World leaders have long recognized the value of empowering women, for their sake and to help achieve such long-term social goals as eradicating poverty, educating children, combating disease and protecting the environment. But how much progress toward gender equality is being made?This is a question that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to answer ― by 2015, the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking United Nations conference on gender issues in Beijing.It’s a great idea to m

CAMBRIDGE ― On Oct. 14, the Mo Ibrahim Prize Committee announced that for the second year in a row it had not found anyone to whom to award its Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. Why is that important?The prize is given to a recently retired African head of state or government who was democratically elected, stepped down at the end of his or her constitutionally mandated term, and demonstrated exceptional leadership. The winner receives $5 million paid over 10 years, followed by $200,0

MUNICH ― The wrangling about raising the U.S. government’s borrowing limit ― now thankfully over, at least for a few months ― underscores the hazards posed by excessive state indebtedness. Governments nowadays are essentially running gigantic redistribution machines that steer funds from taxpayers to transfer recipients and other beneficiaries of public expenditure. The latter permanently ask for more, while the former zealously try to defend their purse.In the end, the solution to this “redistr

As our politicians in Washington stopped devouring each other for just a few days, I decided to reach out to an expert.A man who studies extinction, and is wise in the ways of aggressive and docile species that eat meat.Jonathan Pruitt, biologist, is an assistant professor of behavioral ecology at the University of Pittsburgh. He doesn’t study politicians, per se. He studies eight-legged creatures, some poisonous, with hair on their backs and mouths that open sideways: Spiders.There are about 42

Democrats aren’t unscathed from these past weeks of shuttered government and potential default, but polls show Republicans have taken a shellacking.Republicans who tried to hijack America didn’t understand one very basic thing. While most Americans don’t like big government, Americans revere our system of government. That’s why even though a majority still disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, a majority also disapproved of Republican tactics for repealing or delaying it.Government itself has n

House Republicans should consider themselves lucky to have wound up empty-handed after triggering a 16-day government shutdown and threatening to turn the United States into a deadbeat borrower. Had Senate leaders not rushed to the rescue, cutting a deal on a bill to reopen the government and lift the debt limit before Thursday’s deadline, the damage to the economy could have been enormous ― with the political fallout landing mainly on the House GOP, especially its uncompromising cadre of tea pa

Sewers and storm drains don’t stir most people’s deepest passions. But try creating a modern, economically vibrant city without them.Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s economic capital, has spent the past decade building a modern sanitation and flood control system for the 1.2 million people living along its Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal. Cleaning up this once-filthy waterway and creating new sanitation infrastructure has changed the face of the city, transforming it into a model for improving urban infrast

PARIS ― From the same people who brought you the “National Security Agency Spies on Foreigners” shocker, we now have the “Canada Is Secretly Devious” spectacle. Apparently it’s a shock for some people ― namely, journalist Glenn Greenwald, the buddy of NSA contractor turned Russian defector Edward Snowden ― to discover how the world has always worked. I’m truly sorry (as we native Canadians tend to be), but color me unfazed and maybe even slightly miffed.Greenwald worked with Brazil’s Globo newsp

BERLIN ― The Russian-American plan to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons ― now embodied in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2118 ― may open a more constructive approach to ending the country’s civil war, because the Security Council is also demanding that the long-planned Geneva II conference on Syria convene as soon as possible. Rightly so: elimination of Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpiles and a political process to end the war must occur simultaneously.As a practical matter, eff

An allegation has been made that at least one noncommissioned officer and three civilians attached to the military’s cyber warfare unit engaged in an online smear campaign against the opposition presidential candidate last year.The smear campaign, if proven true, would have breached political neutrality required of the military. Though denial was the initial response from the military, emerging circumstantial evidence is connecting the military personnel to negative comments made about Moon Jae-

South Korea has decided to indefinitely postpone an event, scheduled for Oct. 31, to attract foreign investors to the industrial complex in Gaeseong across the Demilitarized Zone. The delay results from the lack of progress in the talks with North Korea on cross-border passage, communication and customs clearance.In deciding in August to reopen the industrial complex, whose operations had been suspended in April, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to facilitate the border passage of personnel by control

China is poisoning its own people and making no apparent effort to stop this.Most people know about the unprecedented air pollution in major Chinese cities. For months, photos of Beijing and other cities obscured by the gray-brown muck have been on the front pages of newspapers worldwide.But even more serious problems are leading people to consume toxic rice and other foods, while also creating other shocking consequences ― like the 42 deaths and more than 1,500 serious injuries in Shaanxi provi

Two different narratives have been at play in Washington lately to explain what caused the government shutdown. In the first, House Republicans are to blame for trying to hold Democrats and the president hostage over a law that was duly passed by Congress. In the other, Democrats are to blame for their rigid refusal to compromise on Obamacare.But there’s a part of the story that seemingly has been lost in history: Democrats have already compromised on health care reform by adopting Obama/RomneyC

Lawmakers have found that a significant proportion of the nation’s public organizations have a clause on job inheritance either in their collective bargaining agreements or in their bylaws.According to data disclosed by legislators on the Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee, 65 of the nation’s entire 432 public institutions, including those affiliated with local governments, have a provision in their collective bargaining agreements that requires them to hire a family member of an employe

One pressing task for President Park Geun-hye is to fill the top posts of the many state-run enterprises and other public organizations that have been left vacant for months. In June, she abruptly ordered the Cabinet ministries to halt the selection of candidates to lead the public entities under their wings. She was responding to a public outcry against parachute appointments.The public was riled up over the ministries helping their former officials land top positions at public entities. In res

WASHINGTON ― The Turkish-Israeli relationship became so poisonous early last year that the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to have disclosed to Iranian intelligence the identities of up to 10 Iranians who had been meeting inside Turkey with their Mossad case officers. Knowledgeable sources describe the Turkish action as a “significant” loss of intelligence and “an effort to slap the Israelis.” The incident, disclosed here for the first time, illustrates the bitt

If the world needs another reason to get serious about combating elephant poaching, here’s one: The attack by terrorists on Westgate Mall in Nairobi. Income from illegal ivory trafficking is a substantial funding source for the Shabab, the group that claimed responsibility for the attack.The connection between terrorism and wildlife smuggling is clear. An 18-month undercover investigation conducted by our groups found an indisputable financial trail between the illicit trade in ivory and rhino h

The awarding of a Nobel Prize to three economists with divergent views on the working of markets highlights a troubling truth about the state of the discipline: We still don’t know nearly enough about why the prices of stocks, bonds and other assets move the way they do.If the economics profession wants to help the world avert ― or at least better survive ― financial crises, it will have to be more open to new ways of looking at this question.The recipients of this year’s Sveriges Riksbank Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize committee blew it big time on Friday.It could have electrified the world by giving the prize to Malala Yousafzai, the courageous Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban because of her crusade for girls’ education. She was the odds-on favorite to win. And by fortuitous coincidence, Friday was also the United Nations’ International Day of the Girl Child, with a focus on promoting girls’ education.What a global statement the Nobel committee could have made by hand

Let us review the fuss here over the recent disappearance and reappearance of North Korea’s de facto first lady Ri Sol-ju. One recent defector from a high position in Pyongyang seems to have been contacted by a reporter from the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun sometime last month. Their conversation resulted in the newspaper’s report in its Sept. 20 edition on the “public execution” of nine musicians in Pyongyang. They met the tragedy because they claimed Ri Sol-ju “played” with them when they were