Traveling around Southeast Asia last week, the mood was all about currency fluctuation and impact on markets. Things do look different when the Thai stock market daily turnover touches $2 billion and is higher than that of Singapore. But the headline that Thai growth slowed quarter-on-quarter but still grew 5.3 percent year on year gave rise to fears that export-driven economies in the region are beginning to slow. The guru on the dollar relationship with the East Asian currencies has to be Stan

No one needs a lean-in movement like Japan’s women. I had this conversation in Tokyo 12 years ago with Sheryl Sandberg, long before she joined Facebook Inc. and wrote her book on female empowerment. We were listening to her boss at the time, U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, speak about the need for structural reforms to the Japanese economy, in a giant auditorium devoid of women. It was one of several male-dominated events that day. The author of “Lean In” leaned over and asked me half-

The government is planning to introduce a quota for the employment of young people to combat worsening youth joblessness. At the same time, it will promote part-time employment to create jobs for women and those approaching old age.These measures are part of an employment package the government is to announce soon to meet President Park Geun-hye’s key campaign promise of raising the nation’s employment rate from the present 64.2 percent to 70 percent by 2017. To tackle youth unemployment, the Na

North Korea has signaled a shift toward a peace offensive after three months of saber-rattling that increased tension on the Korean Peninsula.On Thursday, China’s state television quoted Choe Ryong-hae, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s envoy to China, as saying that North Korea “is willing to accept China’s suggestion to have talks with all parties” involved in tackling “the problems of the Korean Peninsula.”A day earlier, Pyongyang proposed to Seoul that the two sides jointly host an event in

PARIS ― Given that no one is officially denying it, it’s fairly safe to say that Russia’s domestic security service recently slammed America’s foreign spy service face-first into the Moscow pavement ― blond wig and all ― in the person of diplomatic staffer and unconfirmed CIA case officer Ryan Fogle.When you’re benefiting from official diplomatic cover and find yourself tucking your hair into a blond wig and heading out with your compass and a written cash-for-treason offer for your target, perh

Many of you soon-to-be college graduates are determined to make the world a better place. Some of you are choosing careers in public service or joining nonprofits or volunteering in your communities.But many of you are cynical about politics. You see the system as inherently corrupt. You doubt real progress is possible.“What chance do we have against the Koch brothers and the other billionaires?” you’ve asked me. “How can we fight against Monsanto, Boeing, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America? They b

Talk about India always begins with recognition that it’s one of Asia’s rising powers, a state with a fast-growing economy and burgeoning political influence on the world stage.But a closer look shows a dark underbelly that portends a sad time ahead.Put simply, the state is so badly neglecting its young, the next generation of the nation’s business and political leaders, that India is threatening its very future.“Why are the youth angry?” Rahul Ghandi pointedly asked a few weeks ago. He’s a prom

WASHINGTON ― It’s a rule of thumb in Middle East conflicts that whenever peace talks are announced, each side steps up the fighting so it can grab as much territory as possible before the cease-fire lines are drawn. This struggle for position is happening now in Syria, in the run-up to planned negotiations in Geneva next month that will be co-sponsored by the United States and Russia. But the battling on the ground is so intense, and the demand for additional weapons so vocal, that a skeptical p

At a time when right-wing Japanese politicians are making reckless, history-distorting remarks on a daily basis, it is refreshing to hear that a group of Japanese intellectuals is visiting Korea to set history straight. The group, consisting of three retired history professors and a Buddhist monk, held a news conference in Busan on Tuesday to rebut Tokyo’s claim to Dokdo and urge conservative Japanese politicians to face history squarely.The four intellectuals are members of a volunteer group ca

Minister of Employment and Labor Phang Ha-nam has proposed tripartite talks among labor, management and the government to resolve the continuing controversy over the scope of “ordinary wages.”The controversy revolves around whether quarterly bonuses constitute part of workers’ ordinary wages.The ordinary wage matters because it is used to calculate various allowances, including those for extended, night or holiday work and retirement. Yet the relevant law does not clearly define it. According to

