" How Taiwan can overcome internal stresses and the threat from China Taiwan was a poster child for the “third wave” of global democratization in the 1980s. It was the first Chinese society to make the transition todemocracy, and it did so gradually and peacefully. But Taiwan today faces a host of internal issues, starting with the aging of society and the resulting intergenerational conflicts over spending priorities. China's long-term threat to incorporate the island on terms similar to those used for Hong Kong exacerbates the island's home-grown problems. Taiwan remains heavily dependent on the United States for its security, but it must use its own resources to cope with Beijing's constant intimidation and pressure. How Taiwan responds to the internal and external challenges it faces—and what the United States and other outside powers do to help—will determine whether it is able to stand its ground against China's ambitions. The book explores the broad range of issues and policy choices Taiwan confronts and offers suggestions both for what Taiwan can do to help itself and what the United States should do to improve Taiwan's chances of success. "

What do you do when the algorithm doesn’t have the answer? Countless tools and frameworks claim to make decisions objective and bias-free. But in reality, the defining decisions that leaders face are complex ones with subjective information sources and conflicting courses of action. That’s why the toughest choices are left to the leaders, and that’s why formulas won’t answer them. In Difficult Decisions: How Leaders Make the Right Call with Insight, Integrity, and Empathy, leadership expert and CEO of YSC Consulting, Eric Pliner, delivers a set of practical tools for readers to make sense of these complex, subjective decisions quickly and with integrity. It presents a path to understanding your own subjectivity, and how your morals, ethics, and responsibilities affect how leaders make the most important decisions. Difficult Decisions is ideal for executives, managers, and business leaders to examine their own intuition and navigate the most conflicted choices they make. It’s a challenging read and an indispensable resource to help readers develop self-reflection, clarify their values, and ultimately make the choice that is most “right” to them.

Born the year of Lebanon’s independence in 1943, in Khiyam, a village of South Lebanon, Dr. Kamel Mohanna studied, at the time of illiteracy, defying poverty to become a doctor. He forged himself a Lebanese role by joining the student movement which, in the sixties heaved France. Then in the seventies, following the path traced by Che Guevara, he joined the revolutionaries in the mountains of Dhofar. It is there that he participated in the march of ‘barefoot doctors” on the footsteps of Mao Zedong. He resisted the “mermaids” of Paris, Canada and the chic neighborhoods of Beirut. Upon his return to Lebanon, he preferred to them the misery of the Palestinian refugee camps, where he lived with the poor and sick of whom he made his cause. In the middle of the civil war, in the seventies and eighties, he travelled the length and breadth of Lebanon; not hesitating to go against all commonly accepted political precepts. In 1979, he founded the AMEL association, pacifist in time of war, open to all in time of partition, preaching the life in the shadow of the collective suicide. Until today and through this non-denominational organization, he endeavors to develop the humanity of human beings, without taking into account its religious, political and geographical affiliations, to attain a more just and dignified world. Descriptor(s): PHYSICIANS | LEBANESE CIVIL WAR 1975-1991 | POLITICAL CONDITIONS | LEBANON | DIARIES | BIOGRAPHIES

