PARIS ― The rise of emerging economies worldwide has generated much optimism, in terms not only of economic development, but also of global cooperation. But the shift to a multipolar world order has not bolstered multilateralism. In fact, the opposite is true: the logic of national sovereignty has staged a comeback, with major economies consistently undermining cooperation on issues ranging from security to trade to climate change.Consider the muddle in the United Nations Security Council over S

Democrats are about to try, and almost certainly fail, to secure paid parental and family leave for most American workers. That could still be an achievement, if it starts a conversation about how to provide American workers with the flexibility they need to manage family needs.California and New Jersey, the two states with paid family leave programs, have shown how it can benefit not only mothers and children but also employers. In California, which has offered paid parental leave since 2004, m

China’s eagerly anticipated “hard landing” hasn’t happened yet, and recent indicators make me wonder (not for the first time) if it ever will. In the past two months, the Chinese economy has actually shown signs of accelerating.Constant pessimism in financial markets about the country’s prospects is only partly guided by economic analysis. There’s also the faith-based view that growth as rapid as China’s simply can’t go on ― and that a non-democratic country really shouldn’t expect to prosper. M

A new set of projections released last week by Medicare’s actuaries has drawn much attention, in part because it suggests the deceleration in the growth of health costs we’ve seen over the past few years is ephemeral. The actuaries attribute the slowdown to the “lingering effects of the economic downturn and sluggish recovery” and to increases in cost sharing.Both of these explanations have serious shortcomings ― and that, in turn, suggests something larger is in fact at work.The assertion that

NEW YORK ― The recent guilty plea by Donald Sachtleben, a former FBI bomb technician charged with leaking classified information, after government investigators identified him by secretly obtaining the phone logs of some Associated Press reporters, represents the latest chapter in the ongoing drama over United States security officials’ behavior.A few days earlier, another chapter played out in a New York City television studio: spies and recipients of leaked information confronted each other on

NEWPORT BEACH ― Politicians and economists now join investors in a ritual that typically takes place on the first Friday of each month and has important consequences for global markets: anticipating, internalizing, and reacting to the monthly employment report released by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Over the last few years, the report has evolved in a significant way ― not only providing an assessment of the economy’s past and current state, but, increasingly, containing

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad. Together the al-Assad family reign stretches to 42 years. The Syrian political system is nominally a democratic republic. In the case of North Korea, its founder and head of the state, Kim Il-sung, has been succeeded by his son, and his son by his grandson over 62 years. But Syria and North Korea are neither the same kind of political system nor a traditional monarchy. A question arises: Why is this kind of power succession c

NEW YORK ― The last-minute agreement between Russia and the United States to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control gives the West, which had run out of good options, a second chance to reach what always should have been its strategic goal: peace in Syria and an end to its people’s suffering.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took advantage of Western leaders’ failure to formulate a clear central objective. Did they hope to end Syria’s civil war by forcing a military stalem

House Republicans trying their damnedest to stop Obamacare in its tracks aren’t the only ones who foresee chaos when state health-insurance exchanges open next week. President Barack Obama himself has told Americans to expect “glitches” and “hiccups.”That’s an understatement. It’s the surest bet since the 1936 presidential election: Things won’t work perfectly when the gears begin turning on the giant new public health-insurance sales machine, the likes of which the U.S. has never seen. Exchange

The latest announcement from the U.S. Federal Reserve delaying the start of a slowdown in asset purchases gives Asian markets a bit of a reprieve but does not change the basic picture that the U.S. is embarking on a gradual normalization of its monetary policy.The big question is whether that normalization will keep driving investors out of Asia’s markets, further sapping the wind from the region’s economic sails and all but wrecking the most vulnerable economies, as happened in 1997 during the

WASHINGTON ― A high-level defector has provided a disturbing new account of Syrian chemical weapons operations ― including an allegation that some of these weapons have been moved since Russia proposed an international monitoring scheme to destroy the toxic munitions. The revelations came in a lengthy telephone interview Sunday with Brig. Gen. Zaher al-Sakat, who was a chemical-weapons specialist for the Syrian army until he defected to the rebels in March. Sakat spoke by Skype from a city in Jo

The government is on the alert as massive inflows of foreign capital are putting upward pressure on the Korean currency, threatening to erode the competitiveness of Korea’s exports.The Ministry of Strategy and Finance hurriedly convened a meeting Tuesday with chief financial officers of major export companies to discuss measures to stabilize the currency markets. The ministry’s move was prompted by the Korean won’s sharp rise against the greenback on Monday. It wanted to make sure that Korean ex

The government has given the left-leaning Korean Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union an ultimatum that it would be outlawed unless it amends its constitution that accepts dismissed teachers as members.The Ministry of Employment and Labor served the final notice Monday, telling the 60,000-member powerful union to follow its order by Oct. 23 or face losing its hard-won legal status.Under the current law on trade unions, an organization is not regarded as a trade union if it allows those who ar

SINGAPORE ― Are prospects for global stability and prosperity improving or deteriorating? With enlightenment and progress in some parts of the world accompanied by atavism and stagnation elsewhere, this is not an easy question. But we can gain greater purchase on it by considering three other questions.The first is whether the United States will regain its standing as a source of moral leadership. Despite its flaws, America did provide such leadership, beginning at the end of World War II. But t

As a judge sentenced him to life in prison yesterday, a smile spread across Bo Xilai’s face. Perhaps he grasped the irony. He’d lost inside the courtroom. At the top levels of China’s leadership, though, his methods have won.Chinese state media have tried to proclaim Bo’s conviction as a triumph for the rule of law and a powerful blow in the party’s battle against corruption. Editorials have praised President Xi Jinping for his fearlessness. In fact, most Chinese understand that this was a polit

“The American people don’t want the government shut down, and they don’t want Obamacare. The House has listened to the American people.”That’s what Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said at the GOP’s victory rally Friday after the House voted to pass a spending bill that cut all funding for the president’s health care law ― and took the country one step closer to a government shutdown on Oct. 1.The American people, alas, weren’t in the room to speak for themselves. But was Boehner right about the

Most of the attention these days is on Syria, but there is also a growing problem in Egypt with global implications. Nine Egyptian policemen were wounded by a bomb in the northern Sinai Peninsula on Monday. The week before, suicide bombers killed nine soldiers in the peninsula. Shootings, kidnappings and bombings ― roadside, car and suicide ― have become routine occurrences in Sinai. And the burgeoning Islamist insurgency is spreading to other parts of Egypt. In early September, the interior min

As the Chae Dong-wook affair lingers on, disdain grows not only on the nation’s law enforcement mechanism but on the state authority at large. This adds to the public fatigue from watching the protracted confrontations between rival political parties. Everyone offered a scenario on the relations between the prosecutor general and the mother of the boy the Chosun Ilbo claimed to be his illegitimate child and the way the mysterious paternity question could be resolved once and for all. Conspiracy

Controversy over the resignation of the prosecutor general, Chae Dong-wook, has swept the country. Led by a major conservative newspaper, some conservatives are accusing Chae of having an extramarital affair and fathering a child through it. The opposition parties and some liberal newspapers suspect that Cheong Wa Dae leaked files to the conservative daily to damage the character of the chief in the court of public opinion and force him out of his post. Some pundits claim that Chae was at odds w

The lingering consequences of the Fukushima disaster are now taking a new form ― trade agreements and international dispute settlement proceedings. Japan is now formally contesting the import ban imposed by the Korean government against fishery products from eight prefectures due to the consumer concern over contaminated water along the Fukushima coastline. The possibility of Japan filing a suit with the World Trade Organization is also being mentioned. If this plan materializes, this will be th