It has been 40 years since the last astronauts left the moon. That anniversary, which passed last week, has put some prominent technologists in a funk. “You promised me Mars colonies. Instead, I got Facebook,” reads the cover of the current issue of MIT Technology Review. In an essay titled “Why We Can’t Solve Big Problems,” editor Jason Pontin considers “why there are no disruptive innovations” today. Technology Review’s headline, running below the face of Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, now 82,

Since November 1982, Japan has had 18 prime ministers, with an average stay in office of 658 days. Arguably, only two left the job smiling: Yasuhiro Nakasone and Junichiro Koizumi, both strong reformers with clear agendas who were, not coincidentally, among Japan’s longest-serving chief executives. Let’s hope that lesson isn’t lost on Shinzo Abe, Japan’s next prime minister, when he takes office Dec. 26. With his landslide victory, Abe has a political opening to push reforms that could lift Japa

NEW DELHI ― One of the more difficult questions I found myself being asked when I was a United Nations under-secretary-general, especially when addressing a general audience, was: “What is the single most important thing that can be done to improve the world?”It’s the kind of question that tends to bring out the bureaucrat in even the most direct of communicators, as one feels obliged to explain the complexity of the challenges confronting humanity: how no imperative can be singled out over othe

Today the majority of South Koreans will go to the polls to elect their next president. However, as in all modern democracies, not all of the eligible voters will cast a ballot today. In South Korea the voter participation rate has been on a steady downward track since the founding of the Sixth Republic in 1987. This downward track has occurred in both presidential and parliamentary elections resulting in an over 20 percent drop in voter participation. In the last presidential election a little

Nothing exposes partisan hypocrisy quite like the filibuster, that irksome parliamentary rule that allows a minority of U.S. senators to block legislation, judicial appointments and other business by requiring a 60-vote majority to proceed to a vote. Almost invariably, the party in power considers the filibuster to be an enemy of progress that must be squashed, while the minority fights to preserve it at all cost. That the same players often find themselves arguing from opposite sides depending

North Korea’s launch of a satellite using a self-developed rocket was a Sputnik moment for the South. It shocked South Koreans just as Sputnik 1, the first satellite the Soviet Union put into space in October 1957, shocked Americans.Experts say the South is five to seven years behind the North in space technology. Seoul has yet to develop its own carrier rocket. Naro-1, the South’s first satellite carrier, has suffered two successive launch failures, with the third attempt delayed twice due to t

The two presidential candidates are to wind up their election campaigns Tuesday, the last day of legal campaigning. During the official campaign period that started on Nov. 27, they have mounted energetic campaigns to garner as many votes as possible.With just one day left before the election, there is no predicting the outcome of the vote. The last polls taken about a week ago showed the gap between Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party and the trailing Democratic United Party candidate, Mo

PARIS ― For some time now, a certain strategic vision has been gaining traction: the United States is becoming energy-independent, paving the way for its political retreat from the Middle East and justifying its strategic “pivot” toward Asia. This view seems intuitively correct, but is it?Energy-hungry America has long depended on the global market to meet domestic demand. In 2005, the U.S. imported 60 percent of the energy that it consumed. Since then, however, the share of imports has decrease

NEW YORK ― After a hard-fought election campaign, costing well in excess of $2 billion, it seems to many observers that not much has changed in American politics: Barack Obama is still president, the Republicans still control the House of Representatives, and the Democrats still have a majority in the Senate. With America facing a “fiscal cliff” ― automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the start of 2013 that will most likely drive the economy into recession unless bipartisan agreement on a

LONDON ― Thirty years ago, the Cold War was at its height and the United Kingdom had just clawed its way out of recession. Perhaps those factors explain why, this week in 1982, when 119 government delegations chose to sign the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the U.K. was not among them. According to Donald Rumsfeld, Britain’s then-prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, declared UNCLOS to be “nothing less than the international nationalization of roughly two-thirds of the Ea

