WASHINGTON ― In his essay “Politics as a Vocation,” the German sociologist Max Weber famously wrote that “politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.” In this sense, it seems possible that Barack Obama has finally come to embrace the vocation of politics as he begins his second term as president. I’m saddened by some of what Obama has learned on the way to becoming the politician who can drill those hard boards. I like his voice better when he tries to speak to all Americans, including

NEWPORT BEACH ― Not many countries nowadays seek a strong exchange rate; a few, including systemically important ones, are already actively weakening their currencies. Yet, because an exchange rate is a relative price, all currencies cannot weaken simultaneously. How the world resolves this basic inconsistency over the next few years will have a major impact on prospects for growth, employment, income distribution, and the functioning of the global economy.Japan is the latest country to say enou

Debate continues on President-elect Park Geun-hye’s plan to reform the current basic old-age pension. During her election campaign, Park put forward three interrelated proposals concerning the senior pension. First of all, she promised to double the monthly pension benefit from the present 97,100 won to 200,000 won.Then she proposed to make the increased benefit available to all senior citizens aged 65 or older, regardless of their income. Currently, the benefit is paid to people in the bottom 7

President-elect Park Geun-hye has surprised many by nominating Kim Yong-joon, chief of her transition team, to be the first prime minister of her government. But the nomination has clearly shown what values she cherishes most.One such value is the rule of law. She has repeatedly pledged to handle state affairs in compliance with the law. By nominating Kim, Park probably wanted to show that her pledges were not hollow rhetoric. Explaining why she picked Kim, 74, who served as a Constitutional Cou

Distracted by the deadly violence in Mali and Algeria, no one seems to be paying adequate attention to the tragicomedy under way in Pakistan.This matters because events of the last week demonstrate without equivocation that Pakistan is an utterly failed state ― but one that possesses nuclear weapons. The country is tumbling down the abyss. Where else could a fundamentalist Muslim cleric who lives in Canada draw tens of thousands of fans to a rally calling for dissolution of the government ― spea

CAMBRIDGE ― At the start of 2013, the eurozone’s “fiscal compact” entered into force, owing to its ratification on Dec. 21 by a 12th country, Finland, a year after German Chancellor Angela Merkel prodded eurozone leaders into agreement. The compact ― technically called the Treaty on Stability, Coordination, and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union ― requires member countries to introduce laws limiting their structural government budget deficits to less than 0.5 percent of GDP (or less t

PARIS ― The realities highlighted by the Oscar-nominated film “Zero Dark Thirty,” which detailed the operation that ended with the killing of Osama bin Laden, don’t begin and end with the debate over what some call “torture” as a means of obtaining intelligence. That’s just the only issue from the film that politicians and the media have glommed onto. More than anything else, “Zero Dark Thirty” is one of the rare films that accurately portrays the realities and frustrations of working in espiona

A week before his inauguration, President Obama said he wouldn’t negotiate with Republicans over raising the federal debt limit.At an unexpected news conference Jan. 14, the president asserted that he won’t trade cuts in government spending in exchange for raising the borrowing limit.“If the goal is to make sure that we are being responsible about our debt and our deficit, if that’s the conversation we’re having, I’m happy to have that conversation,” Obama said. “What I will not do is to have th

An alarming new report estimates that between 30 and 50 percent of all the food produced in the world is lost and wasted. This is a shocking finding given the scale of malnourishment and hunger on our planet.While it is tempting to blame governments for this appalling state of affairs, the truth is that almost all of us contribute to this problem. While governments must do the lion’s share of the work, individual citizens can also help to reduce loss, waste and hunger.The new report is by the In

The oil industry, still reeling from the abrupt disbanding of the upstream oil regulatory body BPMigas last November, has been hit by another piece of bad news that threatens not only Indonesia’s energy security but also its balance of payments and fiscal consolidation, with an adverse impact on inflation and the rupiah exchange rate.The upstream oil regulatory task force that replaced BPMigas revealed last week that several big oil production-sharing contractors (PSCs), including giants such as

