Can you safely talk on a cellphone ― or for that matter, check your email or scroll through Google Maps ― while driving? Well, of course you can. But those other folks with their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road are a public menace.Unfortunately, that sums up the attitude of many American motorists, who widely acknowledge using their phones while behind the wheel but insist they’re safe drivers. Meanwhile, the number of people worried about the other guy is soaring. When the state

Imagine walking down the street and on the other side of the road stands young women in provocative clothing holding up signs saying “I’m a slut.” What do you think would be the first thing that comes to your mind? This kind of movement is spreading all over the world, starting in Toronto. It first took place on April 3 when one police officer suggested that, in order not to be victimized, women “should avoid dressing like sluts.” Then what does this have to do with young women on the roads shou

President Barack Obama’s recent announcement that he will seek to create what may be the world’s largest trading bloc along the Pacific rim raises an interesting question in this part of the world: whether we will see a de facto split of Latin America into a Pacific bloc and an Atlantic bloc.It may be already happening. Obama’s recent proclamation that “the United States is a Pacific country” and his announcement that Washington will seek to dramatically expand the nine-member Trans-Pacific Part

WASHINGTON ― Is American power in decline, relative to the rest of the world? That question is at the center of a provocative study by the U.S. intelligence community exploring what the world might look like in 2030. The answer, judging by comments from a panel convened to discuss the topic, is that America faces serious trouble: The U.S. economy is slowing, relative to its Asian competitors, which will make it harder for the country to assert its traditional leadership role in decades ahead. Th

The Durban climate-change talks ended in what negotiators agreed to call a success. Governments, including China and India for the first time, said they would devise a new global system for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases and make it operational by 2020. This promise, however, has uncertain legal force, the form of any new regime is unclear, and the meeting failed to set any new binding targets. Don’t be too disappointed. The ambition to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a similar but truly

Rep. Lee Sang-deuk announced Sunday he would not run for the 19th National Assembly election next April. His retirement, we believe, was four years too late. He had been advised by people in and outside the Grand National Party to make an exit from politics when his younger brother Lee Myung-bak was elected president in December 2007. But “SD” decided to seek his sixth term ― and won it ― “to play the role of the bridge” between the new ruling party and the president, who lacked firm roots in th

We are increasingly uneasy that judges are making the news, not only with their verdicts but with their Twitter messages, and even with a collective appeal to the Supreme Court concerning the desirability of an international pact ratified by the Assembly and signed into law by the president.Judge Kim Ha-neul at the Incheon District Court has sent a letter of suggestion to Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae, asking him to form a task force for a court-level study of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement

In November 1947, shortly after the United Nations voted for partition of the Holy Land into separate Arab and Jewish states, Chaim Weizmann was cited by the New York Times as saying that “the most important work now was to build Palestine.” What? To build Palestine? Yes, in 1947 the word “Palestinian” ― if it meant anything at all ― referred to Jews living in Palestine. The Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post) was the Jewish English-language newspaper. The Palestine Orchestra (now the Israel

CAMBRIDGE ― Libyans have a new lease on life, a feeling that, at long last, they are the masters of their own fate. Perhaps Iraqis, after a decade of warfare, feel the same way. Both countries are oil producers, and there is widespread expectation among their citizens that that wealth will be a big advantage in rebuilding their societies. Meanwhile, in Africa, Ghana has begun pumping oil for the first time, and Uganda is about to do so as well. Indeed, from West Africa to Mongolia, countries are

Having already succeeded in giving free school lunches to all the needy (and unneedy) elementary students in Seoul, it seems newly minted Mayor Park Won-soon has now gone in on the next big populist policy, one even more unnecessary and potentially negative than school food, half-price tuition.Park has approved a budget which includes cutting tuition at the city-administered University of Seoul, likely the top public university in the Korean system dominated by private schools in rankings, from

