[Aleksander Dardeli] Cultivating critical thinking can beat fake news

In response to the wave of fake news that inundated the recent presidential election campaign in the United States, much attention has been devoted to those who produce or spread those stories. The assumption is that if news outlets were to report only the “facts,” readers and viewers would always reach the right conclusion about a given story.　But this approach addresses only half of the equation. Yes, we need news organizations to deliver reliable information; but we also need those receiving

March 10, 2017

[William McKenzie] How to be a globalist and a nationalist

The overarching issue shaping so much of our public debate is the intense, often unsettled relationship between the realities of a globalized economy and the pull of a national identity. The latter force was so great, it fueled Britain’s exit from the larger European identity.　In our case, the tension between these two forces led to Donald Trump’s election, but it also produced frustration with migration into the country. Immigration, after all, is a central element in the flow of goods, capital

March 9, 2017

Trump’s revised travel ban is no less misguided

The new travel ban President Trump signed Monday is no less misguided and damaging to those trying to travel to the US, or to those seeking refuge from war-torn regions of the world, than the original. The two new executive orders implementing the ban also show that Trump learned little from the policy debacle of the first go-round. The courts will decide whether he has fixed all of the legal shortcomings with this new, narrower version (the original was put on hold by several federal judges), b

March 9, 2017

[Trudy Rubin] Headed to Iraq to find out what lies ahead

In his State of the Union address, President Trump hardly mentioned foreign policy. But he did repeat his campaign promise to “demolish ISIS” and “extinguish (it) from the planet.”The battle to uproot the so-called Islamic State, which is centered in the cities of Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, has been underway for months, using local forces backed by US advisers and air power. The president wants it done faster.Given the historical moment, I will be traveling this week to northern Iraq -- near

March 9, 2017

[Timothy Snyder] Climate change rollback would threaten national security

If Donald Trump proceeds to roll back rules on climate change, as promised, he will be remembered as the most pro-immigration and pro-terrorist president in US history. Global warming will force tens of millions of Mexicans and other Latin Americans northward. It will also further destabilize the Middle East, bringing the chaos and war that gives rise to terrorism.　The Pentagon and US intelligence services have long regarded global warming as a major national security issue, a threat multiplier

March 8, 2017

[Dan K. Thomasson] Press-presidential conflict necessary part of democracy

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s animosity toward the press may be softening somewhat as he bumps up against the reality that we in print used to remind politicians of every once in awhile: It doesn’t pay to get into peeing match with someone who buys his ink by the barrel.　Today’s electronic version of the Fourth Estate has taken over that same power as Americans have turned toward new technologies in the consumption of their daily news diet. So, the other day, our supreme leader, who has

March 8, 2017

[Adam Minter] How crazy is SpaceX's moon mission?

If all goes as planned, two tourists will crawl into a space capsule at the end of next year and blast off for a weeklong trip to the moon and back. It’s the ultimate couple’s vacation, offered exclusively by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which announced the venture last week. It may also serve as the starting gun for a new and very different space race.　Unlike during the Cold War, the competition this time around isn’t between countries. Instead, it’s between startup companies like SpaceX, on the one han

March 8, 2017

[Other View] Trump's tweets go too far again

President Trump either needs to sleep in, or throw his Twitter account out one of the gilded windows in his Florida estate. If he doesn’t, it’s America that will be tossing and turning.The president unleashed a flurry of tweets early Saturday morning, and as long as he was criticizing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance on “The Celebrity Apprentice” (the actor got fired from his former show, Trump said) it appeared Trump was again mired in un-presidential silliness. Surely even Trump supporters

March 8, 2017

[Dick Meyer] How's he doing? What Trumpers think so far

In a column a few weeks ago, I asked supporters of President Donald Trump to email me their views of how he is doing so far. They did and I thank everyone who took the time to write.　This is not, of course, a statistically sound way to study public opinion, but it is a fascinating way. I heard from many enraged Trump-bashers. I heard from many, many more people who were so enraged by Trump’s opponents that their emails were too obscene, racist, anti-Semitic or mean to quote. Many readers wrote c

March 7, 2017

[The Nation] ASEAN aims for unity on tourism

If Southeast Asia is to truly be a single tourist destination, give visitors from afar a single visa to travel freely.　The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is undertaking a tourism marketing campaign to mark its 50th anniversary this year. It is called “Visit Asean@50: Golden Celebration” and aims at increasing the number of international arrivals by 10 percent to 121 million, up from 109 million in 2015.　ASEAN is promoting its 10 member countries -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Mala

March 7, 2017

[Sandy Shea] Has our tolerance only been skin deep?

Less than an hour after Barack Obama was elected president for the first time, I was standing outside and watched as hundreds of young people marched toward Philadelphia’s City Hall. They were black, brown and white, waving their cellphones, chanting and cheering Obama’s victory. Here it was: a new “post-racial” age in which old prejudices and hatreds were part of history, not part of the present.Yes, as a matter of fact, I am naive.But for a while, it was easy to believe that social and cultura

March 7, 2017

[Christopher Balding] China's hidden risks rise

A major factor behind the soaring growth of risky wealth-management products in China is that investors typically think the government stands behind them. Lately, nervous regulators have been emphasizing that this isn’t so. But they’ll have to do a lot more to change expectations in a state-dominated economy.Wealth-management products are short-term, high-yielding investments that are issued by banks. The market for such products is now worth close to $4 trillion, or nearly 40 percent of China’s

March 7, 2017

[Other View] A 'bad bank' could be good for Europe

Some European regulators have come up with a viable plan to alleviate the region’s chronic financial paralysis. If only European politicians, particularly in Germany, would listen.The European Union’s leaders have spent much of the past decade debating -- but never fully resolving -- what to do about the huge pile of bad loans that EU banks are sitting on, most recently estimated at more than 1 trillion euros ($1.06 trillion). Nobody knows how large the losses will ultimately be and this uncerta

March 7, 2017