BERLIN ― The multipolar nature of today’s international system will again be on display at the upcoming G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. Global problems are no longer solved, crises managed, or global rules defined, let alone implemented, the old-fashioned way, by a few, mostly Western, powers. Incipient great and middle powers, such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and South Africa, also demand their say.Some of these powers are still emerging economies. Politically, however, m

The escalation of ethnic and sectarian violence in Myanmar has not only raised questions about the future of the democratic reforms in the country but also highlighted the plight of the country’s Muslim minority.The unrest in Myanmar’s Rakhine state erupted last week when around 300 Arakan Buddhists allegedly attacked a bus in which Muslims were traveling, killing 10 passengers apparently in retaliation for the rape and killing of an Arakan girl allegedly by three Rohingya suspects. The ensuing

Doctors are threatening to stop treating patients in protest against the government’s plan to introduce a mandatory fixed-rate system for seven illnesses starting July 1.Ophthalmologists have already declared they will not perform any cataract operations during the first week of next month, asserting that the new plan would cause a significant drop in the quality of their services. Obstetricians, orthopedic surgeons and otolaryngologists have also decided to temporarily stop conducting some of t

The prosecution has again disappointed us by coming up almost empty-handed after three months of reinvestigation into the allegations that officials of the Prime Minister’s Office illegally spied on civilians.Prosecutors did not bother to get to the heart of the scandal, leaving many central questions unanswered. Who was the mastermind behind the illegal surveillance? How deeply was the Office of the Senior Presidential Secretary for Civil Affairs involved in the affair? Had President Lee Myung-

Next week, world leaders gather for a momentous occasion ― the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. Will it be a success? In my opinion, yes. To be sure, the negotiations have been lengthy. Even now there is more disagreement than agreement on the details of the so-called “outcome document” that will emerge. Yet that will not be the defining measure. Far more important is what the Rio conference has already accomplished. And that is to build a global movement f

NEW YORK ― The critics of foreign aid are wrong. A growing flood of data shows that death rates in many poor countries are falling sharply, and that aid-supported programs for health-care delivery have played a key role. Aid works; it saves lives.One of the newest studies, by Gabriel Demombynes and Sofia Trommlerova, shows that Kenya’s infant mortality (deaths under the age of one year) has plummeted in recent years, and attributes a significant part of the gain to the massive uptake of anti-mal

An unusual study of traders’ spit may offer a taste of the future in how we understand what drives markets ― and why they aren’t as stable and efficient as we might hope. Several years ago, two neuroscientists undertook an experiment on the trading floor of a major investment bank in London. Over eight consecutive business days, at both 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., John Coates and Joe Herbert took samples of saliva from the mouths of 17 traders. With these samples, taken before and after the bulk of the

All the debate about the pros and cons of a Greek exit from the euro area is missing the point: A German exit might be better for all concerned. Unless Europe’s leaders take some kind of radical action, such as adopting and executing some of the many reform ideas they have floated, the currency union is headed for disintegration. The problems of Greece, Ireland and Portugal have spread to Spain, the fourth-largest economy in the euro area. Italy is probably next. The other members of the currenc

ISTANBUL ― As President Barack Obama was feeling his way in foreign policy during his first months in office, he decided to cultivate a friendship with Turkey’s headstrong prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Over the past year, this investment in Turkey has begun to pay some big dividends ― anchoring U.S. policy in a region that sometimes seems adrift. Erdogan’s clout was on display this week as he hosted a meeting here of the World Economic Forum that celebrated the stability of the “Turkish

Reports that the U.S. and Israel have tried repeatedly over the years to derail Iran’s nuclear weapons program by using malicious computer codes to cause machines at the country’s Natanz nuclear facility to malfunction have lifted the veil of secrecy over the war unfolding on the world’s newest battlefield. The elaborately designed and executed series of cyber-attacks reportedly slowed Iran’s progress toward getting a bomb, but they also raise troubling questions about the United States’ own vul

Japan has finally entered a period in which the population is decreasing substantially each year.How can the nation deal with this unprecedented situation and maintain social vitality? We need to realize Japan has entered a critical stage.The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has released the nation’s vital demographic statistics for 2011. The number of babies born last year hit a postwar low of about 1.05 million, while the number of deaths was about 1.25 million.It was the first time since th

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in Tuesday’s recall election doesn’t mean President Barack Obama is going to lose his reelection bid ― or even that he will lose Wisconsin. But it clearly shows that organized labor is a seriously weakened political force that needs to reinvent itself for its sake and for the nation’s.The vote was widely billed as a preliminary skirmish in the November election between Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, but there is good reason to conclude that its predictive

Seoul may be the most poignant place one could pick in Asia for a spectator seat at Greece’s economic implosion. South Korea’s crash in 1997 turned a regional financial crisis into a global one, as a Greek exit from the euro is sure to do. The difference might be that South Korea came back strong, while it’s hard to see how Greece could do the same. There’s another difference: What is happening in Europe has the potential to be far more disruptive to Asia than its own crisis was for the rest of

“A good ending makes everything good as well,” or so goes an old saying in Hebrew. The raucous relationship between the Korean government and Lone Star, a Texas-based private equity fund, perhaps shows the converse is also true: A bad ending makes everything ugly. With the PEF’s delivery of a “notice of intent” to the Korean government under the Korea-Belgium Investment Promotion Treaty on May 22, the relationship is now heading to a point of no return. Perhaps it has already crossed it. In the

What a pity that Koreans’ English language fluency is now effectively segregated by family income. I have been involved with ESL/EFL education for years, but rarely have I had the privilege of working with a young person of limited means. There are many thousands of English-speaking educators in Korea. I have no doubt that many would trade English lessons for Korean-language immersion or even a simple home meal. While some private tutors charge hefty fees, there are just as many English teachers

NEWPORT BEACH ― Six internal factors suggest that the United States’ economy is slowly healing. For some observers, these factors were deemed sufficient to form the critical mass needed to propel the economy into escape velocity.While I hoped that they might be proven right, the recent stream of weak economic data, including May’s timid net job creation of only 69,000, confirmed my doubts. With this and other elements of a disheartening employment report now suddenly raising widespread worries a

CAIRO ― “Bashar should abandon power and retire safely in Egypt. The general-prosecutor is murder-friendly,” a friend, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, told me as we watched former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s trial in the Police Academy’s criminal court. Although Mubarak and his interior (security) minister, Habib al-Adly, were handed life sentences at the conclusion of their trials, the generals who ran Egypt’s apparatus of repression as deputy interior ministers were acqui

Former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan has been elected the new chairman of the main opposition Democratic United Party. The six-term lawmaker won a dramatic come-from-behind victory over Rep. Kim Han-gil on Saturday, the final day of the party’s leadership race that began on May 20.The new leader’s primary task is to manage the selection of a party candidate for the presidential election in December. The job sounds simple but is in fact complex because the party, after nominating its own presidenti

Spain has at last decided to request European financing to recapitalize its teetering banks, becoming the fourth eurozone country to receive an EU bailout, following Greece, Ireland and Portugal.Madrid’s request for a financial rescue is welcome news for the global economy, as it would calm market jitters over Spanish banks, which are swamped with bad debts resulting from their reckless lending to property developers.The specific amount of aid has not yet been set, as an assessment of the capita

NEW YORK ― America likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity, and others view it in much the same light. But, while we can all think of examples of Americans who rose to the top on their own, what really matters are the statistics: to what extent do an individual’s life chances depend on the income and education of his or her parents?Nowadays, these numbers show that the American dream is a myth. There is less equality of opportunity in the United States today than there is in Europe ― o