The government and the ruling Grand National Party have agreed to increase the number of welfare staff at local governments by 30 percent to improve the administration of social welfare programs. Under the plan, announced Wednesday, the government would add 7,000 new public officials to the existing workforce by 2014.The plan is aimed at easing the shortage in field workers responsible for deliver

PARIS ― In Shakespeare’s plays, comedy often meets tragedy. Perhaps Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reflected on this as he watched a performance of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon during his recent European tour. And, apropos the play, he may have been thinking: “To buy or not to buy?” In Bulgaria last March, one of his ministers quipped that “there will always be someone pointing fingers at us, whether

Denouncing a proposal to cut $150 million out of a courts budget that has already absorbed a $200 million reduction, California’s chief justice, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, recently warned that the “devastating and crippling” cuts would “threaten access to justice for all.”California’s not alone. Last month, 350 court employees in New York were laid off to offset $170 million in cuts to the state judicia

The first signs of a post-revolutionary hangover are everywhere in the Arab world. Where unity of purpose once defined the reform movements in Egypt and Tunisia, now particular interests are coming to the fore. Forces for change are fracturing. Conflicts revolve not just around the constitutional framework of the transition away from dictatorship or the place of Islam in public life, but increasin

NEW YORK ― Just a few years ago, a powerful ideology ― the belief in free and unfettered markets ― brought the world to the brink of ruin. Even in its hey-day, from the early 1980s until 2007, American-style deregulated capitalism brought greater material well-being only to the very richest in the richest country of the world. Indeed, over the course of this ideology’s 30-year ascendance, most Ame

It’s hard to believe that less than six months ago President Barack Obama was talking about a “Sputnik moment.” In his State of the Union address he proposed huge investments in infrastructure, innovation and education to help us “win the future.” The president still wants those investments, but nowadays he means something different when he talks about the need to “do something big.” At his news c

The current issue is that the monetary aggregate (M4) measure of lending to the private sector is at its lowest level in a decade, while inflation is more than double the BOE’s target.OXFORD ― Central banks are now targeting liquidity, not just inflation. The credit boom of the past decade highlighted the inadequacy of focusing only on prices, and underscored the need for the monetary authority of

CAIRO ― Dramatic and once unimaginable changes have occurred in Egypt over the last six months. President Hosni Mubarak has been ousted from office. The people have won the right to new and free elections. The long-feared secret police appears to have been muzzled.But this revolution has only occurred in Cairo and the northern part of the country.Upper Egypt, an area that forms more than two-third

As guests in Korea who only speak French and English, my wife and I have been amazed at the polite and helpful approach most Koreans have shown in helping us to buy groceries, get to the hospital, or travel to a certain destination. Having moved from America, a country with increasingly little patience for foreigners, we both appreciate the warm approach we have come to enjoy in Korea. However, re

A familiar pattern of past presidential elections is that early in the cycle both parties gin up their base with warnings about dire consequences if the other side controls the next Supreme Court selections; after a few well-timed speeches and fundraising appeals the matter is usually ignored by the electorate. Next year could be different by becoming the first time since 1968 that the Supreme Cou

If a poll were taken to pick the most reviled man in Japan, Ryu Matsumoto would win hands down. Until Tuesday, he had Japan’s second-most important job: reconstruction minister. Four months after the earthquake and tsunami, no issue looms larger than how Japan rebuilds, boosts growth and reassesses its nuclear industry. On July 3, a week into the job, Matsumoto headed north to check the devastatio

The challenge for an intelligence chief is to develop sufficient intellectual distance from military plans and policy papers so that he can give the president independent assessments. WASHINGTON ― What sort of agenda will David Petraeus pursue as director of the CIA, after he leaves Afghanistan later this month? He laid out a basic road map in his June 23 confirmation hearing. After spending a wee

For nearly a decade I’ve been visiting Seoul regularly. Each time I arrive, Seoul is a new city. My current trip finds the city more relaxed than ever. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, there is more time in Seoul. More time for its inhabitants to frequent the ever growing number of cafes. More time for complaining about how bad things are, like the economy and the weather, when they are not.The s

BANGKOK ― The thunderous results of Thailand’s general election on July 3 will seem familiar to anyone attuned to the political upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa. Entrenched incumbent regimes everywhere are under severe stress from advances in information technology, shifts in demographics, rising expectations, and the obsolescence of Cold War exigencies. In the absence of a willingness

The idea that the Supreme Court is too pro-business is rapidly becoming the central liberal critique of the institution. During last year’s confirmation hearings for Justice Elena Kagan, Democrats made their theme the need to counter pro-business activism by the conservatives on the court. After the court ended its latest term last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, a Vermont Dem

A judge has lifted former International Monetary Fund Seducer-in-Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s house arrest, releasing him on his own recognizance while retaining his passport until the end of proceedings. While the charges against Strauss-Kahn for allegedly sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid in May still stand, it remains to be seen how long that will be the case.The shift came when the M

The Board of Audit and Inspection has recently told the National Pension Service to fire an executive and sanction two others for tampering with performance evaluations of brokerage companies that carry out stock transactions on behalf of the NPS. The board’s action is disturbing as it suggests some of the fund managers at the NPS have problems with their integrity. Given the huge amount of assets

The newly elected five leaders of the ruling Grand National Party will hold a workshop tomorrow with key members of the party’s policymaking team to discuss how they would promote policies aimed at improving the livelihoods of ordinary people. The meeting is timely as confusion over the party’s welfare policies has escalated following the inauguration of the new leadership on July 4. But whether t

TEL AVIV ― The old vocation of what Rudyard Kipling called the “White Man’s Burden” ― the driving idea behind the West’s quest for global hegemony from the days of imperial expansion in the nineteenth century to the current, pathetically inconclusive, Libyan intervention ― has clearly run out of steam. Politically and economically exhausted, and attentive to electorates clamoring for a shift of pr

All dressed up in riot gear and nowhere to go. Such was the plight of two dozen Thai police officers stewing in boredom Sunday night near one of Bangkok’s busier nightlife districts. Thai elections tend to be anarchic affairs for the keepers of order, with protests often deteriorating into violence. This time was different; tear gas canisters sat unused after the victory of allies of Thaksin Shina