With the world mesmerized by the United States’ presidential race this year, the race for control of the US House of Representatives and Senate has been largely overlooked. But the outcome of the congressional elections could make or break the next president’s agenda.For all the power a president has, the 100-member Senate determines the fate of international treaties as well as the president’s nominations and legislative proposals. The 435-member House does not have as much power as the Senate,

In autumn 2007, Jorma Ollila, who had stepped down the year before as Nokia’s chief executive officer but was still the chairman, polled 12 top company executives on whether they thought Apple’s new iPhone posed a big threat. Two said “no,” Ollila recalls in “Against All Odds,” a surprisingly engrossing memoir first published in Finland in 2013 but just now translated into English.The other 10 thought the iPhone would prove a serious competitor that we shouldn’t underestimate. Some of them expre

It is not easy to keep an orderly house in an unsettled neighborhood. That’s the major hurdle facing Asian economies as the advanced world deals with unusual economic, financial, institutional and political fluidity. Judging from China’s gross domestic product data released this week, Asia is in a relatively favorable position to navigate the challenges. But the battle is far from won.In more normal times, Asia only needed to ask two major economic questions about the advanced countries: How str

With just three weeks to go until Election Day, one political figure has already achieved the sort of stunning American political success famous predecessors never dreamed would be possible.Sadly, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin clearly had as his fondest goal somehow disrupting the world’s most famous democracy — and perhaps even causing some Americans to lose faith in their cherished democratic process. But surely even Putin never thought he would lucky enough to have his dirty w

I knew a group of men, brilliant scientists and astute attorneys, who took jobs with the federal government to serve their country and make it a better place. They were college graduates of the 1960s who had heard John F. Kennedy’s call to public service -- “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” -- and who a decade later took JFK’s challenge into government jobs in food safety and environmental protection.But within two decades, Ronald Reagan ascended to

Voters in Washington state will be asked next month whether they want to adopt the nation‘s first carbon tax -- a powerful way to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. You’d think environmental groups would be doing everything they can to back that idea. You‘d be wrong.Initiative 732 will be on the ballot on Election Day. It calls for a $25-per-ton carbon tax, and it says how the proceeds should be spent: Trim the state’s sales tax, cut taxes on manufacturers, and give tax rebates to low-income househo

South Korea and the US are key players in the efforts to cope with nuclear and missile threats from North Korea, which for now come in two forms -- sanctions and military deterrence. It seems that punishing the North for its latest nuclear and missile provocations is on the right track. The UN has already imposed the harshest-ever sanctions against the Pyongyang regime and its key members. The international community led by the US is straining the North’s economic system by ostracizing its inter

Small investors’ anger over the Sept. 30 share-dumping scandal involving Hanmi Pharmaceutical is showing no signs of abating.A core allegation is that massive short sales were conducted simultaneously by a group of local and foreign brokerage firms on the day, which accessed the drugmaker’s internal information before it was publicized on the stock market.Criminal investigators raided about 10 securities firms on Wednesday, following their earlier move to confiscate a variety of documents at the

One is American. Another is anti-America. The third has just sneaked in and out of America; he and America are strange bedfellows at the moment. But Donald Trump, Rodrigo Duterte and Thaksin Shinawatra have at least one thing in common: Their boasting and provocative comments know no bounds.　Trump‘s “race to the bottom,” as his opponents term it, is in full throttle, although as far as he is concerned there is no bottom in sight. His political incorrectness is testing everyone’s limits with each

One newspaper called him a “most unlikely pretender to high office,” a “dunderhead” with a “big mouth,” known for his “scattershot, impulsive style.” He had a penchant for long, rambling speeches, projecting himself in messianic terms, promising to lead the country to a new era of greatness. He emerged amid a “constellation of crises” -- economic hardship and unemployment, an “erosion of the political center” and a “growing resentment against the elites.” This fed a hunger for a strongman toutin

Hillary Clinton won‘t be the only winner when Donald Trump and his fellow haters are defeated on Election Day (as looks increasingly likely). Another will be Paul Ryan, who will rule the Republican roost.　Democrats may take back the Senate, but they won’t take back the House. Gerrymandering has given House Republicans an impregnable fortress of safe seats.　This means that in order for President Hillary Clinton to get anything done, she‘ll have to make deals with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.　W

With so much happening in the US, including a pivotal presidential election and coastal states’ daunting recovery from Hurricane Matthew, maybe it’s understandable that the storm’s impact on Haiti has been an afterthought for many Americans. But the death and destruction in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation shouldn’t be ignored.The United States and Haiti were the first nations in the hemisphere to break free from colonial rule.A 2010 earthquake that left more than 200,000 dead and sproute

Making predictions three weeks before the US election is risky, but the likeliest bet right now is that the center will hold in American politics and Hillary Clinton will be elected president. That’s important for lots of reasons, the biggest of which is that it could begin to stabilize a very unsettled world. Nate Silver, a leading polling guru, projected Monday night that based on major surveys, the chances of a Clinton victory had increased to 88 percent, up 5 points in a week and 33 points f

The controversy sparked by former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon’s memoir is agitating the political community partly because of the deep-rooted ideological divide between conservatives and liberals, who often confront one another over how to deal with North Korea. Another reason it has become a bone of contention is that Moon Jae-in, the leading potential presidential candidate of the main opposition party, is a key figure in the controversy.  Opinion polls show that Moon, who lost the 2012 ele

Since North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test on Oct. 9 this year, both South Korean and US governments, political leaders, scholars, research organizations and mass media have put forward their solutions to the issue. They can be classified into two categories: solutions through negotiations and solutions through confrontational actions.Those who believe that the North Korean leadership is suffering from a siege mentality advocate solutions through negotiations. They suggest five types of

You have to hand it to economists -- they say the darnedest things.In a Wall Street Journal survey, a group of economists “put the odds of the next downturn happening within the next four years at nearly 60 percent.” Oh no.Today, we will make another entry in the catalog of how worthless predictions tend to be, and more specifically why economists’ long-term forecasts are so uniquely useless.Let’s start with the math: Saying a recession might occur within the next four years is a statement that

In December, the Pentagon finally opened all combat jobs to women. Since then only 180 have signed up for the two branches that previously were off-limits -- infantry and armor. To illustrate how few that is, the US Army’s active-duty infantry is made up of more than 60,000 soldiers. The number of female troops volunteering for the newly opened “close-combat” jobs is a pittance.The US Army’s highest-ranking noncommissioned officer recently sent an email to every soldier in the ranks, asking wome

Cheers rose from prominent voices around the world this month when almost all countries agreed to reduce the climate costs of international air travel. The United Nations and White House applauded the deal, as did the airline industry and even some environmentalists. Yet the agreement hardly qualifies for the praise. It stands to do little to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from airplanes.　These emissions are certainly a problem. Airlines currently account for just 2 percent of global greenhouse

Stanford historian Ian Morris is fond of saying that “each age gets the thought it needs.” According to this maxim, ideas like the Enlightenment, communism or even Christianity are a product of the economic and political circumstances of their times.It’s easy to believe that libertarianism might have been a good fit for the late 20th century. Coming out of World War II, governments were huge, bureaucratic and militaristic. The Soviet Union and Mao’s China were implementing particularly destructi

In less than a month, the election will be over.The nightmare of a campaign season Americans have endured for over a year will dissipate, and the losing party, which at this point seems safely predictable, will begin its ritualistic postmortem assessment in a supposed attempt to learn some lessons from its failure.We all have a lot to contemplate after this election cycle, including some ugly truths it has revealed about our nation. To start, voters nominated two of the worst major-party candida