For reasons largely outside its control, the Federal Reserve is now being widely blamed for fueling financial market instability and risking derailment of the US economy. This is quite a contrast from just a few months ago, when it was still being feted by many for its role as an active and effective repressor of financial market volatility. It is probably only a matter of time until the European Central Bank finds itself in a similar, perhaps tougher position. The reality is both central banks

Jan. 1, 2019

The Trump administration’s willingness to push the Chinese harder on trade has struck a bilateral chord. Beijing is listening. So far, so good. Now the question is what the US wants to achieve. Answer: the total destruction of China as a competitor.That isn’t a trade goal, and the demands being made contradict one another. This aim also unnecessarily awakens Beijing’s deepest nationalist fears.Unsure what to offer next -- and convinced that the US effectively persuaded Canada to take an executiv

Jan. 1, 2019

President Donald Trump doesn’t read or study history, so he’s probably unfamiliar with the Alien and Sedition Acts. He’d love them. They were the infamous series of discredited measures promulgated by President John Adams in 1798 and designed, in part, to silence unfriendly journalists.Trump poses the greatest challenge to a free press at least since President Richard Nixon. Any story that doesn’t celebrate him he derides as “fake news.” He’s repeatedly called journalists the “enemy of the peopl

Jan. 1, 2019

As an alumnus of Newsweek and Time in their glory days, I sometimes can’t resist thinking like a news-magazine editor. Any news event -- the government shutdown, the withdrawal from Syria, the Brexit mess -- can be summarized by that all-purpose cover line, “NOW FOR THE HARD PART.”Similarly, the obvious cover for next Monday would be a racetrack starting gate with more than a dozen familiar Democrats (“There’s Bernie, there’s Beto, there’s Biden, there’s Booker ... ”) leaning forward in their sa

Dec. 31, 2018

In the first half of 2019, a billion Asians will elect the next leaders of the region‘s two largest democracies. Half -- 400 million in India, and 79 million in Indonesia -- are from the millennial generation, born roughly between 1982 and 2001. Many will cast ballots for the first time. Although the threat of sectarian hatred looms large over both the Indian and Indonesian elections, economics will still take center stage.The issue that will resonate most with younger voters is jobs.Indonesia’s

Dec. 31, 2018

The World Trade Organization is to celebrate its 24th anniversary in January 2019. There is no better chance than today to assess the performance and outlook of the global organization.Such an evaluation is timely because the G-20 leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires in early December called for reforms in the WTO and also because of the global crisis stemming from the trade war between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China.To assess its future, we need to look into the histo

Dec. 31, 2018

US partisan politics and the South Korean #MeToo movement shouldn’t have much in common. But if Koreans aren’t careful, the two are in danger of becoming similar, devoured by the pitfalls of tribalism. In many ways, the #MeToo discourse in Korea is in danger of devolving into a contest of whether you are against men or against women, with little ground in between.The dangers of bipolarization have been on full display in the US for a few decades now. In the recent midterm election, urban America

Dec. 28, 2018

Women hold up half of the sky, or so Communist China’s founding father, Mao Zedong, liked to say. These days, that’s certainly the case in Vietnam. 　Throughout the country, many well-known businesses are run by women. There’s Mai Kieu Lien, who captured the rising middle class’s thirst for protein-rich milk drinks and built Vietnam Dairy Products JSC into a $10 billion empire. Then there’s Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, founder of budget airline VietJet Aviation JSC, who became Vietnam’s first female b

Dec. 27, 2018

Education Ministry officials might have thought they would do a good thing for college students by freezing tuition fees for more than a decade. Maybe not.Rather, it might be the students themselves who become the ultimate victims of the measure further aggravating the financial conditions of local universities, resulting in a drop in the quality of higher education.The poor quality of higher education would combine with sluggish scientific and other fields of research at universities to weaken

Dec. 26, 2018

Eight years after supplying the spark that lit the Arab Spring, Tunisia is again bracing for political upheaval in 2019. Prime Minister Youssef Chahed is openly scrapping with President Beji Caid Essebsi, who has in turn broken his four-year partnership with the powerful Islamist Ennahda party, the single largest party in parliament. As the head of a coalition government, Chahed is under increasing pressure from public-sector unions over salaries, and the sale of state-owned companies. Meanwhile

Dec. 26, 2018

Bethlehem’s rich history can be fully appreciated only by walking its streets. Coming to Bethlehem is a unique experience that I would encourage everyone to pursue.Unfortunately, while visitors to Bethlehem have increased in number during the past year, many are unable to explore the city properly. Under Israeli occupation, obstacles hindering the normal development of tourism in Palestine have prevented people from experiencing what Bethlehem has to offer.For example, I often hear from Palestin

Dec. 26, 2018

As US political parties diverge ever more distinctly into a defender of the old and the past versus an advocate of the young and the future, corporate America -- at least the parts with consumer-facing business -- is increasingly two-faced.　To the multiracial, cosmopolitan younger America with money to spend, it shows the face of the future. Meanwhile, to secure its tax preferences, deregulation and clampdown on labor rights, it spends its political money on the party of Fox News.　It’s amazing t

Dec. 26, 2018