NEW YORK ― In the shadow of the euro crisis and America’s fiscal cliff, it is easy to ignore the global economy’s long-term problems. But, while we focus on immediate concerns, they continue to fester, and we overlook them at our peril.The most serious is global warming. While the global economy’s weak performance has led to a corresponding slowdown in the increase in carbon emissions, it amounts to only a short respite. And we are far behind the curve: Because we have been so slow to respond to

PHILADELPHIA ― In January, Israeli voters will go to the polls for an election that promises to hand Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a renewed mandate. Few prospects are more loathsome to the Israeli left, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, most European leaders, or many American Jews.But no one regards the prospect of another Netanyahu government with more anguish than the Palestinians. In the Arab-Israeli conflict’s long, tortured history, they have reviled no Israeli prime minist

One of the bills that lawmakers should pass promptly when the National Assembly convenes later this month is the government proposal aimed at helping Korean companies that operate abroad to repatriate their operations.The Ministry of Knowledge Economy submitted the bill to the Assembly last November, but it has since been put on the back burner. Yet the bill deserves prompt action as it would promote job creation and stimulate economic growth.The ministry has recently commissioned Samjong KPMG,

President Lee Myung-bak is moving to issue a special pardon before his term expires on Feb. 24. A presidential spokesman has confirmed the rumors that Lee is considering exercising his right to a pardon before leaving office.The spokesman tried to justify Lee’s move by saying that there have been a lot of calls for executive clemency from religious, business and political circles. Yet he said nothing has been decided regarding the timing and beneficiaries of the proposed pardon. These details wi

The International Monetary Fund, at long last, has begun to open up. Gone are the days when it acted as a handmaiden of Western, mainly U.S., economic orthodoxy. It is even throwing a gauntlet down to the mighty U.S. Federal Reserve, questioning the effects its constant monetary boosting has had on the rest of the world.Given that the IMF is the key arbiter on many key issues of global finance and economics, and hence also over global fairness and equity, the change should be greatly welcomed. O

NEW HAVEN ― North Korea’s launch of a long-range missile in mid-December was followed by a flurry of global condemnation that was almost comical in its predictability and impotence. But the launch underscored a larger reality that can no longer be ignored: the world has entered a second nuclear age. The atomic bomb has returned for a second act, a post-Cold War encore. This larger pattern needs to be understood if it is to be managed.The contours of the second nuclear age are still taking shape.

With the change of government, positive signs have emerged for the nation’s prospects for this year.Since just before the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was launched, the super-strong yen has weakened and stock prices have jumped, apparently reflecting high hopes for the Abe administration’s economic measures. On Friday, the first trading day of 2013, most stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange climbed, recovering levels seen before the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.Can

Browsing through my library during the holidays, I came across a book on comparative Western and Chinese philosophy that had an old saying: “Every Chinese person is a Confucian when everything is going well; he is a Taoist when things are falling apart; and he is a Buddhist as he approaches death.” Chinese culture is like ancient pyramids of different worldviews built over one another. The earliest was animism, where one believed in different gods; the Book of Changes taught two sides to every s

Predicting events can be a dangerous game. That’s because some people simply project wishful thinking, allowing their personal biases to obscure reality. We see it repeatedly during election season. The key to making accurate predictions is absolute objectivity: observing patterns in a detached manner, drawing inferences and applying them to new developments in order to predict their likely trajectory.The big problem these days is that this requires the absorption of large amounts of information

“It’s not all I would have liked,” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, speaking of the deal on the fiscal cliff, “so on to the debt ceiling.”For Republicans, the battle over the fiscal cliff is only a prelude to the coming battle over raising the debt ceiling ― a battle that will likely continue through early March, when the Treasury runs out of tricks to avoid a default on the nation’s debt.The White House’s and Democrats’ single biggest failure in the cliff negotiations was

Over the next decade, it is estimated by the World Economic Forum that the global economy will need to create some 600 million new jobs to preserve social cohesion, and ensure sustainable growth. In the midst of ongoing economic fragility across much of the world, this poses a monumental challenge, and will thus be one of the topics discussed at WEF’s annual meeting in Davos later this month.Education is key to delivering this agenda. Human advancement and development has always been driven by k

HANOI ― As the new year dawns, the world is rapidly growing old, and I’m not talking about the earth beneath our feet. No, birth rates for nearly all of humankind are plummeting.In fact, fewer than 20 percent of the world’s nations are now experiencing growing population rates, the CIA reports. All the rest have either stable or declining populations. The reasons for this are varied ― as are the likely consequences. But first the facts.The nations with the world’s lowest birth rates are here in

The presidential transition team has set sail to lay the foundations for the new government. On Sunday, the 26 members of the team held their inaugural meeting and resolved to do their best for a trouble-free launch of the new administration.The transition committee will be operating for some 50 days until President-elect Park Geun-hye is sworn in on Feb. 25. Compared with previous teams, its launch was about 10 days late. It may have to rush to ensure that the new government hits the ground run

The ruling Saenuri Party is seeking to address a drawn-out labor dispute at Ssangyong Motor Co. The party’s floor leader Lee Han-koo, accompanied by other lawmakers, visited the company’s factory in Pyeongtaek last Thursday and met with company officials and union leaders.Lee’s visit was exceptional, given that ruling party leaders have seldom shown up at the scene of labor disputes. He said he went there to see if there was anything that political circles could do to resolve the company’s prolo

A federal judge issued an important but puzzling decision last week regarding the Barack Obama administration’s deadly drone campaign against Islamic terrorists. First, Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York declared that the White House need not respond to Freedom of Information Act requests that it turn over its legal doctrine for the drone program. Then, after handing Obama that victory, she raised the possibility that he is a murderer. The judg

WASHINGTON ― To help oust President Bashar al-Assad, a Syrian opposition group has drafted a plan for a transitional justice system that would impose harsh penalties against diehard members of his inner circle but provide amnesty for most of his Alawite supporters. The goal is to provide a legal framework that reassures Alawites this isn’t a fight to the death, and that they will have a place in a post-Assad Syria. The plan would also encourage the rule of law in areas that have been liberated f

SINGAPORE ― To the extent that culture matters in politics, the recent spate of leadership changes in Northeast Asia suggests that Asian societies are more tolerant ― if not supportive ― of dynastic succession. South Korea’s recently elected president, Park Geun-hye, is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, who ruled the country from 1961 to 1979. China’s incoming president, Xi Jinping, is the son of Xi Zhongxun, a former vice premier. Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is the grandson and grandn

SEATTLE ― Usually, “optimism” and “realism” are used to describe two different outlooks on life. But I believe that a realistic appraisal of the human condition compels an optimistic worldview. I am particularly optimistic about the potential for technological innovation to improve the lives of the poorest people in the world. That is why I do the work that I do.Even so, there is one area of technology and global development where reality has tempered my optimism: the idea that cellphones would

LONDON ― When Mark Carney replaces Mervyn King as governor of the Bank of England in July 2013, the world will be deprived of King’s witty public utterances. My personal favorite came when, commenting on strong retail-sales figures during one Christmas period, he cast doubt on their significance for assessing the state of the economy. “The true meaning of the story of Christmas,” he solemnly intoned, “will not be revealed until Easter, or possibly much later.” A new career on the stage, or in th

One notable aspect of Korea’s corporate landscape is the meager presence of intermediate-sized companies ― businesses that are larger than small and medium enterprises (SMEs) but smaller than large corporations. According to a recent report from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, midsized businesses accounted for a mere 0.04 percent or 1,291 of the nation’s 3.12 million enterprises in 2010. The share is much smaller compared with other countries, including Germany (11.8 percent), Swede