Is NATO pondering an Arab-backed, Libya-like invasion of Syria? Are Israel and the West planning to strike Iran’s nuclear program? Columnist Mohamed Kawash of Jordan’s Al-Arab Al-Yawm writes that the Arab street has a sinking feeling that history is about to repeat itself. For Jordan’s Al-Arab Al-Yawm, Mohamed Kawash writes in part: How similar today is to yesterday. History is repeating itself....

Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen And so Italy closes the era of Berlusconi, Italy’s longest-serving postwar prime minister. But the question becomes: will Italy ever recover? Some answers are HERE.

Iran today successfully stared down a new move by the US, France, Britain and Germany to push it to the wall despite a strongly worded United Nations watchdog agency report that it might still be trying to build nuclear weapons. Few qualified observers doubt that Iran is covertly conducting a nuclear weapons program and controversy continues over whether it is a year or a decade away from success. But Teheran...

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain earlier this week raised quite a few eyebrows when he said that the United States needed a “leader not a reader,” as if you couldn’t be one and not another. He was offering the latest in his medley of defensive statements (on comments about China and nukes, sexual harassment allegations, brain-freeze on Libya, and decision to kiss off New Hampshire’s...

Pressure is now mounting on Syria — and if trending continues, look for it to increasingly be a world hotspot. And a major problem. The Periscope Post reports: Syria is looking increasingly isolated on the world stage, as the Arab League turns on one of its own and gives the al-Assad regime until November 19 to end its bloody repression of opposition protesters. Protests demanding the resignation of President...

Amid America’s preoccupation with domestic politics, President Barack Obama is sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a mission to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. The Christian Science Monitor reports: President Obama’s decision to send Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the southeast Asian country of Burma (Myanmar) next month reflects the US desire to encourage recent steps toward...

The Arab league today gave a three-day extension to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to stop killing his own people or face expulsion from it, despite being a founding member. This is big. The Arab League, notorious in the Arab world for decades of mealy-mouthed equivocation, is suddenly roaring led by Qatar, a sliver of gas-rich sand with less than 300,000 citizens. Syria, where civilization is traced back to 10,000...

Has Washington intentionally set things up so that Iraq will have no choice but to allow U.S. forces to remain in the country past 2011? According to Sotal Iraq columnist Qasim Al-Kafaji, the U.S. has no intention of pulling out, which explains its 16,000 ‘diplomats’ at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and its failure to fully prepare Iraqis to take contol of their own territory. For Sotal Iraq/aka...

Aliaa Magda Elmahdy isn’t new to controversy. She and her boyfriend Kareem Amir were thrown out of a public park for engaging in public displays of affection earlier this year. Elmahdy responded to the incident by posting a video of the two of them arguing with the park managers who expelled them. That seems mild now. To protest limitations on free expression in Egypt, Elmahdy recently stripped down to...

Get Real: Dealing With Illegal Immigration by Robert A. Levine The influx of undocumented aliens into the United States has recently slowed, mainly the result of two factors. 1) Economic conditions here have reduced job opportunities in construction and other industries that employ large numbers of immigrants. 2) Enhanced monitoring of the nation’s southern border and other entrance portals has increased...

With the exception of Japanese dominance in the Pacific at the outset of World War II, the U.S. has ruled the seven seas since Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet circumnavigated the globe in the first decade of the 20th century. But that is slowly but surely changing as China’s first aircraft carrier undergoes sea trials and it moves to assert territorial claims in contested waters near the Philippines...

It’s February 2013. It’s 3 A.M. The phone rings in the President’s bedroom — it has an urgent ring. Finally the President picks up the phone. The voice of his National Security Advisor, John Bolton: “Mr. President, we have a serious situation developing in Asia.” The President: “Asia? Which Asia? Can’t you be more specific than that …” Bolton: “In China, Mr. President.” The...

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Britain and Germany are headed for a major clash on Friday when Prime Minister David Cameron travels to Berlin to tell Germany’s Angela Merkel that his country will not pay to bailout countries that use the euro currency. Britain is not part of the Eurozone and does not see why it should be penalized for the fiscal follies of others. The spat is the latest in the crises of government debt in the US and Europe,...

The Lacey Act has been around since 1900 when it was signed into law by President William McKinley. It has been amended and expanded since including once under Ronald Reagan and, most recently, under George W. Bush in 2008. Simply put, the Act prohibits trading in wildlife, fish or plants that have been illegally taken, transported or sold. Penalties include confiscation and criminal prosecution. Among...

New International Report Shreds Japan’s Carefully Constructed Fukushima Scenario by John C.K. Daly Japan’s six reactor Fukushima Daichi nuclear complex has inadvertently become the world’s bell-weather poster child for the inherent risks of nuclear power ever since the 11 March Tohoku offshore earthquake, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, triggered a devastating tsunami that effectively...

This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Foreign policy and international affairs will ostensibly be the focus of tonight’s CBS News/National Journal Republican Presidential Debate in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In realilty much of the focus will be on whether former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney can both maintain his lead and begin to expand it out of its seeming ceiling, whether Texas Governor Rick Perry can recover from what most observers say...

Luojie, China Daily, China This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Several news sources are reporting a huge blast occurring inside an Iranian military base near the capital, Tehran. BBC News: There has been at least one explosion inside a military base west of Iran’s capital, Tehran, officials say. Windows in buildings in the nearby village of Bidganeh have been shattered. Some deaths have been reported, according to the semi-official Fars news agency, but this has not...

Both ABC News and the Washington Post are reporting that kidnapped Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos has been found alive and well in Venezuela. According to the Washington Post: Wilson Ramos has been rescued in Venezuela and is with the police on his way back home, his agent, Gustavo Mercano, said in a phone conversation. The Interior Minster called to tell the family at roughly 10 minutes before...

Hopes are being raised a bit in Europe and the United States: Greece has sworn in a new Prime Minister as Lucas Papademos replaces George Papandreou: Alexis Papachelas writes that perhaps it’ll be different this time: Clearly people’s rage won’t just die down overnight. Unemployment, high taxes and the incessant attack on the middle classes’ quality of life make this anger justifiable. Maybe, though,...

It used to be that the drums of war would boost the economy.  When that war would involve the Strait of Hormuz not so much. To get the WTI oil price, please enable Javascript. Why? This: “every $1 per barrel rise in oil decreases U.S. GDP by $100 billion per year and every 1 cent increase in gasoline decreases U.S. consumer disposable income by about $600 million per year.” The rumors of an...

The Brave New Energy World: Race Not Crisis by Llewellyn King As the United Nations declared that the world population had reached 7 billion, energy thinkers gathered in Houston last week were sure that even larger populations could be sustained if three cardinal areas were to be addressed: food, water and energy. Although no resolutions were passed at the forum, there was a consensus that there is more of...

The ring, a circle that has no beginning and no end, has been a symbol of undying love, fidelity, loyalty and of life itself through the ages. But the ring can also represent patriotism, bravery and sacrifice as in a military service academy ring, a combat aviator’s ring, the ring on a fallen soldier’s finger — a Ring of Honor. As we observe Veterans Day and honor all the men and women who...