A senior official in the Saudi Arabian Justice Ministry boldly declared that the government is finally going to attack a significant national problem: child marriage.It’s not uncommon to hear about girls 12 years old or younger being forced to marry men in their 70s or 80s. For many years now, news stories about this problem have been tarnishing the Saudi government’s image.“The ministry has adopted a clear stance on underage marriages, and the issue was raised to the regulators,” Mohammed al-Ba

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel “The Great Gatsby” (1925) recounts the story of a poor farm boy named Jimmy Gatz, who falls in love with a beautiful girl from a wealthy family, Daisy Fay. Gatz pretends that his own background is similar to Daisy’s, and she promises to wait for him until after the war. In 1919, however, she marries Tom Buchanan, a man from an aristocratic family. The book begins around 1922 ― told in first-person by Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin ― at a time when Gatz has tran

On Wednesday, President Park Geun-hye said slow growth was setting in for the long haul. There was nothing new about her warning. Still, it carried much weight as it indicated that her economic policy will focus on growth during the next five years of governance.She made the remark at the inaugural conference of the National Economic Advisory Council ― a blue-ribbon panel of renowned economists and economic policymakers that is tasked with providing the president with unbiased economic analyses

South Korea is pushing for new rules for engaging North Korea in dialogue, making it clear that it will no longer allow itself to be bandied about. It says it will not tolerate any attempt by North Korea to pit South Korean civilian groups against their government in pursuit of gain.Under this policy, South Korea has decided not to allow South Korean civilians to attend a ceremony marking this year’s anniversary of the South-North Joint Declaration adopted by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung

South Korea’s economy has yet to catch up to its people. They are the world’s most-wired citizenry and the most advanced at using smartphones. Korean stars are Asia’s most popular; Korean gadgets and fashions the coolest. Yet at home, huge manufacturing conglomerates, or chaebol, such as Hyundai Motor Group, Samsung Group and LG Group remain the mainstays of an export-focused system established after the Korean War by strongman Park Chung-hee. In fact, as the July edition of Bloomberg Markets ma

A Senate report criticizes Apple for shifting billions of dollars in profits into Irish affiliates where its tax rate is less than 2 percent, yet a growing chorus of politicians call for lower corporate taxes in order to make the U.S. more competitive.The seeming contradiction is explained by the simple fact that global capital is gaining enormous bargaining power over nation states.Global companies are not interested in raising living standards. Their only goal is to maximize returns to their i

The suspension of four nuclear reactors due to substandard parts is a big embarrassment for Korea, which seeks to export its reactors. All the more so as it coincided with the groundbreaking ceremony for the second of the four nuclear reactors that Korea is building in the United Arab Emirates.Due to the shutdown, the nation is likely to face an unprecedented power crisis this summer. Even before it, a serious power shortage was expected this summer as many of the nation’s 23 reactors went out o

The Ministry of Education has unveiled a plan to undertake a bold but untested educational program proposed by President Park Geun-hye.On the campaign trail, Park promised to introduce an exam-free semester for middle school students to give them time to discover their aptitude and talent and explore their career options.The ministry said it would implement the test-free semester system for the nation’s 3,200 middle schools from 2016, based on an assessment of a pilot program that will run from

Washington has recently become an unlikely hotbed of culinary innovation, with entrepreneurs flocking to this historically stodgy meat-and-two-veg city for the chance to feed dulce de leche cupcakes and kimchi tacos to the masses. Office drones rejoice at the expanded lunch options, but restaurants are less happy. So, unsurprisingly, they have turned to the government. In the epic war between upstart little guys and the alliance of big business and government, Capitol Hill isn’t the only battleg

WASHINGTON ― Secretary of State John Kerry’s cardinal rule in trying to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been that he won’t talk publicly about the details, so it’s difficult to know how he’s doing. But he’s still hard at it, and he seems to be employing some modest variations on the traditional choreography of Middle East shuttle diplomacy. Kerry has made a restart of the peace process a personal priority: He has played his cards close to the vest during a string of private mee

