Is America going the way of ancient Egypt and the Soviet Union? Columnist Avtandil Tsuladze of Russia’s Yezhednevniy Zhurnal writes that America built a pyramid based on a gold-backed dollar. It then proceeded to loot it for all it was worth by making it the global currency of choice, rejecting the gold standard and exploiting its inflated value – until now. For Russian’s Yezhednevniy Zhurnal,...

In Norway, a blond young man who might have stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad kills scores of people, most of them kids at a lakeside camp, to call attention to his 1500-page online rant, some of it plagiarized from the Unabomber. His politics are beside the point, as were those of the lunatic who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head last January, killing six in Tuscon, including a nine-year-old girl. For...

Was this tragedy waiting to happen? Are Anders Behring Breivik’s murders another brutal manifestation of the hysteria that started building up post 9/11? George W. Bush and his team in the White House began an era of hatred and revenge, and have added enough fuel to create confusion and fire to last a few decades. We can still see widespread smoke, if not flames, in the West and elsewhere. Was the fire...

As we have seen occur repeatedly over the weekend, the tragedy in Norway sparked a deluge of premature accusations, finger pointing and instant analyses—sometimes followed by retractions and apologies, sometimes not—as journalists and bloggers blamed Islamic militants, religious groups and even “leftist” political thought, movements and parties for the carnage in Norway. Once it became...

Polish-born, four-star general Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, the first immigrant to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs, died yesterday at age 75 in Tacoma, Washington, of complications from a stroke. I always liked the general—the Noble General—with the “unpronounceable” name who Mindful of his history of living through World War II in Poland… was particularly sensitive to the plight of people...

Updated: 1.12 pm Pacific Many folks on Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus and various online forums in the English-speaking world are outraged that, as @PiersMorgan (who has a million followers) tweeted, “this inhuman psychotic killer can only be jailed for a maximum of 21 years” [1]. Although it’s a great soundbite that is guaranteed to generate teeth gnashing (and retweets, 100+ for @PiersMorgan),...

The scariest reaction to economic despondency and fear of immigrants is starting to happen in Europe. It has struck with ruthless shock and awe in a country that is among the continent’s most homogeneous. The killings by an over six-foot blond Norwegian using the automatic weapons and fertilizer bombs favored by self-motivated terrorists have sent a message that rigid beliefs are not the province only...

Update: 1.47 am Pacific, 26 July : the number killed has been revised downward to 76 Update, 2.40 am Pacific, 23 July via Twitter: Utøya shooting eyewitnesses describe two gunmen – more @ http://t.co/qG4Hzan (in Norwegian) #news According to Reuters, at least 84 young people were killed Friday at youth camp on Utoeya. In addition, seven victims were killed earlier when a bomb exploded outside government...

Should China’s people feel pride that the state of California contracted over two dozen giant steel modules for the San Francisco Bay Bridge out to a firm in Shanghai rather than building them in America? In this article from the state-run Beijing Youth Daily, the author, Wang Chuantao, mixes in equal measure national pride over the progress this represents for the “Made in China” label,...

Steadily, NATO and the US are digging themselves into a hole in Libya. Six months into the war, victory is far from sight and the anti-Gaddafi fighters recently recognized by Washington as Libya’s legitimate regime are fracturing by the week. The only quick end would be an Osama bin Laden-style assassination of Gaddafi but that it unlikely any time soon. Of course, the US could do the deed quite easily but...

UPDATE: The New York Times: After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget. He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and was characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist. The man was arrested in connection with both attacks. CNN: [Update: 10:20 p.m. ET, 4:20 a.m. Oslo] At least 80 people are dead as...

For a nation recovering from one of the greatest series of cataclysms in recorded history, the victory of the Japan women’s national football team over Team USA in the FIFA World Cup was an invaluable elixir. According to this editorial from Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun, what made Japan proudest was when Japan’s national team circled the stadium with a huge banner thanking the world for its backing...

Do Mexicans have a right to feel intruded upon, now that the United States has admitted allowing high-powered weapons to be sold to representatives of the Mexican drug cartels? Excelsior columnist Jesus Ortega Martinez writes that the recent U.S. sting operation ‘Fast and Furious’ undermines the Mexican state, violates international law and endangers innocent people on both sides of the border. For...

