Public challenge, private courtship

BY JAMES MANN

With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the tape of Ronald Reagan's famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate is likely to be played and replayed. ``Mr. Gorbachev,'' he declared, ``tear down this wall!''

GOP wins taint Obama's image in Europe

BY BOGDAN KIPLING

We are speeding toward climate ``catastrophe,'' U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the World Climate Conference in Geneva two months ago.

The seas could rise 7 feet and wash over coasts, river deltas and low-lying islands, and the time to prevent the threatening flood is now, the U.N. leader said as he implored the world's leaders to sign a new climate agreement when the so-called Kyoto II conference meets in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 to 17.

Lessons from Virginia for the GOP

BY ED GILLESPIE

After losing Virginia's governorship for the first time in eight years, some Democrats are trying to console themselves that Virginia is at its core a ``red'' state. This ignores not only that they won back-to-back governorships but also that Democrats defeated a sitting senator in 2006, took control of the state Senate in 2007 and won an open Republican Senate seat and three House seats in 2008 while carrying Virginia's electoral college votes for the first time since 1964.

Medical tourism: Outsourcing your health

BY JUDY DUGAN

At a luxury hotel conference center in Los Angeles last week, ``international hospitals'' from Singapore to South America set up half an acre of colorful display booths in an attempt to attract more business from American insurers and employers. Glossy brochures and videos offered hip replacements, cancer treatments and cardiac care in Turkey, Thailand or Costa Rica. Send a patient and a companion on business class, the basic pitch went, and we'll give them deluxe private rooms, a concierge and a driver. You'll still save half or more of the U.S. cost -- tens of thousands of dollars.

An unusual prescription for healthcare

BY STUART B. LEVY

In looking at healthcare reform, Congress and the Obama administration are missing a key remedy that could help keep Americans healthy, prevent disease and hold down costs. We urgently need to reduce the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause new and hard-to-treat diseases, and we can start with food animal production.

Don't target Afghan farmers

BY MOYARA RUEHSEN

There is concern that our continued efforts in Afghanistan are being undermined by widespread corruption within the administration of President Hamid Karzai. What few people are talking about is the opium cultivation and heroin production that is fueling this corruption. But should we do anything about it? Can we do anything about it? Not really.

Saving the last lions of Africa

BY DEREK JOUBERT

Just 50 years ago there were close to a half-million lions in Africa -- about 450,000 in all. Today there are between 16,000 and 23,000. And yet, unlike elephants (a far more numerous species), lions have no protection under the international accord governing such matters.

Huge deficits require tough decisions

BY JOHN FEFFER

We're close to our spending limit on the nation's credit card. The bank bailout, the stimulus package, the Iraq War, and the overall military budget: each is costing over $500 billion. Now the Obama administration is looking at two more hefty charges: a national health care plan and a surge in Afghanistan. It's time to make a decision. We can't do both guns and gurneys. After all, we're looking at a $1.6 trillion government deficit for 2009.

By HAROLD MEYERSON

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At the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh this week, American labor will see a changing of the guard. John Sweeney, head of the federation since 1995, is stepping down, and Rich Trumka, Sweeney's deputy for the past 14 years, is ascending to the presidency.

BY YUKIO OKAMATO

quiet revolution in Japan

WASHINGTON -- Some revolutions bring about a dramatic change in government without general strikes or fierce street demonstrations. Such a revolution just took place in Japan, where half a century of almost uninterrupted conservative rule under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) abruptly ended with the recent elections. In its place, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will try to establish a European-style labor-party government.

We need a cyber-czar

By JAMES D. ZIRIN

In May, President Barack Obama completed his long-awaited ``cyberspace policy review,'' concluding that cyberspace is a strategic asset that must be safeguarded from attack as a national security priority. He recalled how hackers had gotten into his own campaign servers, and he worried that crucial infrastructure, public and private, was vulnerable to hackers, cyber terrorists and even other governments.

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On Aug. 16, pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., told his congregation that he prays for the death of President Obama. In a sermon titled ``Why I Hate Barack Obama,'' Anderson preached: ``I'm not going to pray for his good, I'm going to pray he dies and goes to hell.''

The nation's `pay czar' is largely impotent

BY SARAH ANDERSON

When President Obama named a ``pay czar'' in June, he raised hopes that the era of out-of-control executive pay may be over. Unfortunately, the pay czar's recently released rulings did little to alter a compensation system that was a key cause of the economic crisis.

Here's what some TV shows really sell

By N.E. MARSDEN

After a U.S. senator was shot on Fox's drama 24 this year, another character blurted out the make and model of the assassin's submachine gun. The German brand had been prominent in so many episodes of 24 that gun-enthusiast bloggers, among others, speculated whether the company was paying to advertise on the show.

Do journalists deserve subsidies from government?

By ROBERT W. MCCHESNEY and JOHN NICHOLS

President Obama, a self-declared ``big newspaper junkie,'' fears he might be forced to go cold turkey. ``I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,'' he said last month to newspaper editors who asked about the crisis that threatens their industry and journalism in general.