Iran would be at or near the top of a list of countries Americans would least like to see have nuclear weapons, and the reasons for apprehension have deepened dramatically in the past year with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran under the mullahs since the revolution of 1979 has been a weird and ominous country. With Ahmadinejad’s new prominence, the weirdness quotient has reached new levels. Iran is now headed by an individual who expresses the hope that Israel be wiped off the map and denies that the Holocaust ever occurred. Those are sentiments not found in civilized [...]
After emerging from decades of single-party rule in 1998, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has become a symbol of freedom in a region that recently has been slowly sliding away from democracy. Today, Indonesia’s story is that of reformasi, or a spirit of reform. After enduring a troubled, violent separation, the culturally distinct province of East Timor is now free. The insurgent Free Aceh Movement has signed a cease-fire with the central government. And, in 2004, the country’s first direct presidential election brought Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono into office. This year, Freedom House upgraded Indonesia from “Partly Free” to [...]
BUSAN, South Korea — The Korea Earthquake Research Center recorded a tremor in North Korea at 10:36 a.m. on Monday. It measured 3.6 on the Richter scale and was not a natural event. Shortly after the seismic activity, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced they had successfully completed a nuclear test, calling it a “historic event,” and a “great leap forward.” North Korea became the ninth member of the elite club of nations that possess the nuclear bomb. The test was conducted in a tunnel dug into a small mountainside near the village of Hwadae on the northeastern coast [...]
