Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has himself to blame for his popularity plunge as he evades responsibility for major government failings.

The decision of China’s sovereign wealth fund to buy shares of four of the country’s biggest banks is a warning signal. The move to prop up the plummeting value of those institutions is intended to boost confidence; instead, it has highlighted the many unknowns ...

The March 11 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and tsunami left some 27,000 people dead or missing and caused an estimated ¥25 trillion in economic devastation along the northeastern Pacific coastal areas. And the accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant caused radiation ...

MELBOURNE — The world has watched in horror as Libya’s Colonel Moammar Gadhafi uses his military to attack protesters opposed to his rule, killing hundreds or possibly thousands of unarmed civilians. Many of his own men have refused to fire on their own people, ...

WASHINGTON — Throughout 2010, the pattern for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program held to form. With just about every diplomatic effort failing to yield results, international efforts had increasingly given way to discussions about sanctions — and what mix of them would be needed ...

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) has won ratification in the U.S. Senate, passing by a 71-26 vote. Ratification is a victory for President Barack Obama, those who seek a world with fewer nuclear threats as well as proponents of a constructive U.S.-Russia ...

Japan’s unmanned space probe Hayabusa (peregrine falcon) returned from a seven-year, 6-billion-kilometer trip to the asteroid Itokawa. Although its main body burned up while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, a capsule released from it landed in the desert near Woomera in southern Australia on the night ...

BANGKOK — Thailand’s political and social fabric is fraying. Indeed, the country’s future looks as shaky as it has never been. In other prosperous democracies, the middle class provides the glue that holds society together. In Thailand, by contrast, the bourgeoisie, centered in Bangkok, ...

BANGKOK — Last week, a Taiwanese court sentenced Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan’s president from 2000 until 2008, to life in prison for corruption. Chen had embezzled millions of dollars of public funds. He did not act alone. His wife, children and other relatives all helped ...

BUENOS AIRES — For 20 years, Americans have denounced the “crony capitalism” of Third World countries, especially in Asia. But, just as those regions have been improving their public and corporate governance — Hong Kong just witnessed a breakthrough court decision against a telecom ...

BANGKOK — “Thailand’s future is up for grabs,” proclaimed the eminent Thai scholar Thitinan Pongsudhirak last week just before the country’s Constitutional Court ruled, in effect, that the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and its two smaller coalition partners are “illegal,” and hence must ...