A Path to Peace in the Caucasus  —  MOSCOW — The past week's events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone.  Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins.  Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction.

War Puts Focus on McCain's Hard Line on Russia  —  HARRISBURG, Pa. — The intensifying warfare in the former Soviet republic of Georgia has put a new focus on the increasingly hard line that Senator John McCain has taken against Russia in recent years, with stances that have often gone …

Russia's Power Play  —  Asked in 1957 what would determine his government's course, Harold Macmillan, Britain's new prime minister, replied, “Events, dear boy, events.”  Now, into America's trivializing presidential campaign, a pesky event has intruded — a European war.

Pelosi indicates openness to offshore drilling vote  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday night dropped her staunch opposition to a vote on offshore oil drilling in the House.  —  Republicans, reacting to high gas prices, have demanded a vote on additional oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf …

David Brooks from Chengdu: my lord  —  Some of his pensees: … This is the kind of thing you can say only if you have not the slightest inkling of how completely different a billion-plus people can be from one another.  Beijingers from Shanghainese, Guangdong entrepreneurs from farmers in Sichuan …