[Trudy Rubin] Trump’s virus blame game can’t disguise failures

For critical weeks in February and early March President Donald Trump claimed COVID-19 would magically disappear by itself or with warmer weather. That didn’t work. So, with the death toll at more than 75,000 and rising, the president needs a new magic formula to deflect public attention from his slow and chaotic response. And to blur the blame for the tens of thousands of new deaths that will stem from reopening the country without a national testing strategy. The miraculous formula? Bl

May 12, 2020

[Pankaj Mishra] The phony war on the coronavirus

Governments around the world say they’re engaged in a war against the coronavirus. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the legend of the Mahabharata, fought over 18 days, as he declared, with little warning, a devastating national lockdown. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who always seems to be mentally screening a film of Winston Churchill in World War II, said that “we must act like any wartime government.” Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has long d

May 11, 2020

[Arvind Subramanian] The threat of enfeebled great powers

The COVID-19 crisis augurs three watersheds: the end of Europe’s integration project, the end of a united, functional America, and the end of the implicit social compact between the Chinese state and its citizens. As a result, all three powers will emerge from the pandemic internally weakened, undermining their ability to provide global leadership. Start with Europe. As with the 2010-12 eurozone crisis, the bloc’s fault line today runs through Italy. Drained over decades of dynamism

May 11, 2020

[Robert J. Fouser] Learning from Korea’s response to COVID-19

The first week of May in South Korea saw the nation come to life as fears of COVID-19 subsided. People took advantage of a series of holidays to go out and enjoy the spring weather. On May 6th, the government’s new guidelines called “everyday distancing” went into effect. The guidelines focus on allowing normal activities with continued social distancing, hand washing, and wearing of face masks. South Korea is not yet free of the pandemic, but it is getting close. Much of Eu

May 8, 2020

[Serendipity] Time to think about end-of-life care

Today is Parents’ Day. In any other year, the day would be celebrated with family dinners, bouquets of red carnations, presents and cash gifts. This year, however, the government is asking people to stay away from the elderly, especially the elderly in care facilities to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. The elderly were among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, their bodies already weak and with underlying health conditions that made them particularly vulnerable to the h

May 8, 2020

[Noah Smith] Reason to protect workers from COVID-19

Harvard economist Melissa Dell recently won the 2020 John Bates Clark medal, which is given to outstanding economists younger than 40. Dell’s most famous research concerns the importance of institutions in a country’s long-term political and economic development. It carries a dire warning for the US as well as other nations. What is an institution? To most people it means well-established organizations, such as big businesses or the civil service. Economists use the word more genera

May 7, 2020

[Kim Myong-sik] Defector lawmakers stand for free democratic system

North Korean defectors Thae Yong-ho and Ji Seong-ho have got off to an uneasy start as freshmen lawmakers of South Korea, facing opposition from their liberal counterparts for inaccurate presumptions on the health status of Kim Jong-un. They need to perform their new jobs in a productive way if they want to pay back any special favors they enjoy here because of their unique backgrounds at this time, when many other refugees from the North are complaining of general public indifference borderi

May 7, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] ‘Designated Survivor’ and the great leader

Recently on Netflix, I came across an American political thriller drama entitled “Designated Survivor.” The riveting drama mesmerized me instantly by tackling the recurrent theme in American films and literature: “What is America?” “Designated Survivor” also explores, “What makes a great leader?” The drama was so intriguing that 10 million viewers watched its first episode premiere in 2016. The drama series begins as an explosion destroys the Ca

May 6, 2020

[Jean Pisani-Ferry] Building a post-pandemic world

Die-hard green militants regard it as obvious: The COVID-19 crisis only strengthens the urgent need for climate action. But die-hard industrialists are equally convinced: There should be no higher priority than to repair a ravaged economy, postponing stricter environmental regulations if necessary. The battle has started. Its outcome will define the post-pandemic world. Both the public health crisis and the climate crisis highlight the limits of humanity’s power over nature. Both remind u

May 5, 2020

[Lionel Laurent] No, Sweden isn’t a miracle coronavirus model

The World Health Organization has been generous with its praise throughout this pandemic. China, Singapore and Ireland have all received plaudits for their handling of the coronavirus crisis. Now that a new turning point is in sight, with the infection’s spread slowing and draconian lockdown measures being gradually lifted, the WHO is promoting the Swedish way of doing things. “Sweden represents a future model. … If we wish to get back to a society in which we don’t have