UPDATE: Gen. Ray Odierno, who has been nominated to be the next Army chief told Congress during his confirmation hearings, “I think it’s important that we provide [Iraq] the support they think is necessary.” Commenting on recent Iranian efforts to arm Shiite extremist groups in Iraq Odierno said, “It is clear that Iran is attempting to influence this decision with the actions they’ve taken, specifically...

Will Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp face a probe in Australia? It sounds like in the making: Prime Minister Julia Gillard has taken aim at Australia’s media, saying Australians had “hard questions” they needed answered in the wake of the phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom. At a wind farm in Gurrundah this morning, in southern NSW, Ms Gillard said Australians had been “disturbed”...

Is it time that a law be passed rewarding or punishing politicians based on their performance in office? The idea, suggested by American comedian Andy Borowitz, sounds appealing. Unfortunately, as columnist Patrik Etschmayer of Switzerland’s News laments, who would pass it? For Switzerland’s News, Patrik Etschmayer writes in part: In one of the very amusing articles on his Web site The Borowitz...

Is the last shoe in the global debt crisis about to drop? Folha columnist Patricia Campos Mello writes that with a possible slowdown on the horizon and a municipal debt crisis that may amount to 30 percent of China’s GDP, the ‘bond buyer of last resort’ for both America and struggling E.U. countries may no longer be capable of coming to the rescue. For Folha, Patricia Campos Mello writes in...

Have Republicans gone too far with their absolutest positions on raising the U.S. debt limit and demanding tax cuts without any new revenue? Try as one might, there are precious few people abroad who see the economic world like the Republican Tea Party faction does. Salzburger Nachrichten columnist Thomas Spang writes that U.S. Republicans have already lost their attempt to ‘get Obama into trouble,’...

For columnist Fyodor Lukyanov of Russia’s Gazeta, America’s ugly debate about raising the U.S. debt ceiling serves as a disturbing counterpoint to Greece’s flirtation with bankruptcy. According to Lukyanov, it is precisely the sense of fruitless confrontation in Washington that is the greatest source of American discouragement. For Gazeta, Fyodor Lukyanov writes in part: On the day the Greek...

There is no denying that too many of our troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are having a very difficult time coping with their lives back home—emotionally, financially, medically, mentally and in so many other ways. Homelessness, suicide, domestic violence, divorce, drug and alcohol addiction and even serious crime are some of the symptoms and consequences. We have read, seen and heard such stories...

Jobs in America will take another severe hit if further bungling in the US and Europe causes a slowdown in growth of the major emerging economies, including China, Russia, India and Brazil. There are many threats to their growth but the worst come from failure to handle US public debt and potential government bankruptcies in Europe. European finance ministers will meet in Brussels on Thursday but the impasse...

Damning evidence has been surfacing during the past decades revealing how different US administrations have been looking the other way despite Pakistan military establishment’s open role in supplying nuclear know-how to rogue regimes. Now A.Q. Khan, the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb program, asserts that the government of North Korea bribed top military officials in Islamabad to obtain access to...

The New Yorker sums up the murky media Mughal Murdoch scandal thus: “Rupert Murdoch and his people have claimed that the newspaper scandal in London was caused by a few rotten apples. Now that a very large apple, Rebekah Brooks, has been arrested, it is clear that it is the entire barrel that is rotten.” Brooks is a former News International chief. Meanwhile London’s police chief resigned...

It is time to celebrate – that is, unless you are the ‘Great Satan’ or any other devil in human form. Because today is the birthday of the Mahdi, also known as the Muslim Messiah. And according to Iran’s state-run Kayhan, it’s time to prepare ourselves for his return. Kayhan columnist Seyyed Ali Shahbaz informs us of the Mahdi’s imminent arrival – along with Jesus...

Does the U.S. political crisis demonstrate what Beijing has been saying for years: that it is dangerous for U.S. creditors to allow the dollar to continue as the global currency of choice? According to this article by Li Xiangyang for the state-run People’s Daily, until the dollar is dethroned, holders of U.S. sovereign debt ‘must either endure the enormous immediate financial risk brought about...