[Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry] Social business isn’t an oxymoron in France

Social entrepreneurship is a concept perfectly suited for Emmanuel Macron’s France: It sounds both left-wing and right-wing, speaks of innovation and compassion, and is a little fuzzy.　But while the hype seems deceptive, the numbers tell a good story. According to official figures, employment in social businesses, defined as corporations, for-profit or not, incorporated with “solidarity and social utility” as a key goal and reflecting it in their governance structure, grew by 24 percent between

Nov. 5, 2017

[Pankaj Mishra] America’s wars are spreading chaos in Africa

The Indonesian military killed as many as 1 million suspected communists in the mid-1960s, paving the path for a dictator, Suharto, who ruled the country for more than three decades. Newly declassified documents from the US embassy in Jakarta reveal an extraordinary degree of American complicity in what remains one of the Cold War’s biggest crimes. The US not only ignored information that could have prevented the atrocity; it facilitated the killings by providing the Indonesian military with mon

Nov. 5, 2017

[Markos Koulanakis] China is using fentanyl in chemical war against America

Fentanyl is the synthetic opioid driving America’s public health crisis. Its cheap price, widespread use, addictive quality and deadly effect make it more dangerous than other narcotics classified by the DEA.It is, ultimately, a chemical. And it’s being used as a weapon in China’s 21st century Opium War against America.President Donald Trump’s 12-day, five-nation Asia tour will focus on North Korean nukes and international trade. In Beijing, however, he plans to address China’s fentanyl producti

Nov. 5, 2017

[Andrew Malcolm] How DC’s Democrats have become irrelevant

Perhaps you’ve heard a little something about President Donald Trump fighting publicly with members of his own party. The media loves these he-said-then-he-said stories of political conflict. They’re so easy to cover and self-destructive to the GOP cause. So they’re churned out day after day, enabling this president to manipulate coverage through mere tweets and dominate consecutive news cycles.What you haven’t heard much about is the acidic disarray among Democrats. That’s understandable. Democ

Nov. 3, 2017

[Editorial] Hypocritical nominee

Hong Jong-haak, President Moon Jae-in’s nominee for minister of SMEs and Startups, has run into a lot of flak for being unconscionable and hypocritical.Two years ago, his spouse and daughter were each gifted a 25 percent stake in a commercial building owned by his mother-in-law. Dividing property stake before giving it to children is an effective way to reduce tax payments. His daughter, now 13 years old, made a deal with her mother to borrow 220 million won ($198,000) from her to pay the relate

Nov. 2, 2017

[Shlomo Avineri] Like the Palestinians, the Kurds deserve a state

Nowadays, almost everyone agrees that the Palestinian people deserve a state, and that they should not live under Israeli rule. Most Israelis share this view, including even Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has reluctantly stated his own commitment to a two-state solution. And in many Western democracies, a strong left-wing constituency regularly organizes demonstrations in favor of Palestinian independence.The argument for Palestinian statehood is anchored in a fundamentally moral claim f

Nov. 2, 2017

[Los Angeles Times] Calming the Catalonia crisis

As if Europe weren’t struggling with enough problems, from Brexit to rising nationalism to a relentless influx of migrants fleeing tumult and war in the Middle East and Africa, Spain now finds itself mired in its worst political crisis since the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco and the creation of a democratic Spanish state in 1978. The crisis stems from a growing desire in Catalonia — the semiautonomous northeastern region anchored by Barcelona — to secede and form an independent nation.

Nov. 2, 2017

[Noah Smith] Free college would help the rich more than poor

Free college sounds like a great idea, when you first hear the words. That might be why Bernie Sanders was able to whip up so much enthusiasm around the idea in his 2016 presidential bid, and is still campaigning for it to this day. For anyone who has had to pay sky-high tuition at a big-name university, or dealt with the crushing weight of student loans, those two magical words must seem like a rope being thrown down from heaven.　But the dream of free college is a mirage. While much needs to be

Nov. 2, 2017

[Baltimore Sun] Manafort indictment shows company Trump keeps

President Donald Trump is right: Most of the accusations against Paul Manafort in the indictment that Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought Monday morning relate to activities from long before he became the Trump campaign manager in the spring of 2016. The word “Trump” doesn’t appear anywhere in the 31-page document, and the only Russian influence it mentions relates to politics in Ukraine, not the United States.Still, the public won’t be so quick to dismiss this development as “fake news” and

Nov. 1, 2017

[Leon Willems] Publicizing the plight of journalists

Every five days, on average, somewhere in the world, a journalist is murdered for being a journalist. Nine out of 10 times, no one is prosecuted, creating an atmosphere of impunity that extends beyond death threats or violence. Imprisonment of journalists is at an all-time high, and members of the press routinely suffer harassment and intimidation while on assignment. Today, journalism is one of the most dangerous professions anywhere.One way to address this state of affairs is by talking about

Nov. 1, 2017

[Leonid Bershidsky] Most dictators self destruct. Why?

With authoritarian rulers ascendant in many parts of the world, one wonders what must happen for their countries to liberalize. The likes of Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey or Xi Jinping in China are entrenched, experienced and not unpopular -- so should their opponents simply resign themselves to an open-ended period of illiberal rule?　According to Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist, that’s not necessarily the case. For a recent paper, he analyzed 218 episodes

Oct. 31, 2017

[Steven Bucci] US in Niger -- and dozens of other countries -- for good reason

Of all the questions that linger over the loss of four US special operations soldiers in Niger, perhaps the most persistent is: Why are we there?We’re used to having US troops in Asia and the Middle East, but Niger? Is our national security enhanced by what they were trying to do there?The short answer is yes. To understand why, take a closer look at what our troops were doing — and why.The mission in Niger, which began in 2013, was a classic special operations operation more specifically known

Oct. 31, 2017