May 4, 2020

[Doyle Mcmanus] Pandemic makes the world more dangerous

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 202,000 lives and thrown the global economy into chaos.　 It’s making the world more dangerous, too.　 In the Middle East, Iranian gunboats have harassed US warships in the Persian Gulf, and Iranian-backed militias have attacked US bases in Iraq.　 In Asia, China has continued its drive to take control of the South China Sea, sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat and sending an oil survey ship into Malaysian waters.　 North Korea, which hates to be o

May 3, 2020

[Kim Myoung-hee] How South Korea stopped COVID-19 early

South Korea experienced one of the world’s largest initial outbreaks of COVID-19 outside China. But unlike the United States and many European countries, we have been able to contain and drastically reduce the spread of the virus, at least so far -- and without imposing a nationwide lockdown. Our response may provide insights that can help other governments and civil-society groups working to combat the pandemic. So, how did we do it? As is widely known, South Korea’s government fo

May 2, 2020

[Digital Simplicity] Misguided notion of sharing content hurts authors

Children’s books, especially those with lots of illustrations, are generally short in length. Despite this, the genre offers a treasure trove of creative imagination and wonderful pictures. Sadly, some Korean bloggers are exploiting the genre in the name of sharing information and knowledge with their friends. Once they buy a picture book, they scan it through an app on their smartphones and upload the digital copies on their personal blogs or online communities. Since some picture books

May 1, 2020

[Adam Minter] Children silent victims of coronavirus

Many parents felt a profound sense of relief when analyses of the coronavirus found that kids rarely show symptoms and usually aren’t at much risk. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they’re safe from the global pandemic. Every parent is familiar with the day-to-day perils of the COVID-19 outbreak, with playgrounds closed, social interaction limited and screen time all too tempting. But the most consequential effects of this crisis are likely to come from two areas: health an

May 1, 2020

[James Rosen] Coronavirus doing what Cold War never could

Turns out, President Donald Trump’s supporters were right when they denounced his most fervent critics’ over-the-top comparisons of him to Hitler. Maybe the more apt comparison is to longtime former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. When I first arrived in the Soviet Union as an exchange student in 1978, I was shocked to see the long lines outside food stores and the bare shelves inside. Shocked to see how rumors of a meat delivery would send Russian women racing to the butcher, pushin

April 30, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] Why have I become modernist again despite its faults?

I was a modernist when I wrote my MA thesis on literary modernism. Later, however, when I decided to write my doctoral dissertation on postmodernism at the State University of New York at Buffalo, I converted to a postmodernist. Postmodern perspectives helped me rightly perceive the elusive and complex reality I was facing every day. Furthermore, postmodern perceptions that acknowledged the blurry boundary between fact and fiction, or highbrow culture and middlebrow culture fascinated me. When

April 29, 2020

[Hal Brands] The case for modest multilateralism

Great global traumas have a way of revealing the gap between the sort of international system we might like and the sort of international system we actually have. The coronavirus pandemic is no exception. One lesson of the crisis is that strengthened global cooperation will be critical to preventing future outbreaks. Another lesson, however, is that we’re not likely to have a “one-world” moment anytime soon. Rather than attempt to remake the international order after the viru

April 28, 2020

[Mark Buchanan] Virus could sway climate change doubters

If the coronavirus pandemic has made one thing clear, it’s that knowledge, preparation and science matter. Political spin can win elections and keep millions of people misinformed, but it doesn’t sway the forces of nature, of which infectious disease is one. “Reality must take precedence over public relations,” as the American physicist Richard Feynman put it in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, “for nature cannot be fooled.” Post-pandemic, one migh

April 27, 2020

[Noah Smith] Virus crisis may keep Sanders revolution rolling

Now that Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed presumptive candidate Joe Biden, it‘s worth considering just how profoundly Sanders seems to have shifted the policy landscape. Despite the rise of inequality and other long-term economic problems, a majority of Democrats probably felt too comfortable with the current system to embrace revolutionary change. Although the Sanders insurgency is over, many of the progressive ideas he urged on the electorate may yet c

April 25, 2020

[Serendipity] Fear, distrust caused by virus spell doom for all

With the World Health Organization predicting that the coronavirus will not dissipate anytime soon, we are left to grapple with the stark reality of living with a highly contagious, still largely unknown virus with no known cure as of yet. The COVID-19 pandemic has infected nearly 2.6 million people and killed more than 180,000 people around the world since the first case of the acute respiratory illness was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The pandemic has forced nearly ha

April 24, 2020