[Lisa Jarvis] Hospitals are shortchanging Black cancer patients

A new analysis from researchers at the American Cancer Society suggests that the distressing disparity in outcomes for Black and white colon cancer patients could narrow if hospitals simply treated all patients with the same level of high-quality care. The disparity in rates and deaths from colorectal cancer among Black people has been a longstanding problem in cancer care. Black individuals are 20 percent more likely to be diagnosed with colon cancer and 40 percent more likely to die from it. T

ViewpointsNov. 29, 2023

[Kim Seong-kon] Amid the war of political ideologies

South Korea is a country where conservatism and socialism/progressivism have been at war for the past eight decades. Unfortunately, this means that there has been no room for liberalism in the Korean political arena. Surely, there are many liberals, and yet they are invisible in the whirlwind of ideological warfare between conservatives and socialists/progressivists. Watching the chronic war, one might have the impression that the Korean people do not seem to correctly perceive the definition of

ViewpointsNov. 29, 2023

[Stephen Mihm] Civil War-era US Congress vs. today's

Congressional dysfunction took a dangerous turn this month. In the House, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy allegedly elbowed Rep. Tim Burchett in the kidney (McCarthy denied the claim). Not to be outdone, Sen. Markwayne Mullin challenged the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, Sean O’Brien, to a fight, with the two men exchanging insults. For those inclined to believe that these childish provocations auger the end of the republic, please consider life in the US Cong

ViewpointsNov. 28, 2023

[Shang-Jin Wei] Biden missed chance to help US and himself

At their recent summit in San Francisco, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on a few important issues. Notably, the two countries will resume military-to-military communication, thereby reducing the chances of an accidental conflict, and China will do more to restrict the export of chemicals used to make the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl -- a major cause of death in the United States. But there is one crucial area where progress remained elusive: tariffs. In 2018

ViewpointsNov. 27, 2023

[Eric Posner] The monopolists fight back

As the Google antitrust trial winds down, corporate opposition to antitrust reform in the United States is winding up -- and not by coincidence. With the trial having once again revealed the prevalence of anticompetitive behavior in the tech industry, big corporations are turning to the US Congress to block the two federal agencies tasked with antitrust enforcement, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, from ramping up their efforts after decades of neglect. In the Google t

ViewpointsNov. 27, 2023

[Ron Grossman] A long history of anti-Jewish hatred

At the first reports of a massacre of Israeli civilians, I shuddered, fearing the worst was yet to come. Sadly, I was right. Before sundown on Oct. 7, Israel was being blamed for Hamas’ killings, mutilations and kidnappings of Israeli civilians. As a historian, I know only too well the common denominator of thousands of years of my people’s experience: Jews are blamed for whatever calamity humanity suffers. That is true even when Jews are the victims. Eighty-five years ago, Nazi mobs

ViewpointsNov. 24, 2023

[Takatoshi Ito] China’s self-inflicted economic wounds

At their recent summit in San Francisco, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping made progress in a few key areas. Notably, they agreed to resume direct military-to-military communications -- which China had suspended last year, following a visit by then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan -- in order to reduce the chances of accidental conflict. But neither leader was negotiating from a particularly strong position: as Biden struggles with low approval

ViewpointsNov. 23, 2023

[James Stavridis] Send US’ floating hospitals to Gaza

In my military career, I was frequently deployed on the US Navy’s massive nuclear-powered aircraft carriers into combat and on more routine peacetime missions. I embarked in the USS Abraham Lincoln as a commodore in the late 1990s, and I sailed around South America in the USS Eisenhower as a four-star admiral in command of US Southern Command in 2009. These are fearsome machines of war, apex predators at sea with significant land-attack powers as well. But in many ways, the most satisfying

ViewpointsNov. 23, 2023

[Doyle McManus] Xi and Biden agreed on easy steps

In a world beset by wars in Gaza and Ukraine, it's good news when two superpowers step back from frictions that increased the danger of another war in Asia. That's what happened last week when President Joe Biden met with China's Xi Jinping at a country estate in the ridges west of Silicon Valley. The two presidents met after a year of frosty noncommunication, touched off by China's suspected espionage balloon that wandered across US airspace last winter, by aggressive Chines

ViewpointsNov. 22, 2023

[Kim Seong-kon] Korea in the eyes of a Generation MZ philosopher

Recently, a Korean intellectual sent me a reporter’s interview with a well-known Korean scholar of East Asian philosophy, Im Gun-soon. Reading the intriguing interview, I found he rightly diagnosed the current maladies of our society and prescribed the remedies we urgently needed in order to survive and thrive in this era of global disruptions. As a Generation MZ philosopher, I believe he could not possibly be a conservative. Thus, I believe that his observations and opinions were those of

ViewpointsNov. 22, 2023

[Ana Palacio] The case for energy realism at COP28

At this year’s upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, world leaders will, for the first time, officially take stock of global progress toward the goals set out in the Paris climate agreement in 2015. The growing frequency of extreme-weather events makes this a decisive moment for climate action, and it is no secret that countries are falling short of their Paris commitments. The question is whether the assembled leaders -- whose ranks will include Pope Franc

ViewpointsNov. 21, 2023

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] A victory lap for the transitory inflation team

As the world was recovering from the pandemic, inflation shot up, owing to widespread disruptions to global supply chains and sudden changes in patterns of demand. While the demand shifts might have posed a challenge to price stability even in the best of times, the breakdown in supply chains made matters worse. The market could not respond immediately to the new demand patterns, so prices increased. Recall that we initially experienced a car shortage, simply because there was a shortage of comp

ViewpointsNov. 21, 2023

[Jerome H Kim] Rebuilding trust in vaccines amidst declining confidence

Today (Nov. 20) is World Children’s Day, and as we reflect on the future these young lives represent we are confronted by an insidious, but ultimately lethal, trend. Confidence in childhood vaccinations has fallen. According to the UNICEF report, "The State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination," there was a marked drop in the perception of the importance of vaccines for children in 52 out of 55 countries studied. This is an issue that demands immediate

ViewpointsNov. 20, 2023