With barely more than a month under her belt as a professional politician, Yingluck Shinawatra stood poised Monday to become Thailand's first woman prime minister after her Pheu Thai party scored a resounding victory in Sunday's national elections. Riding a well-oiled political machine and benefiting from the popularity of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed as prime minister in a 2006 military coup, Yingluck and her party won an apparent majority in parliament according to unofficial ...

The world economy has run into a brick wall. Despite countless warnings in recent years about the need to address a looming hunger crisis in poor countries and a looming energy crisis worldwide, world leaders failed to think ahead. The result is a global food crisis. Wheat, corn and rice prices have more than doubled in the past two years, and oil prices have more than tripled since the start of 2004. These food-price increases combined with soaring energy costs ...

Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's exiled former Prime Minister, likes to compare himself to Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement. Both are in conflict with their country's military-backed leaders. But that's where the similarities end. Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, whereas Thaksin backed two violent anti-government protests. Suu Kyi spent more than decade under house arrest for her political convictions, while Thaksin fled rather than do time for corruption. Suu Kyi ...

People love guys who write constitutions. Their genius is celebrated by historians, their intentions debated by judges, their names attached to poorly performing middle schools. I figured I would never know that glory. Because no matter how good my columns may be, they will never cause people to stop drinking and then start drinking again shortly afterward, except for me while I write them. And not always. But after the financial crash in Iceland, the new Prime Minister decided to ...

When the political activist Al Sharpton pivoted from his war against bigmouth radio man Don Imus to a war on bad-mouth gangsta rap, the instinct among older music fans was to roll their eyes and yawn. Ten years ago, another activist, C. Delores Tucker, launched a very similar campaign to clean up rap music. She focused on Time Warner , whose subsidiary Interscope was home to hard-core rappers Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. In 1995 Tucker succeeded in forcing Time ...

Scraping together $40 billion in spending cuts in a country already shaved to the bone is a tall order. But try doing it with the lights off while dodging rocks, gas bombs and tear gas and with impatient foreign officials breathing down your neck. Welcome to the Greek debt crisis 2.0. On June 21, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou narrowly skirted political death in a vote of confidence in the Greek Parliament, after weeks of political infighting and escalating protests against ...

Crisis, drama, Herculean, Sisyphean, hubris and catharsis: the Greek language offers some apt words to describe Europe's current dilemma. But classical references are of limited value when it comes to unpicking the modern-day Gordian Knot that Greece represents for the euro zone. Although European leaders cheered Wednesday's confidence vote confirming a new Greek unity government, they were well aware that the political tensions in Athens are but one part of a broader drama that could yet shatter the ...

Tis the season to be selfish. Right after the global financial crisis exploded in 2008, many economists fretted that countries looking to hold on to their share of a shrinking pie would become more self-interested and protectionist, plunging the planet into an even sharper downturn, just as happened in the 1930s after the Great Depression. Thanks to panic-fueled crisis management by policymakers, it didn't happen. But after three years of pain and very little economic gain, it may be happening ...

But on Sept. 5, 1972 at the Munich Olympics, history would not wait. It hastened to crib from one of Sieber's scenarios virtually horror for horror. The psychologist had submitted to organizers Situation 21, which comprised the following particulars: At 5:00 one morning, a dozen armed Palestinians would scale the perimeter fence of the Village. They would invade the building that housed the Israeli delegation, kill a hostage or two , then demand the release of prisoners ...

Like other ethnic groups before them, American blacks are steadily climbing the political ladder, winning more state, local and national offices each election. Some 90 black mayors are now serving in U.S. cities and towns, including Newark and Gary. That is not surprising, because those cities have black majorities. But last week brought the most dramatic evidence yet of black political progress. Los Angeles, the nation's third largest city, elected its first black mayor, although the Negro population is a ...