Since Somalia, the international community has found itself changing its view of humanitarian intervention. Operations designed to alleviate suffering and achieve peace sometimes produce damaging results. The United Nations, nongovernmental organizations, military and civilian agencies alike find themselves in the midst of confusion and weakness where what they seek are clarity and stability. Competing needs, rights, and values can obscure even the best international efforts to quell violence and assuage crises of poverty. More attention must be paid to the complexity of issues and moral dilemmas involved. This volume of original essays by international policy leaders, practitioners, and scholars brings together insights into the conflicting moral pressures present in different kinds of interventions ranging from Rwanda and Somalia to Haiti, Cambodia, and Bosnia. From their various cultural and professional perspectives the authors cover issues of human rights, sanctions, arms trade, refugees, HIV, and the media. Together they make the case that, although there are no easy answers, moral reflection and content can improve the quality of decisionmaking and intervention in internal conflicts. Published under the auspices of The International Committee of the Red Cross.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY BOOK AWARDS ' Thought- provoking and well worth reading' Times Literary Supplement After decades of peace and prosperity, the international order put in place after World War II is rapidly coming to an end. Disastrous foreign wars, global recession, the meteoric rise of China and India and the COVID pandemic have undermined the power of the West's international institutions and unleashed the forces of nationalism and protectionism. In this lucid and groundbreaking analysis, one of Britain's most experienced senior diplomats highlights the key dilemmas Britain faces, from trade to security, arguing that international co-operation and solidarity are the surest ways to prosper in a world more dangerous than ever.

“There are a thousand acts of duplicity and dishonesty every day, some large and some small, some of which undoubtedly take place in your workplace. The question for all of us is, ‘Are we going to resist or just play along the path of least resistance?’ The first hard choice a person of integrity must make is to choose to live, both personally and professionally, in a way that embodies integrity. The power of this book comes from the real-life, in-the-workplace experiences that these executives have been so generously willing to share. None had easy choices, but that’s the point: Integrity is not about easy choices, it’s about the courage to make the right choices.” —From The Book of Hard Choices All of us like to think that, in any given situation, we’d act with integrity and do the right thing. But what happens when we get to work each morning? Do the same rules we follow in our personal lives apply to our work lives? The lines between right and wrong become blurred when we must weigh our obligations to our employer against our own ideas about what is right and wrong. Should altruism trump profit, even to the detriment of the organization? When should you step in to protect an employee and when should the employee be left to take the heat? If the CEO is up to some unethical accounting, should you always risk your job—and the company’s reputation—to sound the alarm? These are the hard choices, the dilemmas that put your integrity to the test and require you to look beyond organizational policy and industry precedents to find an answer that reflects your personal sense of justice. The Book of Hard Choices goes to the heart of these difficult decisions. James Autry and Peter Roy, experienced executives themselves, interviewed numerous leaders about the tough decisions they’ve made on the job. They spoke with people like former Starbucks president Howard Behar, Iowa Cubs owner Michael Gartner, and Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa as well as entrepreneurs, military officials, members of the clergy, and a whole host of leaders. The authors dig into the thinking process these people went through, as well as the emotional strain, the self-doubt, and the fear of a wrong decision’s impact on their business, family, or coworkers. Not everyone in this book made the right choice, but all of them were forced to examine their values and make decisions in complicated circumstances. The result is hard-won wisdom on how to navigate the ethical gray-areas of work life—from daily challenges to possible career ending choices—and make the best possible decisions in the most difficult situations.

How do women choose between work and family commitments? And what are the causes, limits, and consequences of the "subtle revolution" in women's choices over the 1960s and 1970s? To answer these questions, Kathleen Gerson analyzes the experiences of a carefully selected group of middle-class and working-class women who were young adults in the 1970s. Their informative life histories reveal the emerging social forces in American society that have led today's women to face several difficult choices.

When low-income city dwellers lack access to mainstream banking services, many end up turning to 'fringe banks,' such as cheque-cashers and pawnshops, for some or all of their financial transactions. This predicament of 'financial exclusion' - faced by those underserved by conventional financial institutions - is comprehensively examined in Jerry Buckland's powerful study, Hard Choices. The first account of the nature and causes of financial exclusion in Canada, Hard Choices thoroughly integrates economic and social data on consumer choice, bank behaviour, and government policy. Buckland demonstrates why the current two-tier system of banking is becoming increasingly dysfunctional, especially in the context of new credit products that aggravate income inequality and stifle local economic growth. Featuring a foreword by esteemed economics scholar John P. Caskey, Hard Choices presents pragmatic policy improvements on both the public and private levels that can promote and build financial inclusion for all.