In July 2015, The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board called the agreement that the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union had just reached with Iran a “historic gamble.” In exchange for reduced economic sanctions and the return of up to $150 billion in seized assets, Tehran agreed to sharp limits on its uranium enrichment program -- which could have been used to make nuclear weapons -- and to regular inspections of its nuclear facilities.We lauded the

Aug. 23, 2017

When a van plowed into pedestrians in Barcelona last week, President Trump didn’t wait for investigators to determine who the attackers were. Within minutes of the first reports, he tweeted: “The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help.”But when a car rammed into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, five days earlier, Trump decried violence “on many sides” and explained that he needed to wait for the facts to come in. Later, under

Aug. 23, 2017

The circumstances of the crash of the USS John S. McCain near Singapore, which killed at least one US sailor and has left nine missing, remain unclear pending a Navy investigation. The bigger picture, however, is already in focus: Four major accidents this year involving ships of the 7th Fleet highlight a systemic problem that imperils American dominance on the high seas.At any given time, about 100 of the Navy’s roughly 275 ships are deployed. Yet the fleet is half the size it was 30 years ago,

Aug. 23, 2017

Government scientists worried that their long-in-the-works assessment of climate change would be suppressed. The concern hardly rates as overwrought. Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, says he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. What matters is that a draft of the climate report landed in the New York Times, the public learning that scientists from 13 federal agencies have concluded that Americans already are seeing the eff

Aug. 23, 2017

President Donald Trump faced such strong criticism for his unforgettably and unforgivably poor response to the horrific violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, that not even the firing of his chief strategist Steve Bannon on Friday will be enough for millions of Americans to turn the page.“We’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning,” Trump said 15 months ago.Just plain tired, maybe.Still, many millions of Americans are steadfast in their support for the president, either because

Aug. 22, 2017

China is the largest market for General Motors, but there is no GM China. Instead, there is SAIC-GM, a joint venture between China’s largest state-owned auto company and GM.All auto companies operating in China have a similar partner, such as SAIC-Volkswagen, GAC-Toyota and Changan-Ford. And the partners are typically state-owned companies, and their names come first.Doing business in China requires such joint ventures in several other industries as well, including finance and telecommunications

Aug. 22, 2017

With threats, bribes, diplomacy and sanctions, American presidents of both parties have sought for 25 years to try to halt, or at least slow, North Korea’s quest for a nuclear arsenal -- to no avail.Though the brinksmanship of the last few weeks has subsided, President Donald Trump still faces the prospect of a madman -- Kim Jong-un -- in control of a nuclear arsenal. What the US and its allies must now do is find options between conventional war, or even nuclear holocaust, on the one hand, and

Aug. 22, 2017

Intelligence officers sometimes talk about “blowback,” when covert actions go bad and end up damaging the country that initiated them. A year later, that is surely the case with Russia‘s secret attempt to meddle in the US presidential election, which has brought a string of adverse unintended consequences for Moscow.The Kremlin is still issuing cocky statements accusing the US of “political schizophrenia” in its response to Russian hacking. And there are vestiges of the triumphal tone I encounte

Aug. 21, 2017

Like middle-aged women dying their hair fluorescent colors and young women dying their hair iron gray, DNA testing has become fashionable even without necessarily leading to positive results.Do we really need to know more about our ancestral heritage, as if we’re characters out of “Game of Thrones” and desperate to figure out whether to pledge allegiance to wolves, dragons or the incestuous Lannisters, thereby becoming part of some larger powerful dynasty?While finding out information about your

Aug. 21, 2017

It’s time for Australian legislators and jurists to end a juvenile tussle about citizenship and who can serve in government. Their future depends on it.There is almost daily hysteria in Australia over a formerly obscure clause in the constitution that bars dual nationals from sitting in the federal parliament. The question is which legislators are now disqualified because they did (or didn‘t) know that their birth abroad -- or that of their parents -- sometimes brought with it eligibility for, o

Aug. 21, 2017

Remember that Chinese pet food, laced with melamine, that caused kidney failure in the family European pooch? Or the pork and beef from Belgium containing cancer-causing dioxin? The horse meat passed off as beef burgers in Britain? Now tainted Dutch eggs are making diners uneasy.There’s something especially creepy about recurring food scandals, even the ones that don‘t pose a huge threat to public health. The latest, involving millions of eggs sold in 18 countries as far from Dutch chickens as H

Aug. 20, 2017

Australia’s parliament is in the grip of the world’s most ridiculous constitutional crisis. The situation threatens the country’s democratic process, which is reason enough for politicians and courts to work to unpick it. More importantly, though, it raises questions the rest of the world would do well to ponder.Over the past month, five members of Australia‘s 226-member parliament have admitted that they may have unwittingly held dual citizenship -- a condition that, under Australia’s 1900 cons

Aug. 20, 2017