India has a Wal-Mart problem. This may not sound remarkable, considering that China and the U.S. do as well. China’s preference for sweatshops to supply the Arkansas-based behemoth impedes the creation of a vibrant domestic market. America’s addiction to cheap goods made in China helped kill a once-prosperous manufacturing sector. India’s challenge in allowing Wal-Mart to enter its market is more complicated. It’s a question of whether the ninth-biggest economy moves forward or backward and a de

The ruling Grand National Party is teetering on the brink of collapse. On Wednesday, three of the party’s five top leaders quit their posts, calling for reform of the party. The majority party has been floundering in defeatism after losing the Seoul mayoral by-election on Oct. 26. The collective resignations of the three leaders ― Reps. Yoo Seung-min, Nam Kyung-pil and Won Hee-ryong ― were intended to pressure party leader Hong Joon-pyo to step down. What motivated the trio to drag Hong down was

PARIS ― The winner of Sunday’s legislative election in Russia was a foregone conclusion: United Russia, organized by Vladimir Putin. Likewise, there is no doubt that Putin himself will win the presidential election due in March 2012. But the public enthusiasm that ratified Putin’s rule for a decade has vanished, something demonstrated by the poor performance of his party, United Russia, in the just concluded elections to the Duma.Unlike Europe, beset by a sovereign-debt crisis, and the United St

The government has again come up with a package of measures aimed at stimulating the dormant housing market. It is the sixth of its kind introduced this year. The frequent announcements of policy steps illustrate the difficulty of the task facing policymakers ― injecting new life into the moribund housing market without letting the genie of real estate speculation out of the bottle.The latest package, announced by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs on Wednesday, contained bolde

A new study of pediatricians’ prescribing habits told us something old and something new. It told us that antibiotics are overused. It also told us ― and this is the new part ― that doctors are using the wrong antibiotics, even when the bacteria-killing drugs are called for. According to the study, which looked at tens of thousands of visits to pediatricians outside hospitals from 2006 to 2008, in more than one in five cases doctors gave their young patients antibiotics. Very often (23 percent o

The League of Women Voters quit sponsoring presidential debates during the 1988 campaign, saying the events had devolved into “charades devoid of substance.” That was more than two decades before Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann took the stage, redefining “substance” and “devoid” and “charade.” One remark you never hear this campaign season: “There just aren’t enough debates.” There have been about a dozen so far, with almost a dozen more promised by the time Florida holds its primar

BEIJING ― “I love New York” is perhaps the most successful slogan in modern history. Cities around the world are copying this slogan. “I love Beijing” ― in English ― is commonly seen on T-shirts in the Chinese capital. It’s easy to be cynical, to say that the whole thing is driven by money. The “I love Toronto” website is advertised as a “guide to living well in Toronto,” which turns out to mean buying and selling real estate.But it’s not just a slogan: Many people really do love their cities. C

Was that the president of the United States, sailing across the Pacific Ocean, rallying allies ― old, new and potential ones ― and declaring this nation will remain a global power for many decades to come?Anyone who was paying close attention to President Obama’s November trip to Asia and other points in the Pacific had to admit the performance was something to behold. The president has never lacked in self-confidence. In the past, however, his plans to co-opt and cajole on the global stage have

For most of the last century, the basic bargain at the heart of the American economy was that employers paid their workers enough to buy what American employers were selling.That basic bargain created a virtuous cycle of higher living standards, more jobs and better wages.Back in 1914, Henry Ford announced he was paying workers on his Model T assembly line $5 a day ― three times what the typical factory employee earned at the time. The Wall Street Journal termed his action “an economic crime.” B

MADRID ― How revolutions unfold depends on many factors, including a country’s socio-economic structure, its particular historical traditions, and sometimes the role of foreign powers. So the Arab Spring was never expected to be a linear process, or a Middle Eastern version of Central Europe’s non-violent democratic revolutions of 1989. Egypt is a case in point.The structure of revolutions in non-industrialized societies has almost invariably comprised a succession of revolutionary and counter-r