[Faye Flam] Let's leave 'zombie viruses' under permafrost

Vast stretches of permafrost are melting as the Earth’s polar regions warm, thawing ancient viruses and bacteria that had remained frozen for tens of thousands of years. Behind the lurid headlines about “zombie viruses,” there’s some fascinating science -- and a warning. Last month, scientists announced they’d taken a sample of tundra from Siberia, extracted a virus that had been frozen for 50,000 years, and showed it was still capable of infecting its normal host

Dec. 13, 2022

[Stephen L. Carter] Fair points about Griner's release

We can all rejoice at the news that Russia has freed basketball star Brittney Griner. Griner was detained at a Moscow airport in February, after officials found in her luggage 19 grams of hashish oil, for which she had a doctor’s note. She was later convicted of possession and smuggling, and sentenced to nine years in prison and sent to a penal colony. That she’s on the way home is wonderful, even if the price was the release of the egregious arms dealer Viktor Bout. Here are four

Dec. 13, 2022

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] All pain and no gain from higher interest rates

Central banks’ unwavering determination to increase interest rates is truly remarkable. In the name of taming inflation, they have deliberately set themselves on a path to cause a recession -- or to worsen it if it comes anyway. Moreover, they openly acknowledge the pain their policies will cause, even if they don’t emphasize that it is the poor and marginalized, not their friends on Wall Street, who will bear the brunt of it. And in the United States, this pain will disproportiona

Dec. 12, 2022

[Kishore Mahbubani] The hard-won benefits of soft diplomacy

The world seems like a calmer place after the G-20 meeting in Bali in mid-November. The question is why. We know that US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a three-hour in-person meeting that went well, despite their many policy differences and their countries’ growing antagonism. It was also helpful that Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t show up, and that Russia’s war in Ukraine didn’t overshadow the Sino-American discussions. In fact, the

Dec. 12, 2022

[Dan DePetris] G-7′s price cap gamble on Russian oil

The United States and its allies in Europe have spent the last 10 months turning the screws on the Russian economy in retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. The Western coalition blocked Russia from accessing around half of its more than $600 billion in foreign reserves, disconnected multiple Russian banks from the global financial system, diversified away from Russian natural gas and banned the import of Russian coal. Now, Russian crude oil is being targeted. For the foreseeable

Dec. 9, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] President Yoon’s futile war on the press

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s pushback against the news media is unproductive. Tough media questions accompany the job of leading a democratic state. State leaders cannot muzzle reporters or throw them in prison like a dictator. Nor should they think the silent treatment will work. Questions will only continue and likely sharpen the more a leader hunkers down. During and after his recent diplomatic trips, Yoon resorted to less access and information for the media. If that modus operandi cont

Dec. 8, 2022

[Shang-Jin Wei] Life, liberty and lost output

The anti-quarantine protests that erupted across China last month highlight the gulf between the Chinese people and Communist Party leaders regarding the necessity of the strict zero-COVID policy. Given the obvious disconnect, it is worth examining how and why the authorities and the public have grown so far apart in their assessment of the policy’s costs and benefits. One important difference seems to be the value that the two sides assign to liberty. While the public may prioritize fre

Dec. 8, 2022

[Doyle McManus] Iran protests displace nuclear issue

After more than a decade of US policy focused on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, arms negotiations have been shoved off center stage. The long-running dispute over nuclear weapons has been displaced by a more immediate drama -- the rapidly spreading uprising against the Iranian regime. "Our focus every day, and the world's focus, is what's happening in the streets of Iran," Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week. "We support what Iranians a

Dec. 7, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Standing between K-pop and K-plague

These days, Korean pop culture, from K-pop, to K-film to K-food, enjoys fame and popularity all over the world. The Korean people are proud of the phenomenon and greatly elated when foreign columnists remark that the popularity of Korean pop culture seems to have replaced that of American and British pop culture, which enchanted the world in the past. Foreigners who live in South Korea also applaud K-medical service and K-speed. When you need medical treatment or even major surgery, you do not

Dec. 7, 2022

[Martin Schram] Police chiefs dial 911 -- law-and-order pols need to answer

Beneath the still-gleaming white dome, the US Capitol’s new generation of promising leaders are jockeying for position, staking their turf, marking their hydrants and swapping last-minute promises for next year’s power. Today we will mainly be speaking to just one category of our promising new leaders: The ones who want the American populace to know how proud they will be to lead the party of law-and-order. These new congressional leaders are proud to give strong, steadfast support t

