What’s up with the blue jackets?This is suddenly the question I’m getting when speaking with folks overseas or reading my emails. It’s not whether I feel safe, or if I’m drinking Tokyo’s radioactive tap water or if I plan to make a beeline out of the Fukushima zone. It’s why, oh why, are Japanese leaders dressed like auto mechanics?It’s to show, of course, they are in full-blown crisis-management

Traces of radioactive iodine, cesium and xenon believed to be from Japan’s quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant have been detected in Korea. But don’t panic. According to the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, the amounts of radiation were far below levels considered dangerous to people.The institute said on Tuesday that it detected iodine-131 at all of its 12 monitoring centers across the

Lawmakers of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee have drawn ire from listed companies by requiring them to hire at least one “compliance support officer” starting April next year.The new regulation was put into the amended Commercial Code despite opposition from the corporate community. The revision bill passed the panel on March 11 and won approval on the floor the next da

Life satisfaction ― commonly known as happiness ― is what it’s all about. What makes us happy is another matter altogether. The adage that money can’t buy happiness, it turns out, is mostly wrong.If by money we mean luxury cars, McMansions and exquisite jewelry, then there might be some truth to it. If, on the other hand, we mean individual and national well-being, money does buy us happiness.In T

CAIRO ― A young Egyptian journalist named Merette Ibrahim has come to question visiting Defense Secretary Bob Gates at a roundtable discussion. She’s passionately idealistic about Egypt’s new democracy, and you might think she would be enthusiastic about President Obama, who supports the political revolution under way here. But she isn’t: She says Egyptians find Obama and his policies confusing. W

Just tell the government to back off and all will be fine. That’s what former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan seems to say in “Activism,” an article published in the Spring issue of International Finance available on the Council on Foreign Relations’ website. “Current government activism is hampering what should be a broad-based robust economic recovery,” he writes. If we follow his advice

If a modern-day Aesop were to write a fable that illustrates the essential character of the American government, he could model it on the story of Peter Diamond.Of the 67 winners of the Nobel Prize in economics, only a handful could be considered giants, thinkers whose names will echo in the halls of academia centuries from now. Diamond, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is

Is it 50 billion euros? Or perhaps 70 billion euros? The cost of bailing out Portugal varies according to who makes the calculation. No one will know the real price until officials from the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank tell us.But it isn’t the actual amount that counts. It is the price the euro area is paying for having a single currency.And on that measure, a rescue p

Unlike the Iraq war, which smacked of go-it-alone cowboyism, the Libyan intervention has been for the most part a multilateralist’s dream: an idealistic granola bar of an operation, carefully orchestrated to win broad support from nations around the world. Not only did President Obama seek and receive the blessing of the U.N. Security Council, the Arab League and many of America’s traditional alli

Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich raises the possibility of impeaching President Barack Obama for aggressive air strikes against Libya, while Mitt Romney, a potential Republican presidential candidate, says the policy shows the commander in chief to be “tentative, indecisive, timid and nuanced.”Obama can brush aside these criticisms. Every modern president would have been impeached under Kuci

The more someone purports to know what’s in Kim Jong-il’s mind, the more skeptical you should be. What about the North Korean dictator’s heart?This question is much on the minds of Japanese after Kim donated $500,000 to help their nation deal with a record earthquake and tsunami. The gesture is as fascinating as its timing. It came on the same day a United Nations agency said Kim urgently needs ab

Falling house prices and a backlog of foreclosures have turned 2011 into the most desperate year yet for many American homeowners. The pain just keeps coming, and government programs have proven ineffective at assisting many of those in danger of losing their houses.In the short run, now would be the worst time to strip away government subsidies that support many of those same beleaguered househol

You know things are bad when pop stars a world away get more fired up about a humanitarian crisis than a nation’s own leaders.Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan would no doubt take umbrage at this assertion. Many of Japan’s 126 million residents wouldn’t, as television cameras that had been fixed on the nuclear fiasco in Fukushima turn further north. We are getting an eyeful of millions in earthqua

With the current military operation in Libya, the U.S. has taken on a third campaign for forcible regime change in the Middle East.No matter how we might try to convince ourselves otherwise ― that we are only “protecting civilians” or “implementing the will of the international community” ― Libya now joins Afghanistan and Iraq as cases where the U.S. military is using force to bring down a Muslim

Amid all the hysteria about nuclear meltdowns and radiation poisoning, here’s something to consider: U.S. commercial reactors have never caused a single death.Worldwide, nuclear power has the lowest accident rate based on the amount of energy generated by any source. Compare that record with the havoc caused by dam failures and the disease and deaths wreaked by fossil-fuel pollution and explosions

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia ― Defense Secretary Bob Gates is running through the standard list of factors that have caused political upheaval across the Middle East: the youth bulge, unemployment, corruption. I start to ask another question but Gates cuts me off, as if he wants to underline the dangers and uncertainties of this moment of history. Gates says the unrest has highlighted “ethnic, sectarian

U.S., British and French forces began their military strikes against Libya on Saturday (March 19) in an operation the United States has codenamed Operation Odyssey Dawn.The military action followed a West-engineered United Nations Security Council resolution on the establishment of a “no-fly” zone in Libya and started with an hours-long bombardment of the North African country.Western countries ha

North Korea has found a new justification for its nuclear weapons program ― the attack on Libya by the United States and its allies. Denouncing the Western countries’ bombings against Libya, a spokesman of the North’s Foreign Ministry asserted on Tuesday that what is unfolding in the North African nation has confirmed once again that “a nation can ensure peace as long as it has the power to do so.

The government has decided to raise the rate of contribution to the mandatory employment insurance scheme from the current 0.9 percent of the total payroll to 1.1 percent starting April. What this change means is that a worker and his employer both have to pay 1,000 won more in monthly premium per 1 million won of his salary.The 0.2 percentage point increase in the contribution rate may not sound

Last week, Congress passed yet another stopgap measure funding the U.S. government through April 8, but lawmakers still can’t decide on a final budget for the current fiscal year. It was the sixth such temporary extension since the budget year began. “It’s a terrible way to do business,” said Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va. Apparently, lots of frustrated Americans agree with him.A new Pew Research Cent