All The Monitor's View
- Privacy for children who use mobile apps
App stores and developers are lapse in helping parents protect the privacy of a child using smart phones and tablets. From Google to Apple, finds an FTC report, clear information is needed.
- Which Iran is Obama dealing with?
Events in recent days reveal two views of Iranian leaders: as either pragmatic to the pressure of sanctions or irrationally bent on terror and Israel's demise. So far, Obama is playing to Iranian rationality, reflected by the Iranian people.
- Young people, post recession: Ready to launch?
Post-recession data and the government's pro-elderly policies don't give much hope to Millennials. Yet they remain surprisingly optimistic.
- Montana's challenge to 'super PACs'
Montana's high court challenges the moral basis for the US Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that spawned super PACs. The high court needs to rebalance free speech vs. democracy.
- Obama's needed rapport with China's Xi
Xin Jinping will be in power for a decade, so his visit to the US must establish a trust that can help smooth growing differences and prevent confrontations.
- Reasons for Obama to aid Syria – other than moral ones
Obama intervened in Libya for humanitarian reasons – to prevent a slaughter. Why not in Syria – to end actual killing? Perhaps he needs the reasons of a realist.
- The Obama birth-control mandate
The president's health-care regulation expanding access to birth control, including abortion pills, impinges on churches that oppose abortion, especially Catholic ones, by narrowly defining their religious activity to teaching only. Government must be wary of determining where the works of faith end.
- Talk to Hamas? Talk to Taliban? Thank the Arab Spring for those possibilities.
The Arab Spring's message of freedom through nonviolence has isolated Iran and Syria, helped elevate moderate Islamists, and pushed radical groups to weigh alternatives.
- Wages of sin in Greek debt crisis
Accepting a 22 percent wage cut is difficult when Greeks don't agree on responsibility for their debt crisis. Shared sacrifice would be easier if they owned up to their role.
- A woman as Mexico's president?
On Sunday, the ruling party nominated Josefina Vazquez Mota to be the first woman candidate for president from a major Mexican party. Would she instill rule of law and sustain the fight against drug cartels?
- Of presidents and prime ministers who talk of faith
Obama in America and Cameron in Britain have spoken of how their Christian faith influences their approach to shaping society. The US presidential campaign is also skirting church-state issues. How much should religion and politics mix?
- Russia must rethink what Syria protests mean
Russia under Vladimir Putin sees only a civil war in Syria, justifying its threat to veto any US Security Council action against Assad. But Syria is in a revolution, a shifting of sovereignty.
- With Facebook IPO, time to friend privacy
Facebook's IPO, or initial public offering, will lead to shareholder pressure on the firm to squeeze profits out of users' personal data. Google, too, faces more scrutiny as it mines user data even more. Privacy watchdogs need to be on the alert.
- China's real rise – in Wukan's village election
Chinese residents in the coast village of Wukan rebelled last year and won the right to a free election. The rest of China watches to see if they, too, can demand democracy.
- Eight reasons to ‘mute’ super PAC ads First Iowa, now Florida, have seen the first wave of political TV ads from super PACs – mostly negative – that will smother the 2012 presidential elections. Voters have an easy way to avoid such ads: the mute button. Here are eight reasons to use it:
- Obama, like Roberts, seeks harmony in Washington
President Obama cites the military as a model for politics, similar to the aim of Chief Justice John Roberts for consensus on the Supreme Court. Why are both goals not working?