In recent years, we have seen the renewal of a phenomenon that seemed to have passed into history with the end of the Cold War: fierce and potentially violent competition between the most powerful countries on the globe. Yet as dangerous as that competition is in its own right, it is also worsening prospects for solving many of the world’s other problems, from migration to economic crises to climate change.Relations between the great powers -- the US and its allies on the one hand, and revisioni

China caused consternation in the tech world by walling off its internet, blocking foreign cloud-computing firms and forcing companies to store data locally if they want to operate on the mainland: Many fear a full-fledged balkanization of the internet. The worry now is that something similar may be happening in cutting-edge gene research.Late last month, in a move that’s largely been overlooked outside the scientific community, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology announced it had sanctio

Political revolts around the world have targeted what are widely seen as corrupt and unaccountable political and business elite -- the elite that pursue their own interests globally at the expense of ordinary citizens and regulatory regimes in nation-states. The result has often been the elevation of demagogues stoking xenophobic passions against not only the elite, but minorities and immigrants. Yet one case -- Malaysia -- shows that demagoguery doesn’t have to be the inevitable consequence of

American pop star Ariana Grande had every reason to expect that her new single, “Thank U, Next,” would race to the top of the US charts when it was released earlier this month. When she checked iTunes after its release, though, she met with a surprise. Kris Wu, a superstar in China, not only had the No. 1 spot on the iTunes’ singles chart but also seven of the top 10 songs. It was an extraordinary achievement for an artist with almost no North American profile, and Grande and her camp weren’t bu

The US-China trade war is looking more and more like a cold war. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, crackdown on alleged Chinese theft of American technology, and rhetoric have overturned decades of US foreign policy that had prioritized cooperation. Meanwhile, his counterpart Xi Jinping hasn’t budged on any concessions. China experts worry that relations between the world’s two most important countries have reached a turning point.Trump usually gets the blame (or credit, depending on where you s

There’s this new park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it’s amazing. I went on a weekday afternoon last month expecting calm and quiet and instead encountered thousands of people, mostly families with kids. It was the first public-school break since the Gathering Place, as the park is called, had opened Sept. 8, and it seemed like everybody in and around Tulsa had decided to check it out.My fellow park visitors, while skewed toward youth, were of many different ages, races, ethnic backgrounds, sizes, hai

European Union leaders have long called for the bloc to behave more independently and strengthen its international role. Their failure to build a way to bypass US sanctions on Iran has brutally exposed how far they are from that goal.In September, Federica Mogherini, the EU’s top foreign policy official, announced plans for a special-purpose vehicle to keep some trade with Iran flowing with Europe. The hope was to keep the 2015 Iran nuclear deal alive after it was abandoned by the Trump administ

Splitting Amazon’s second headquarters between Queens and the Virginia suburbs of Washington was probably not the best decision from a social perspective. Added traffic will strain already crowded local infrastructure, and New York and Washington are already highly productive cities with thriving technology economies. For the country as a whole, Amazon’s decision represents a missed opportunity.That said, critics of HQ2 go too far when they paint the investment as a disaster for local residents.

The US and China have resumed contact “at all levels” over trade ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said.There’s no certainty that China will cede to US demands in trade negotiations, but “it’s better to talk than to not talk,” Kudlow said in an interview on CNBC Tuesday. A top Chinese negotiator, Liu He, will probably visit Washington shortly to advance “some informal talks,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

People have been imagining driverless cars since at least 1958, when Walt Disney Co. aired “Magic Highway U.S.A.” It’s been almost five decades, and we’re still talking about them.Initially, evolution in transport had been a product of necessity: As we moved from horse-drawn carriages to horseless ones, from steam engines to internal combustion, each development improved distance and speed. Then came luxuries like comfort and fuel-efficiency.Driverless cars could become more convenient than conv

A hundred years ago today, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the First World War in Europe ended. It had cost tens of millions of lives, utterly destroyed the existing political order, and paved the way for the rise of fascism and a repeat performance of global conflict in the form of World War II. Barbara Tuchman, in her peerless book on the outbreak of the war, “The Guns of August,” said, “Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.” In the

President Donald Trump took aim at Saudi Arabia’s plan to cut oil production on Monday, injecting new tension into an already fraught alliance that has been clouded by US concerns over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the ongoing conflict in Yemen.Trump’s efforts to influence oil production threatens to further strain relations between the two historic allies, even as his administration continues to describe the Saudis as a crucial partner in a shared bid to counter Iranian influenc

That obsolete smartphone stashed away in a drawer or closet may not look like a national security risk, but the Trump administration is contemplating treating it as one.Unscrupulous Chinese recyclers and manufacturers could transform old phones into “counterfeit goods that may enter the United States’ military and civilian electronics supply chain,” according to a draft rule. To prevent that from happening, the Department of Commerce proposes to severely restrict the export of used electronics.I

I’ve been asked time and again how, being Jewish, I could choose to live in Berlin, of all places. The 80th anniversary of an event known in modern Germany under the unwieldy German-Russian name Novemberpogrome, is a good day to attempt an answer.The English-speaking world refers to it as Kristallnacht. The word Reichskristallnacht was first heard in 1939 from Nazi functionary Wilhelm Boerger to describe the events of Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazi storm troopers throughout Germany and Austria staged a

The US government is divided once again. Democrats have the House of Representatives, while Republicans still hold the presidency and have deepened their control over the Senate. This means actual legislative breakthroughs are likely to be few and far between. But that doesn’t mean it’s useless to think about policy -- on the contrary, now is a perfect time for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to lay out their big ideas, as a way of inspiring the country to think about the future. Here’s a b

On Wednesday, after years of rumors and speculation, Samsung finally presented a smartphone with a foldable display that it plans to start selling next year. At the risk of sounding like a wide-eyed teenager, I consider this a potentially disruptive innovation on the scale of the iPhone -- if the manufacturers can handle it right.The technology has been more or less ripe for a while: The organic light-emitting compounds and the circuitry that delivers electric charges to them can be printed onto

Think traffic is bad in New York or London? They ain’t got nothing on Jakarta and Chongqing.The top of TomTom NV’s ranking of the world’s most congested places is dominated by emerging markets. Among cities in rich countries, only Los Angeles makes it into the top 15, and then only just. Some of the world’s worst traffic snarls are in South Asian cities not even picked up by TomTom’s ranking, such as Dhaka, Delhi and Karachi. Their problems are only likely to get worse as growing populations and

President Donald Trump pushed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign Wednesday. Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’ chief of staff, who has expressed hostility to special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry, will step in as acting attorney general and, according to reports, take over supervision of the investigation.The president has the right to replace his cabinet officials. After all, it’s not unusual, as Trump said in his press conference earlier Wednesday, to have some turnover after an election.But

If the European Commission’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, utters the words “decisive progress” sometime in the next few days, take notice. It would be the signal that the UK and the European Union have agreed on the terms of their divorce. A summit can be held and the white smoke sent up.That would be a watershed after 16 months of negotiations and drama. It would mean broad agreement has been reached, including one on the tricky problem of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.Bu

If Haruhiko Kuroda is starting to lay the groundwork to trim Japan’s huge stimulus, he’ll be looking over his shoulder at two things: the world outside and a deceased predecessor.The first issue for the Bank of Japan governor to watch is the international scene, which is getting tougher for central banks eyeing steps away from ultra-accommodation. Kuroda’s speech this week in Nagoya that hinted at policy normalization described a benign global growth outlook. It’s as though the weaker data of th