May 20, 2011

Meet Burma’s First Billionaire

WASHINGTON—Every spring, Forbes publishes its ranking of the richest men and women on the planet. One person you won’t see on the list is Burmese business tycoon Tay Za. The charismatic Tay Za is chief executive of the Htoo Group of Companies, a business empire founded during Burma’s era of democratic rule that spans logging, gems and jade, palm oil, construction, hotels and tourism, mobile-phone services, an airline and more. At 46, he is widely believed to be Burma’s first billionaire.

December 16, 2010

Outside View: Before Obama, Conservatives Targeted Reagan

Washington, Dec. 16 (UPI) — As U.S. President Barack Obama battles Senate Republicans over ratification of the new U.S.-Russia START treaty, it’s worth remembering that the phrase at the heart of this treaty – “arms reduction”—was born 23 years ago this week, in a high-profile summit between the United States and the Soviet Union in Washington.

December 3, 2010

Ending Our Isolation in Asia

The recent release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, after deeply flawed elections that allowed the military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, to tighten its half-centurylong grip on the country, raises numerous political questions: What comes next for her? Will the ruling junta engage her newly reconstituted National Democracy Party? Will other political prisoners be freed?

November 4, 2010

Myanmar Frozen in Time By Ethnic Rift

WASHINGTON—The topic of assassination lends itself to one of the recurrent parlor games of world history. If John F Kennedy had never been assassinated, would the United States have gotten out of Vietnam? If Yitzhak Rabin hadn’t met an assassin’s bullet, would the Oslo Accords have led to peace between Israelis and Palestinians? If Archduke Franz Ferdinand had survived his attacker in Sarajevo, would the world have gone to war in 1914?

May 29, 2009

Help Us or Leave

WASHINGTON — Just weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, I met with an architect of America’s post-9/11 response in the Pentagon. The topic was the impending U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. I asked why he expected America to succeed when every foreign invader in history had failed.