Free Republic

The international community has entered “a new era of crisis,” Japan’s recently installed defense chief said Monday, pointing to a drastic need for Tokyo to rethink its security approach amid growing threats from China, Russia and North Korea. “The international community as a whole has entered the most trying time since the end of the previous war, and the existing order is being seriously challenged,” Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said Monday in an interview. “We believe that we are entering a new era of crisis.” Pacifist Japan has found itself in a precarious security position, with China’s massive military buildup...

Last week, Muslims marched in the centre of London chanting "Freedom go to Hell!" There could be no more graphic illustration of the paradox at the heart of the cartoon row. These protesters were exercising - and in many cases abusing - the freedom of protest and freedom of assembly that are foundation stones of British democracy. Yet, even as they exploited these hard-won liberties, they were calling for them to be abolished. This newspaper would not have published the cartoons of Mohammed at the centre of this controversy, images which we regard as vulgar and fatuously insulting. But -...