned about Taiwan ganging up with China to fight another mini-war over the island groups known to be su

NEW DELHI ― A favorite theme in international debate nowadays is whether Asia’s rise signifies the West’s decline. But the current focus on economic malaise in Europe and the United States is distracting attention from the many serious challenges that call into question Asia’s continued success.To be sure, today’s ongoing global power shifts are primarily linked to Asia’s phenomenal economic rise, the speed and scale of which have no parallel in world history. With the world’s fastest-growing ec

A favorite theme in international debate nowadays is whether Asia’s rise signifies the West’s decline. But the current focus on economic malaise in Europe and the United States is distracting attention from the many serious challenges that call into question Asia’s continued success.To be sure, today’s ongoing global power shifts are primarily linked to Asia’s phenomenal economic rise, the speed and scale of which have no parallel in world history. With the world’s fastest-growing economies, fas

TEL AVIV ― The failure of the Obama administration, its Western allies, and several Middle East regional powers to take bolder action to stop the carnage in Syria is often explained by their fear of anarchy. Given the Syrian opposition’s manifest ineffectiveness and disunity, so the argument goes, President Bashar al-Assad’s fall, when it finally comes, will incite civil war, massacres, and chaos, which is likely to spill over Syria’s borders, further destabilizing weak neighbors like Iraq and L

Europe is in recession. Portugal, Italy and Greece are basket cases. The British and Spanish economies have contracted for the last two quarters. It seems highly likely that France and Germany are in a double dip as well.Why should we care? Because a recession in the world’s third-largest economy (Europe) combined with the current slowdown in the world’s second-largest (China), spells trouble for the world’s largest (that’s still us).Remember, it’s a global economy. Money moves across borders at

Three decades ago, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was confronted with a nation bordering on irrelevance, a stagnant economy and a set of entrenched beliefs about the relationship between government and the people. Thatcher faced down striking coal miners and forced through a series of free-market reforms that unshackled Britain’s economy and made it vibrant once again. To the chorus of accusations that she was killing the economy, she replied: “There is no alternative.” She was right. Sho

The one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden has reignited public debate over the effectiveness of harsh interrogation techniques in U.S. antiterrorism efforts.The discussion is welcomed by an ex-CIA official who has published a book defending controversial interrogation techniques such as simulated drowning, also known as water boarding, as needed to save American lives.That might have been the case when fictional spy Jack Bauer would save the day on the old TV series 24, but top

BEIJING ― The Bo Xilai saga of power, wealth, corruption and murder has brought the issue of China’s princelings (offspring of the Communist Party’s former and current senior leaders) to the front and center of the international discourse on contemporary China. Three underlying assumptions about the princelings drive the noisy speculations about Chinese politics by many mainstream commentators: The princelings form a powerful interest group, akin to a political aristocracy, that exerts decisive

NEW YORK ― Almost no one had read the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) before it was rushed through the United States House of Representatives in late April and sent to the Senate. CISPA is the successor to SOPA, the “anti-piracy” bill that was recently defeated after an outcry from citizens and Internet companies. SOPA, framed by its proponents in terms of protecting America’s entertainment industry from theft, would have shackled content providers and users, and spawned co

Spain is the crucial front in Europe’s battle to contain its economic crisis, and the fight is going badly. Spain’s economy is in a tailspin. Some forecasters say the unemployment rate, already a punishingly high 24.4 percent, could reach 30 percent. The government’s credit rating has just been downgraded, and its cost of borrowing ― close to 6 percent ― is putting its solvency in question. Investors are watching the country’s banks with mounting concern. Europe’s leaders cannot blame Madrid. Ma

MADRID ― Mohamed Merah’s killing spree in and around Toulouse in March, like the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2005 suicide attacks in London’s Underground, has highlighted once again the dilemmas that Europe faces with regard to its growing Muslim minority. No social-integration model has proven to be free of flaws. But is the picture really so bleak as those who despair of an emerging “Eurabia” would have us believe?Neither the multicultural ethos (respect for “cultural diversity in an at

The biannual meetings of the world’s leading financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are generally pretty staid affairs ― after all, how riled up can gatherings of central bankers and finance officials really get? In recent years, the answer is “pretty much.”Then again, a global financial crisis that refuses to go away, overlaid with (and compounded by) complaints about how the global financial architecture is run, makes for a combustible mix.At last month’s m

The influence of celebrities is an asset they can exploit, but they should be careful that their endorsements do not backfire and damage their image. The appeal of celebrities is an invaluable resource for brand publicity. When they recommend and praise certain products, audiences unconsciously link their reputation and personalities with the products, as if the quality and effectiveness of the products are naturally guaranteed. But appearing in advertisements is a double-edged sword for celebri