Dec. 6, 2022

[Sławomir Sierakowski] Resentment on the western front

Poland is home to about 2.7 million refugees from Ukraine: 1.2 million arrived after 2014, and a further 1.5 million arrived following Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. By comparison, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that Germany has taken in 1 million Ukrainians, the Czech Republic 464,000, and several other countries 200,000 or less. As of mid-October, some 4.7 million Ukrainians had registered for temporary protection outside their country. For their part, Ukrainian

Dec. 6, 2022

[Song Jong-hwan] Buddhism and ways to strengthen S. Korea-Pakistan relations

Buddhism was introduced to Korea through two paths: the ancient Korean kingdoms of Goguryeo and Baekje. In 372, the emperor of Former Qin, a Chinese dynasty, sent an envoy and monk to Goguryeo’s King Sosurim, with Buddhist statues and scriptures. Twelve years later in 384, the monk Marananta, born in Chota Lahore in north Pakistan, crossed the ocean to Baekje via Eastern Jin, another Chinese dynasty, to bring Buddhism to King Chimnyu of Baekje. It is said that when Marananta decided to lea

Dec. 6, 2022

[Trudy Rubin] Xi Jinping is caught in his own COVID trap

The video of "Chongqing Superman" has gone viral amidst the explosion of protests across China against the government's "zero COVID" policy. A man in a grey T-shirt with a Superman backpack stands on a street corner in the southwest Chinese city of Chongqing, ranting against the soaring price of carrots -- and the government's failed strategy to totally eliminate COVID. He fiercely denounces the "lack of freedom and (the) poverty" that have resulted from

Dec. 5, 2022

[Antara Haldar] Killing Twitter

In April 2022, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, asked, “Is Twitter dying?” Five days later, he launched an apparently whimsical bid to buy the social media platform. It took months of legal wrangling to complete the deal, but on Oct. 27, Musk honored his $44 billion offer, acquiring a new toy: free speech. Financially, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was an odd move. Despite its user base of some 200 million -- including politicians, journalists and celebrities -- Tw

Dec. 5, 2022

[Jerome H. Kim] Pandemic day 1000: milestones, tombstones, millstones

Dec. 5 marks the 1,000th day since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic. With social distancing, vaccines and other interventions as well as natural infection, the world may be seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. But the pandemic is still not over. China has posted record numbers of cases lately and concern is growing that the COVID-19 in China will not respond to “Zero COVID” policies of the past. The question: Is China ready? Vacci

Dec. 5, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] Language trends among young Koreans

A good way to predict future changes in a language is to listen to young people because they usually carry patterns in language use with them as they age. In the South Korea, the language of young people differs greatly from older generations, which suggests sweeping changes in language use in the years to come. Vocabulary changes most quickly as new words appear and spread in response to social trends. Trendy words also disappear as the trends that support them change or disappear. By contrast,

Dec. 2, 2022

[Hal Brands] Ukraine’s victories may distress US

Ukraine has notched another big victory in its war against Russian aggression: the liberation of the Kherson without a grueling urban battle. Yet that triumph was met with mixed messages from US President Joe Biden’s administration on a very sensitive subject: whether the Ukrainians should begin peace negotiations with Russia. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, argued that the Kyiv government should seek a settlement before the conflict becomes a stalemate like

Dec. 1, 2022

[Nicholas Goldberg] America needs to match foreign policy to morals

I once went to the village of Koreme in Iraqi Kurdistan and walked along a dirt road past a little brick school and a makeshift mosque to a dusty field of almond trees and high grass where all the males of the village -- age 13 to 43 -- had been taken in 1988 and told to squat, side by side. Iraqi soldiers then opened fire, and 27 Kurdish men and boys were killed. I spoke to one of the few survivors, who had hidden behind a tree with a bullet through his knee while his brother, nephew and neighb

Nov. 30, 2022

[Doyle McManus] Ron DeSantis and the culture war

If you've been yearning for a preview of the battle for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, the place to be last weekend was Las Vegas, where the Republican Jewish Coalition held what some attendees cheekily called a "kosher cattle call" for potential candidates. Former Vice President Mike Pence was there. So were former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo. Former President Donald Trump app

Nov. 30, 2022