JUST WHEN all the news headlines had everyone convinced that the APEC Economic Leaders Summit in Manila is the most important thing happening in the world this week, and the most important topic, according to US official sources, is the complex of maritime disputes between China and some of its neighboring countries, comes this horror from Paris which shows that international terrorism—-not China or the China Sea issue—remains the most dreadful and treacherous problem governments must address.

On Friday evening, the 13th of November, while a rock (metal) concert was playing at the concert hall Bataclan on Boulevard Voltaire at Paris’s eleventh arrondisement (district) and an exhibition soccer match was going on between France and Germany, the world champion, at the Stade de France, the French national stadium north of Paris in the commune of St. Denis, terrorists armed with AK-47s and with explosive belts, struck in these and four other places, leaving at least 127 dead and more than 200 wounded, 80 in critical condition at this writing.