Ironically, even though we can hardly miss the acronym “AEC” when browsing through the newspaper each day, some Thai businessmen confessed to a survey recently that they don’t have a true understanding of how to prepare for the regional integration which is due to come into existence in 2015.In spite of the campaign to promote understanding of the AEC ― ASEAN Economic Community ― both in the public and private sectors, some Thai companies are not sure if they have a proper grasp of what this wil

ISLAMABAD ― Since mid-December, Pakistan has experienced political and economic volatility that is extraordinary even by Pakistani standards. The fragile political structure that began to be erected following the resumption of civilian government in 2008 is now shaking.A key source of this unrest is Tahirul Qadri, a Toronto-based Muslim cleric who arrived in Lahore in early December. Ten days later, he addressed a mammoth public meeting at the city’s Minar-e-Pakistan grounds, where, a year earli

Four years ago, on a bright, cold Jan. 20, Barack Obama took his first oath of office as president and proclaimed a new post-partisan era. “The stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply,” the Obama of 2009 said.The second four years of a two-term president’s tenure are always different from the first, but it’s hard to overstate how different Obama’s second term feels, even before his inauguration. He has most of the same goals and many of the same aides, but in

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia ― Recently, Saudi Arabia saw something that people in the kingdom often talk about but rarely witness ― a potentially important political reform. King Abdullah announced Jan. 11 that 30 women would join the kingdom’s Shura Council, a consultative body of 150 persons, and that women henceforth would hold 20 percent of the seats. Skeptics cautioned that it’s a symbolic move, since this is an advisory group that doesn’t actually enact any legislation. But it’s a powerful symbol

Having worked and lived in Korea for 12 years now, I have observed many traditions and ethics ― mostly good, some less good.I’ve seen some Korean bus drivers literally greet every person who enters or disembarks his bus. It is extremely courteous, and one can only imagine how much such a person has invested on the “bank of good ethics” at the end of his life. I was wondering, though, whether he could keep it up. Some express-bus drivers courteously stand at the exit of the bus to greet all the p

Food waste collection facilities in many of Seoul’s 25 wards stink to high heaven as private food waste disposal companies have stopped processing the food waste collected there amid disputes over fee hikes. Residents near these facilities will have to endure the odor of rotting food waste as ward offices and waste disposal companies are unlikely to reach a deal any time soon. The disputes were triggered by the government’s ban on dumping the liquid that leaches out of food waste into the sea, w

If the shape of the new Blue House organization unveiled by the presidential transition team on Monday suggests anything, it is that President-elect Park Geun-hye will likely show a governing style far different from those of her predecessors. Critical of the tradition of “imperial presidencies,” Park said she would scale back the power of the president and presidential staff while increasing the authority and responsibility of the prime minister and Cabinet ministers. Park’s intention to break

One of the key features of the Presidential Transition Committee’s governmental organization restructuring blueprint is to carve out the trade function of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and assign it to the new Ministry of Industry, Trade and Energy (currently, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy). The rationale mentioned by a committee member was the synergy effect expected from the combination of industrial policy and trade policy, so that Seoul’s trade agreement negotiations and impl

PARIS ― While hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Paris against the right of homosexual couples to marry and adopt children, French troops were arriving in Mali to stop a coalition of Islamist and rebel forces from taking control of its capital, Bamako, and creating in the Sahel a sanctuary for terrorists.These are trying times for French President Franois Hollande. Besieged economically at home, where his popularity is at its lowest since his election last year, can he regain credibility, if

LUANG PRABANG, Laos ― Travel through Southeast Asia, and wherever you go you’ll find statues of Buddha ― meditating, cogitating, calling for peace or for rain. The multiple poses are varied, and each one has its own meaning.But only one pose shows the Buddha actually grinning. That’s the Buddha who is fat, sitting in a chair, his belly so big it looks like he’ll be unable to stand up.This might seem odd, given that Buddhism is generally an ascetic faith. To reach enlightenment, you’re supposed t