Voters who wondered just how low Donald Trump would go in his race against Hillary Clinton got their answer on Sunday night.　From the run-up to the debate -- in which Trump held a news conference starring women who say Bill Clinton abused them -- to the debate itself, in which he encroached on Clinton onstage, called her names and threatened to have her jailed if he is elected, the Republican nominee made it clear who he is and what he stands for, which is, among other things, misogyny.　The deba

“There is a thing called clean coal,” Donald Trump said during Sunday night’s debate. But there isn’t -- and won’t be for a considerable time, if ever.　Presumably, Trump was referring to so-called carbon-capture technology, which is designed to collect and dispose of coal plants’ carbon-dioxide emissions before they escape into the atmosphere, where they trap heat. That technology may be on the drawing board and in a few small-scale demonstration projects, but it’s not close to being ready for w

Oct. 9 was Hangeul Day, named after the ingenious Korean writing system developed under the direction of King Sejong the Great from 1443 to 1446. This year marked the 570th anniversary of the promulgation of Hangeul in 1446.For linguists, Hangeul Day is special because it is the only national holiday honoring a writing system. (North Korea commemorates Hangeul on Jan. 15, but not as a national holiday.) Geoffrey Sampson, a leading expert on writing systems, said, “Whether or not it is ultimately

Justice Minister Kim Hyun-woong has expressed skepticism over setting up a new state entity that specializes in probing corruption cases of senior government officials.At a recent parliamentary interpellation, Kim argued that the establishment and operation of such an agency could be a waste of the government budget. He also said it could end up having a surveillance function, which may infringe on human rights.Claiming that the agency could be unconstitutional as it would not belong to any of t

It’s important to pay attention to seemingly deteriorating relations between Manila and Washington, which have been allies for 70 years. On Tuesday, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, a populist former big-city mayor elected in May, told President Barack Obama he “can go to hell” after the latest US criticism of murderous vigilantism in the Asian democracy triggered by Duterte’s call for the killing of drug dealers and drug users.　Duterte may soon apologize, as he did last month after callin

PRINCETON – Since 2002, Belgium has permitted terminally or incurably ill adults to request and receive euthanasia from a doctor. In February 2014, the Belgian parliament removed the provision of the country’s law on euthanasia that restricted the law’s use to adults. That led to an outcry.Predictably, the uproar resumed last month when the first minor requested and received euthanasia. Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, speaking on Radio Vatican, said that the Belgian law denies children the right to life

A month before the US presidential election, it is clear that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- history’s most comprehensive free-trade deal -- will not be approved anytime soon in its country of origin. 　Both the major-party presidential candidates and the Republican-dominated Congress have adopted a protectionist stance reflecting the mood of the voters, a vast number of whom believe such international deals drain away jobs and undercut production in the US.　 Outgoing President Barack Oba

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has until now only made empty threats, but if they are carried out, Asia will reel under the impact. When it comes to the US, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte does not mince his words.In statements often laced with expletives, Duterte has told the people of the US that they can leave if they do not stop criticizing the thousands of extrajudicial killings that have blighted his anti-crime drive.Duterte has claimed he can always turn to China or even Russia

At a certain age, you may feel as if you’re still at life’s beginning yet also disturbingly close to the end.　You feel acutely that there’s much left to do. You were going to win an Oscar, pick up a Nobel Prize in physics and get elected president, but you haven’t even gotten around to auditioning for a film, taking a university physics course or running for dogcatcher. Simultaneously, you’re filled with longing for the many things you once did but never will again. You’ll never feel the first c

It’s election season, and that means it’s time for partisans to pose as economists and strategists in order to explain how much the markets support their favorite candidate. It is an exercise fraught with a fundamental misunderstanding of what drives markets at best — or intellectual dishonesty at worst.　So let’s get this out of the way: Mr. Market doesn’t care who you are voting for, doesn’t care very much who wins, isn’t choosing one candidate over another and isn’t especially concerned with p

The Federation of Korean Industries has been thrown into its deepest crisis since its establishment in 1961. The growing calls for its disbandment -- from outside and inside -- testify to the depth of the crisis facing the corporate lobby. The crisis was prompted by the scandal surrounding two nonprofit organizations that opposition members claim were established by and for people close to President Park Geun-hye.Park and her aides deny their involvement in the Mir and K-Sports foundations, but

The US probably will never be a European-style, multiparty parliamentary democracy. It’s not inconceivable, however, that someday it could switch to a system that might have prevented the aberrations of this harrowing election year — ranked-choice voting.Here’s how it works. Imagine a presidential race with four candidates — let’s call them Hillary, Donald, Gary and Jill. Voters get a ballot on which they rank the candidates in order of preference. On the initial count, only the first preference

To widespread dismay, Colombians voted to reject an agreement that might have ended Latin America’s longest-running armed conflict -- a decades-long insurgency that has taken more than 220,000 lives, displaced more than 10 percent of the country’s people, and inflicted enormous economic damage.　The upset underlines the risks of government by referendum -- as if further proof of those hazards were needed. The important questions for Colombia now are these: What went wrong, and what happens next?　

For a long time, Americans of all economic classes, backgrounds and political persuasions have been able to briefly escape life’s stresses by communally watching sports.San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, however, may change all that.He’s not the first to infuse politics into sports. At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, for example, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the 200-meter race gold and bronze winners, were expelled after holding up black-gloved fists at their award prese

At least one scientist says the United States deserves credit for trying to reduce emissions to below what they were more than a decade ago. But unless more is done, and the two political parties can come to a consensus on the matter, our nation will not reduce emissions by a targeted 28 percent by 2025.But, even if every country achieves its pledge, which is doubtful, scientists still don’t believe it would be enough to contain global warming. The agreement takes into account greenhouse gases t

The “art of the deal,” in Donald Trump’s version, has a hard edge. It involves public bluster, threats of litigation, and confrontational negotiations. It’s about winning, rather than compromise. But there’s another version of dealmaking that’s more relevant to how Washington actually works. It’s about passing budgets and avoiding shutdowns. It involves creating space for agreement on taxes and spending. These negotiations usually take place out of public view. And they’re shaped by one of Washi

NUREMBERG, Germany — Seventy years ago, an international military tribunal here rendered judgment against 22 senior Nazi defendants for the most systematic global assault on national sovereignty and civilians in the history of humankind.　Courtroom 600 in the Palace of Justice seized the world’s attention with the tribunal’s bold scrutiny of military, political, media and business leaders who never imagined — until far too late — that they would stand trial for the crimes of the Nazi era.　The fou

We have all heard about how driverless cars will magically change the way we commute and transform the entire urban landscape.　There will be far fewer vehicles plying on the roads, as these autonomous pods will pick up four or five passengers heading in the same direction.　There will be less demand for parking in the city because these pods can be stowed away in far-flung industrial areas when they are not in use.　However, most of the time, they will be busy picking up people or goods. If they a

Why has real democracy become so elusive in developed nations? Sure, you can still vote and feel as if you have some kind of say, but genuine democracy is getting further and further out of reach. The current climate in Europe should serve as a warning to America about what lies ahead if US citizens don‘t reclaim power by choosing the anti-establishment candidate, Donald Trump, in November’s presidential election.Hungary held a referendum last weekend on whether to allow the European Union to im

The hard part was supposed to be over. After a half century of war, and after four years of grinding negotiations, the Colombian government and leaders of the country’s insurgency reached an accord in August to end a conflict in which more than 220,000 people were killed and 6 million displaced. The world watched Sept. 26 as President Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londono, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, signed the agreement, hailed as a blueprint for resolving war through