Opinion
Nobel Peace prize may weigh heavily on Obama
Washington - The gold medallion given to recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't come with a ribbon, but the award could still end up being a weight around President Obama's neck.
Berlusconi's Italy shows a strange type of feminism
The Berlusconi scandal reveals that far from being the land that feminism forgot, Italy is still a matriarchal society - Anyone who has been following the continuing saga of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, with its tales of Sicilian...
Why Do Afghans Have a Life Expectancy of Only 44 Years?
According to the CIA World Factbook, an Afghan's life expectancy is merely 44 years. That's 20 to 30 years less than neighboring Pakistan and all other surrounding countries. It is just one result of the ongoing devastation in that country.
Obama reveling in U.S. power unseen in decades
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama is reveling in presidential power and influence unseen in Washington for decades. Barely 100 days in office, the U.S. president and his Democratic Party have firm control over the White House and Congress and th...
Why Some Brits Don't Want a Sir Ted Kennedy
If Gordon Brown expected props back home for being the first European leader to enjoy President Obama's hospitality at the White House and only the fifth British Prime Minister ever to address Congress, he might have reconsidered the fourth paragr...
Money, influence and the fate of democracy in New York
When newspaper editorial boards and good-government groups give dry-sounding lectures about the need for political reform, they are talking about situations like the scandal unfolding at the city Board of Elections over the long-overdue modernizat...
New York’s New Archbishop
KIM LAWTON, guest anchor: After weeks of speculation, the Vatican announced a new leader for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan will succeed Cardinal Edward Egan, who is retiring after nearly nine years ...
Israel is committing a holocaust in Gaza: Norman Finkelstein
BRUSSELS -- According to Finkelstein, Israel, a state built on the ashes of the Holocaust, is now committing a holocaust against Palestinians in Gaza. In a telephone interview with Today’s Zaman, Finkelstein said Israel was a “terrorist state” cre...
Why Michelle Obama is a different kind of first lady
In case this doesn't cross your news radar, thought you might want to check out Michelle Obama's remarks during a trip -- her first solo trip -- Tuesday to Mary's Center, a community health organization in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. Yea...
Analysis: Biden promises foreign policy shifts
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration promises sweeping changes in American foreign policy, and some U.S. adversaries are nibbling the bait. Vice President Joe Biden hit most of the right notes in his Munich speech this weekend, declaring — among a...
President Barack Obama reaches out to Muslim world
WASHINGTON — Sending a signal to Muslims around the world, the White House this week passed over the politically influential American networks in favor of an Arab satellite channel, Al-Arabiya, to air the first televised interview with Barack Obam...
News Analysis China Jittery About Obama Amid Signs of Harder Line
WASHINGTON — Whether it was a shot across the bow or a simple restatement of his boss’s views, Timothy F. Geithner’s assertion that China “manipulates” its currency has complicated a crucial front in President Obama’s efforts to improve America’s ...
Public speaking lessons for presidents
Barack Obama has a big speech coming up this Tuesday. For a lesson in how to reassure a jittery populace - and banking system - look to Depression-era leader FDR, says Harold Evans.
Torture Acknowledgment Highlights Detainee Issue
When the senior official for the Pentagon’s military commissions said this week that interrogators tortured a detainee at Guantánamo Bay and that therefore he could not be prosecuted, she highlighted the hard question at the center of the incoming...
The Gaza-Egypt Smuggling Tunnels Must Be Closed
When Israelis look back on what caused the current conflict in Gaza, they point to their government's decision in September 2005 to leave the narrow "Philadelphi Route" that runs along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula....
Analysis: The Egyptian tightrope act between Israel and Hamas
The semi-official Al-Ahram daily laid bare the dilemma at the root of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's position in an editorial last week: "Israel's loathsome crime with Hamas assistance," reads the headline.
In Gaza, Sarkozy Rushes In Where Angels Fear to Tread
If the tragic axiom of Middle East peacemaking is that the Israelis and Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, there is now a new corollary: French President Nicolas Sarkozy never misses an opportunity to present himself as the op...
Czechs face EU trial by fire over gas, Gaza
Dual crises over the Gaza conflict and gas supplies to Europe are proving to be a trial by fire for the European Union presidency of the Czech Republic, the first ex-Warsaw Pact country to be put in charge of EU business.
Workers gain as Havana rethinks its ideological focus
Cuba is putting less emphasis on social spending and more on rewarding individual workers and cutting gratuities as it moves away from decades-old policies aimed at undermining individualism and promoting collectivism, even as it marks the 50th an...
How the SEC Can Prevent More Madoffs
The Bernard Madoff affair is a scandal of epic proportions. It not only has devastated the prominent individuals and institutions who invested in his funds, but it has also further undermined whatever trust investors may have had after this year o...