Suddenly, manufacturing is back ― at least on the campaign trail. But don’t be fooled. The real issue isn’t how to get manufacturing back. It’s how to get good jobs and good wages back. They aren’t at all the same thing.Republicans have become born-again champions of American manufacturing, especially given crucial primaries occurring next week in Michigan and the following week in Ohio.Mitt Romney says he’ll “work to bring manufacturing back” to America by being tough on China. Rick Santorum sa

The Supreme Court has put an end to a long-running dispute over the status of workers at Hyundai Motor who are formally hired by the carmaker’s in-house subcontractors but work just like its regular employees ― for far lower wages.On Thursday, the court ruled in favor of a former Hyundai worker who filed a suit in 2005 claiming that he was unlawfully fired. The worker, who was then employed by an in-house subcontractor at the carmaker’s plant in Ulsan, claimed that he should have been converted

In less than two weeks, Russians go to the polls for a presidential election exercise. The overwhelmingly likely outcome: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will dust off the old stationery from his first two terms as president.In the final run-up, Putin is publishing a series of position papers, the latest one focusing on reloading and reforming the Russian military. The most striking remark: “We need a response system for more than just current threats. We should learn to look ‘past the horizon,’ a

WASHINGTON ― “We are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last Sunday on CNN. That sounds right to me, but his comment raises a tricky question: How much pressure will it take to get this “rational” country to curb its nuclear program? The answer here isn’t comforting: Recent history shows that the Iranian regime will change behavior only if confronted with overwhelming force and the prospect of an unwinnabl

A second bailout plan by the European Union and other concerned parties to deal with Greece’s debts has finally been sealed by eurozone finance ministers.Greece, which is suffering from an ever-worsening debt crisis, is scheduled to redeem a large amount of government bonds on March 20. Without further debt relief measures, it would have been difficult for the country to collect funds, resulting in a default that surely would have an adverse effect that will rock global markets.We welcome this d

Recent history is no small matter in the relations between China and Japan. Attempts to rewrite it and deny the facts will undermine the foundation for the lasting friendship both countries now desire. Given the unbearable suffering of the Chinese people during the Japanese invasion, it is only natural that they should feel hurt by the remarks made by Takashi Kawamura, the mayor of Nagoya, during his meeting with a delegation from the Chinese city of Nanjing. He said that he doubted invading Jap

Chinese soon-to-be President Xi Jinping’s visit to the U.S. gives the world the chance to reflect on the role that China is going to assume in international politics and economics. With more than $3 trillion in reserves, China has been looked to as the saviour of Europe. For its part, the U.S. is eager to address its $300 billion a year trade deficit with China, and under pressure from domestic constituencies, Obama has surely raised the question of intellectual property rights and industrial su

The euro should not exist. In a perfect world (run by economists) the euro would never have been created. Sadly, however, the world is not perfect ― and it is run by politicians. The result is an entirely dysfunctional monetary union. The Spanish economy has youth unemployment approaching 50 percent. The Greek economy is in its fourth consecutive year of negative GDP growth and is likely to embark on a fifth year of negative growth later in 2012. Euro area countries have to share a common intere

What will it take to sensitize lawmakers to the need to raise funds to prepare for Korean reunification? Apparently, the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was not enough. Earlier this month, the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee of the National Assembly suspended discussions on a bill aimed at creating a so-called “unification jar” ― a metaphor for an account that will store funds to finance reunification.The bill proposes to create a unification account under the Inter-Kor

Malcolm X said, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, that “the chickens have come home to roost,” by which he meant that the violence of American interventionist foreign policy had come back to haunt the country.The exposure of a possible Iranian bomb-making cell in Thailand, and the coordinated attacks against Israeli targets in India and Georgia, remind us of the truth behind Malcom X’s remark. It may be no accident that the attacks occurred only days after U.S. officials conf

TEL AVIV ― The current drive to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal reflects two important, and interrelated, changes. From Israel’s perspective, these changes are to be welcomed, though its government must remain cautious about the country’s own role.The first change is the escalation of efforts by the United States and its Western allies to abort the Iranian regime’s nuclear quest. This was instigated in part by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s finding in November 2011 that

Korean football has been in a state of complacency for at least 10 years. Numerous examples of deceit and chicanery in Korean football have been unveiled recently. Korean football has neglected to develop infrastructure in communities and the K-league. Also, K-league players have been found to very frequently partake of match-fixing and illegal gambling. Moreover, the Korean Football Association has acted in ways that are entirely inscrutable to the general public. For instance, it recently repl

A fight in Israel over a new university is a perfect metaphor illustrating the nation’s deep divisions ― a fault line that further isolates Israel and presents a continuing danger to the world.This month, an Israeli education council for the occupied West Bank declared a community college in a Jewish settlement to be a full-fledged university ― prompting several hundred Israeli college professors, including some of the state’s most renowned academics, to write an angry letter to the state’s educ

The Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul next month will seek to strengthen the partnerships of nations to help prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. The Seoul summit of more than 50 heads of state and international organizations on March 26-27 will also take specific actions to protect nuclear materials from illicit trafficking and smuggling. They will discuss ways to give the International Atomic Energy Agency the resources and authority it needs to meet its responsi

Virginia is for lovers -- of guns. Last week that state‘s Senate, newly under Republican control after a GOP election surge in November, overturned a 20-year-old law that barred residents from buying more than one handgun a month. Why? Apparently because in Virginia, deadly firearms are like Lay’s potato chips -- you can‘t stop at just one.Virginia’s refusal to close the notorious “gun-show loophole” has long been criticized by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who frets that relatively tough re

A fight in Israel over a new university is a perfect metaphor illustrating the nation‘s deep divisions -- a fault line that further isolates Israel and presents a continuing danger to the world.This month, an Israeli education council for the occupied West Bank declared a community college in a Jewish settlement to be a full-fledged university -- prompting several hundred Israeli college professors, including some of the state’s most renowned academics, to write an angry letter to the state‘s ed

Malcolm X said, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, that “the chickens have come home to roost,” by which he meant that the violence of American interventionist foreign policy had come back to haunt the country.The exposure of a possible Iranian bomb-making cell in Thailand, and the coordinated attacks against Israeli targets in India and Georgia, remind us of the truth behind Malcom X’s remark. It may be no accident that the attacks occurred only days after U.S. officials conf

In recent years, many top universities have tried to guide their students into careers other than finance. In 2008, Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard University, went so far as to give a speech to graduating seniors asking them to stand fast against Wall Street’s “all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut.” Tufts University is paying the student loans of graduates who go into public service. The efforts seem to be failing. In December, the New York Times’ Catherine Rampell asked Harva

With November’s election in the United States fast approaching, the Republican candidates seeking to challenge President Barack Obama claim that his policies have done nothing to support recovery from the recession that he inherited in January 2009. If anything, they claim, his fiscal stimulus, the bank bailouts, and U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s aggressive monetary policy made matters worse.Obama’s Democratic defenders counter that his policies staved off a second Great Depressio

Two recent reports appearing on the same day last week in The New York Times and The Washington Post illustrate U.S. intentions in Iraq. What they reveal is that despite the heralded “end” of U.S. participation in the war there, U.S. policy continues to depend on our security apparatus to influence Iraq, at the expense of Iraqis‘ sovereignty and dignity.The Times report informed us that the U.S. State Department decided to cut the U.S. embassy staff by 50 percent from its current 16,000 personne