When it comes to Egypt, is it time for the United States to stop hedging its bets? According to columnist Thomas Spang of Austria’s Salzburger Nachrichten, without actively asserting its waning influence, Washington risks the worst imaginable outcome for the Western world: an Egypt governed by Muslim fundamentalists. For the Salzburger Nachrichten, Thomas Spang writes in part: A sober analysis of the...

Call it a Cold War hangover or a broken deal with the Devil – but according to columnist Stefan Kornelius of Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Egypt shows that the era of paying off potentates regardless of how they treat their citizens and mistaking stagnation for stability is over, and the will of the people will no longer be denied. For the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Kornelius writes in part: For...

Latest from the BBC (18:09 ET) The struggle for control of the future of Egypt continued in Cairo. Egyptian anti-government protesters remain entrenched in Cairo’s main square, after at least three people were killed in clashes with supporters of President Hosni Mubarak. Hundreds of people were also wounded as rival groups fought pitched battles in and around Tahrir Square, in the worst violence in nine...

Have we in the West made a mistake, assuming that democracy is the best form of government for all nations? Perhaps fearing similar events on its own streets, from decidedly undemocratic China, this editorial from the state-run Global Times suggests that the recent wave of ‘color revolutions’ demonstrates that Western efforts to democratize the world in its own image are naive and misguided. The...

Just as George W. Bush differed with his father on many issues, now Barbara Bush is at odds with her father, George W. Bush, on a major social issue. The New York Times announces that “Barbara Bush, one of the twin daughters of George W. Bush, will endorse same-sex marriage on Tuesday, publicly breaking ranks with a father who, as president, pushed for a constitutional amendment banning such unions.” Ms....

My hometown newspaper today reprinted Tom Campbell’s op-ed in the Washington Post, an op-ed where Campbell pleaded for a pardon for Tom DeLay. I have already expressed my two-cents worth here and here. However, I noticed that the Austin American-Statesman’s version was noticeably shorter than the Post’s op-ed—about 140 words shorter. Now, I know from personal experience that the Statesman’s editorial...

This satirical music video lampoons Ohio Governor John Kasich’s inability to find even one qualified non-white person for his cabinet (of 23 spots, 22 are filled, 17 to men, 5 to women). As Politico (“Ohio Gov: I don’t need your people”) and especially the Ohio blog, Plunderbund have noted, Governor Kasich has even gone as far as to say, in a room filled with the members of the Ohio...

A few days ago, I commented on Texas lawyer Tom Campbell’s appeal to President Obama and Texas Governor Rick Perry to grant convicted felon Tom DeLay a pardon. While I would not be opposed to a pardon for DeLay on humanitarian grounds—mainly for his family’s sake—Campbell, in my opinion, laundry-listed all the wrong reasons for such a pardon. Over at the Huffington Post, Jason Linkins also comments...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows, deflecting questions whether the Obama Administration continues to support embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. She defended the Egyptian people’s right to democratic reforms, praised the nation’s military as a respected institution and said most other issues such as continued $1 to $3 billion annual military aid...

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of Western civilization – or to be more accurate – non-Muslim civilization? According to columnist Hussein Shariatmadari of Iran’s state-run Kayhan newspaper, ancient prophecies of the Prophet Muhammad are now coming true – and there is little or nothing that Washington can do to avert the end. For Kahyan, Hussein Shariatmadari writes in part: In...

One part of the unfolding story of Egypt that has been largely ignored by the press is that the top guns from the Egyptian Military were in Washington for a previously scheduled meeting  when the hostilities began. Why is this important?  I’m sure that the original agenda was altered when the Egyptian people started their mass demonstrations.  We won’t know for years if ever what was...

Tibetan religious leader in-exile “Karmapa” Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who is likely to replace the Dalai Lama as the world symbol of Tibetan Buddhism and icon of Tibetan aspirations, is now surrounded with a serious controversy. Police in India have raided his monastery near Dharamsala, and allegedly recovered foreign and Indian currency worth nearly Rs 70 million. Dorje, now 25, is the spiritual head...

According to Zhang Guoqing of China’s state-controlled Xinjingbao [Beijing News], it seems that President Obama has finally woken up to the fact that America’s state of development is the most pressing issue for the nation. Unfortunately, the scholar from our largest creditor’s state-sanctioned media writes, Obama may be too late, and Americans and the U.S. media aren’t ‘buying it’. For...

As we watch the growing protests in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and other Egyptian cities the question we have to ask is what direction the protests will take and where Egypt is headed in the coming years. I think we all would agree that any sort of Western-style democracy is not likely in the near future. Egypt literally has thousands of years of history with little or no experience with democracy, so...

As Joe Gandelman reported earlier, the popular revolt in Tunisia against that country’s corrupt and brutal leadership is credited with inspiring similar uprisings in other countries in the region, including Egypt, where the government headed for the last 30 years by Hosni Mubarak just took the unprecedented step of shutting off almost all Internet connection within the country.

Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp—a day that has been designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. About three weeks ago I posted a link to an article about a letter written by a Jewish relative as he was being transported in a cattle train from the Netherlands to his death in Auschwitz. The article ended with the words: A letter...

A letter to the editor in my hometown newspaper yesterday morning caught my attention. The letter: Time for updating In 1870, Otto Von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany, in a shrewd political move, decried that every German citizen age 65 or older would receive a lifelong pension. Longevity then was about age 55. Thus we have the origins of our eligibility for Social Security, Medicare, etc. Seems we need some...

After the dramatic Tunisian uprising in the Middle East, violent unrest has broken out in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. Nowhere is the U.S. dilemma more urgent than in Egypt, writes Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. “The January 14 popular revolt in Tunisia, the first ever to topple an...

Is Sarah Palin being wrongly blamed for the assassination attempt against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords? Columnist Andreas Ruesch of Switzerland’s Neue Zurcher Zeitung writes that Palin is being castigated for America’s deeply-ingrained habit of politicians attacking opponents in stark military terms. For the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Andreas Ruesch writes in part: That everything in the U.S.,...

RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. all rights reserved.

‘Condemned to partnership’ is how Christoph Prantner of Austria’s Der Standard describes relations between the two most important nations on earth. Pranter writes that despite that forced smiles and wolfish grins, Europe and the world had better hope that despite their differences, the two find a way to make things work between them. For Der Standard, Christoph Prantner writes in part: “The...

I collect photographs of moments that I think ought never perish from memory… for the sake of Peace, and for the sake of remembering to think ten times before running the young to war… again… from any side. When I first saw this photo, traced the hands of the wounded Marine trailing in the water, touched the bodies of the other Marines, wounded and dying on the barge pulled by brothers waist...

Are policymakers in the United States so married to a ‘zero-sum Cold War mentality,’ that they are damaging relations with China? Or is China a genuine threat that manipulates its currency and shamelessly steals American intellectual property? According to this editorial from the state-run China Daily, those who see China as an adversary are shooting themselves – and the world – in the...

The U.S. Federal Reserve, despite all of the recent criticism over quantitative easing and its bailouts of huge corporations, foreign and domestic, receives a loud and clear vote of confidence in this article by columnist Lourdes Sola of Brazil’s Estadao. According to Lourdes, the FED’s independence and effectiveness at moments of crisis make it a fitting template for up-and-coming Brazil’s...

Are American policy makers listening to the sound of their own voices to the detriment of better relations with China and the world? Correspondent Rong Xiaoqing of China’s state-run Global Times dismisses U.S. complaints about Chinese trade, intellectual and foreign policies, arguing that if President Obama manages to put himself in China’s shoes during President Hu’s visit, a successful great...