For the U.S. college students who will be paying for a four-year bachelor’s degree long after graduation day, here’s some consolation: At least it didn’t take you six or eight years. College is expensive, yet unpredictably so. Some students pay little for degrees from elite private institutions, after tuition discounts and financial aid. Many of their peers, however, will pay far more than they expected for lower-cost universities. A big reason for this is the increasing number of years it takes

Spend a few minutes on Shapeways.com, an online marketplace, and you get a glimpse of a very odd future. You can buy mustache cuff links, a pencil topper shaped like a Roman halberd, a pixelated bust of a glowering Steve Jobs, or a set of dice modeled on the Deathly Hallows of “Harry Potter” fame. All the items are designed by the site’s users and can be manufactured by Shapeways using 3-D printing technology. And they’re all for sale. The Internet is now alive with creative physical objects lik

When Apple Inc.’s chief executive officer, Tim Cook, bragged to a U.S. Senate subcommittee this week about his company’s culture of innovation, he probably hoped people would think of Apple’s gadgets, not its tax strategies. That seems unlikely, at least for now. Apple has opened a new front in the battle between corporations that aggressively avoid U.S. taxes and lawmakers who want to collect more of them. In so doing, Apple has made the case for why Congress must update the tax code. The compa

In her address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on May 9, President Park Geun-hye outlined her North Korea policy. Dubbed trustpolitik, the policy consists of a trust-building process on the Korean peninsula, a trust-building process in Northeast Asia, and an international peace park in the Demilitarized Zone.There can be two contrasting views of her plan. Some might think that her plan is the rehash of the old strategies that her predecessors have already tried but to no avail. Others mi

For the sixth time in the last 25 years a lower court in South Korea has requested that the Constitutional Court review the constitutionality of the adultery law. Adultery is still a criminal offense in South Korea, and has been so for over 60 years. However, it is only in the last couple of decades that the criminality of what many see as a private matter has been questioned in the context of a modern democracy. The most public debate occurred five years ago when a famous actress challenged the

Sony Corp.’s curt dismissal of a foreigner’s advice last week didn’t shock Michael Woodford, the former chief executive officer of Olympus Corp. “The club, meaning corporate Japan, will do everything it can to mask and hide what’s wrong. That’s what’s most important,” said Woodford, a Briton who was fired in late 2011 after he exposed a $1.7 billion accounting fraud in his own company. Woodford’s tale is worth revisiting as Sony rebuffs a proposal from hedge-fund investor Daniel Loeb for the com

In its next generation of jet engines, General Electric Co. plans to use a new, and possibly revolutionary, technology. In each engine, 19 nozzles will shoot fuel into a combustion chamber, where it mixes with compressed air. Because the fuel must be distributed precisely, the interior of a nozzle is very sophisticated: Elaborate chambers and passageways help curtail emissions, control nitrous-oxide levels and prevent temperature surges. Previously, making each nozzle required welding 20 dispara

We all retire some day. Some people retire voluntarily long before they reach their retirement age, and others involuntarily due to age limits and retirement rules. Whichever your case is and whoever you are, the day will surely come when you have to pack your stuff and leave permanently. Cleaning up your vestiges at your workplace where you have spent your entire life, you are bound to feel a little lonely and empty, no matter how splendid your past achievements are. Elvis Presley once sang: “T

The most effective way to address working moms’ concerns about child care is to have their companies operate an on-site nursery school, given that parents prefer day care facilities to be in the workplace.But companies are reluctant to set up nurseries for employees because of the financial costs involved. It takes about 1 billion won on average to build a day care center. On top of that, wages have to be paid to staff the centers.Furthermore, the current regulations on the operation of nursery

The district court in the industrial city of Ulsan has put the brakes on job inheritance practices at Hyundai Motor.On Thursday, the court nullified a clause in the automaker’s collective bargaining agreement that requires management to hire a relative of an employee who dies or retires due to an industrial accident, regardless of whether they have the required job skills.The court said the provision not only “intrudes on the employer’s intrinsic right to hire employees” but “defines something t