This year, the Bank of Korea cut the benchmark interest rate twice in its bid to help energize the flagging economy. But this low interest rate policy is hurting financial companies by squeezing their profits.On Thursday, the BOK decided to leave the key interest rate at 2.75 percent for December. Yet it is expected to cut the already low rate further next year as the economy is likely to remain stagnant. When the central bank lowers the benchmark rate, banks also cut their lending rates. But th

North Korea’s successful launch of a satellite ― effectively proving its long-range missile capabilities ― has offered a reality check to the two main presidential candidates on their policies toward the bellicose regime. The two frontrunners both stress flexibility and dialogue in their policies toward the North. But the launch has clearly shown that their policies are based not on reality but vague and groundless expectations.In the first TV debate held on Dec. 4, Park Geun-hye of the ruling S

LONDON ― Institutions are not lovable. They are rule-bound and dull; they have routines, committees, agendas, budgets ― and rows about budgets. If they are successful, they go on forever.Prizes are for heroes. Like heroes, prizes blaze and are gone. Prizes belong to those who make great discoveries, write great poems, or discover new ways of living ― to the bringers of new things. Institutions are dull ― that is their purpose ― but those who found them may also be creators, even heroes.There is

The weekend announcement by Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti that he will resign triggered a rush to sell off Italian debt and stocks, as investors blanched at the uncertainty that will follow the departure of “Super Mario.” Not surprisingly, many investors and Italian business leaders say they would like to see Monti run in the elections that his departure will force, probably in February. That way he could reclaim his job next year, this time with a mandate from Italian voters. Ferrari SpA C

Moves advanced by rival claimants in South China Sea disputes have taken on a harder edge, topped off by China saying it would interdict ships found in its waters. This is happening in spite of calls for calm by ASEAN, as a bloc with an interest in the matter, and the United States, as a Pacific maritime power. Even a peripheral participant like India, which happens to have energy prospecting activity off the Vietnam coast, has implied it would dispatch its navy to protect its interests if it ha

There are less than 10 days left for you to celebrate the upcoming holiday season ― if you believe in the Mayan prophecy of the apocalypse. On Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, we might experience the end of days, like John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Amanda Peet, who barely escaped the “heightened change in the elements” in Roland Emmerich’s epic 2012. Yet, we shouldn’t rush to any conclusions. Hiding in the mountains may not be the best move, for such predictions are mostly opportunistic.If you type “20

What can be done to rebuild the nation’s finances, which are the worst among advanced nations? Financial reconstruction is an issue that will heavily influence Japan’s future.However, there has not been very much debate on the issue in the campaigning for the Dec. 16 general election. Parties must show their resolve in dealing with this problem.Japan’s finances are facing a critical situation. Tax revenues have been continuing to decrease due to the prolonged economic downturn following the burs

The past four weeks saw the swiftest escalation in recent years of tensions over the territorial disputes between China and its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.The tensions spiraled in late November when the province of Hainan, in the southern coastal region of China, issued an imperial-sounding edict that its so-called lawmaking body had authorized its police patrol boats to board and search foreign ships of any nationality that illegally enter what it considers Chinese territories in the South C

The question before the U.S. Supreme Court is not whether to allow same-sex marriage, but how. That should be the question, anyway. Last week the court agreed to hear two cases involving the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Theodore Olson, one of the lawyers for proponents of same-sex marriage, called it “perhaps the most important remaining civil-rights issue of our time.” He is undoubtedly right about that. What the court must do is find a way to encourage the movement’s progress withou

PRINCETON ― On which problems should we focus research in medicine and the biological sciences? There is a strong argument for tackling the diseases that kill the most people ― diseases like malaria, measles, and diarrhea, which kill millions in developing countries, but very few in the developed world.Developed countries, however, devote most of their research funds to the diseases from which their citizens suffer, and that seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Given that constra