One more hurdle is cleared. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee gave its approval last week to comprehensive immigration legislation. Happy news, though the risk is still high that compromise will be supplanted by ideological conviction. To get the bill through the Senate committee with Republican support, Democrats had to abandon an amendment that would have given gay and lesbian spouses of U.S. citizens the same immigration prospects as heterosexual spouses. Thus, basic equity was sacrificed f

NEW YORK ― A recent visit to Turkey reminded me of its enormous economic successes during the last decade. The economy has grown rapidly, inequality is declining, and innovation is on the rise.Turkey’s achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers its neighborhood. Its neighbors to the west, Cyprus and Greece, are at the epicenter of the eurozone crisis. To the southeast is war-torn Syria, which has already disgorged almost 400,000 refugees into Turkey. To the east lie Iraq and Ira

Whatever the investigation into misconduct at the Internal Revenue Service reveals, we already have all the evidence we need to understand President Barack Obama’s fundamental attitude toward the rule of law. That evidence is right there in the public record, and what it shows is indifference and contempt. The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint officials to fill vacancies when the Senate isn’t in session. In 2012, Obama made such “recess appointments” to the National Labor Rel

A police investigation has confirmed what has been widely suspected: rampant illegal practices at private nursery schools. Yet the pervasiveness of corruption laid bare by the investigation leaves us at a loss for words.The police station in Songpa, a southeastern district in Seoul, said on Monday that it has booked 55 nursery operators in southern Seoul on suspicion of embezzling government subsidies and receiving rebates from teachers offering extracurricular programs. The station started to i

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un followed a familiar pattern when he sent a special envoy to China to express willingness to resume the stalled six-party talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.Before the envoy’s visit, the young leader rattled his saber for months, defying international sanctions against the North’s missile launches and third nuclear test. Following his father’s old playbook, he is now shifting to dialogue to get the sanctions lifted. Previously, this ploy worked.

“Diplomatic immunity” is one of the concepts that perplex ordinary people. Under international law including the 1963 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, all registered diplomats are immune from criminal jurisdiction of the receiving states. Even if a diplomat is caught red-handed right on the spot, no criminal prosecution or punishment is permitted. The only defense available for the receiving state under the convention is to declare such person as persona non grata ― meaning unacceptabl

Sheryl Sandberg created a national firestorm earlier this year when she said women should “Lean In” aggressively to maximize their careers. The $64,000 question, though, is how realistic is that for most women?Not every woman is like Sandberg, who is the Harvard-educated chief operating officer for Facebook. Not many men either, for that matter. She gained $821 million from shares that vested in 2012 and received an additional $25.6 million in stock. And that’s not all. She also had a base salar

President Obama’s speech last week on the future course of America’s 11-year-old war against al-Qaida was long overdue.Never before has he offered the public such a detailed explanation of his anti-terrorism strategy. In part, that’s surely because so much of it was officially secret ― but also because the public hasn’t demanded a position more nuanced than “tough on terrorism.”The president did three big things in his speech Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington. He argued t

They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Ireland might beg to differ, having been at the center of a U.S. Senate hearing on Apple Inc.’s tax accounting practices at a time when the European Union is working hard to crack down on tax evasion. On May 21, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations dug into Apple’s tax activities in deep and gory detail. Their findings show that Ireland has been at the very center of Apple’s success in tax avoidance. Using information provided by

WASHINGTON ― Watching President Obama’s compelling speech on counterterrorism policy Thursday, you couldn’t help wondering what he might accomplish if he could apply the same intellectual focus and intensity to governing the nation that he has shown as covert commander in chief. By announcing new restraints on the use of armed drones for targeted killing and pushing again for the closure of the Guantanamo prison, Obama signaled more strongly than ever that he means to turn the page of American h