On Sept. 11, the Official Gazette of the Philippines decided to mark the 99th birth anniversary of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, by releasing a graphic. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out: Almost everything.The graphic produced by the Gazette carried a photo, a quote, and a caption. Under sustained social media criticism, the caption went through three editions -- each one deeply problematic both because of what was included and what was left out.The first version stirred con

Sept. 21, 2016

The heavy-handed posture of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration appears to have led to the rise of “anti-China” forces in Hong Kong.Continuing progress in democratization and political reforms is essential to maintaining Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity, rather than reinforcing a clampdown.In the recent elections for Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, newly emerging, anti-Beijing forces making such radical calls as “independence” from China have made headway.For the 70-member legisla

Sept. 20, 2016

While I was having my hair cut 20 years ago, my barber advised me to wash my hair with soap, not with shampoo. He told me, “You are losing your hair here and there. You’d better stop using shampoo because it’s full of chemicals. Try soap instead.” From that day on, I began washing my hair with a bar of soap. Strangely, however, I noticed a bunch of hair was clogging the sink every time I shampooed with soap. Recently, I switched back from soap to shampoo and I noticed I no longer lost my hair. O

Sept. 20, 2016

While not well known in South Korea, the Our Ocean conference was held on Thursday and Friday in Washington where representatives from almost 90 counties presented a vivid account of the current status of the global marine environment. This was the largest meeting aimed at discussing conservation of the marine environment and the depleting fish stocks. It showed why global action is needed immediately. For the past several decades, numerous suggestions have been made and projects undertaken in o

Sept. 20, 2016

 Faced with Russian nuclear threats during the Cold War, the strategist Herman Kahn calibrated a macabre ladder of escalation with 44 different rungs ranging from “Ostensible Crisis” to “Spasm or Insensate War.” In the era of cyberwarfare that is now dawning, the rules of the game have not yet been established with such coldblooded precision. That is why this period of Russian-American relations is so tricky. The strategic framework that could provide stability has not been set. Russian hackers

Sept. 20, 2016

Moms and dads have their special day. So do grandparents.It may seem a bit odd to some, but single people have their own week to celebrate, and it starts Sunday. The Buckeye Singles Council began National Singles Week in Ohio in the 1980s to celebrate single life and recognize singles and their contributions to society. The Census Bureau reports that the week is widely observed during the third full week of September as “Unmarried and Single Americans Week.” It is a recognition that many unmarri

Sept. 19, 2016

Last month, 18 people in the Gopalganj district of India’s Bihar state died after consuming illicit alcohol, highlighting — once again — the peculiar relationship between morality and tragedy in India. The victims were poisoned because this April, in a fit of moralism, Bihar adopted a draconian law prohibiting the sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol. It is far from the first such ban that has ended badly.In a country where the national hero is the saintly Mahatma Gandhi, who considered

Sept. 19, 2016

With the cauldron at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro extinguished, fans and critics alike are revisiting the perennial Olympic question: To whom is this enormously oversized effort to host the games really worth? One beneficiary that was prominently featured in Rio is the world of global security and surveillance.Olympic delegations and high-profile guests clearly want to be assured that the host has control over security. The organizers are equally as eager to demonstrate that they have t

Sept. 19, 2016

North Korea’s second nuclear weapons test this year -- the rogue regime’s fifth and most powerful to date as well as Kim Jong-un’s third since his 2011 assumption of power -- has caused pervasive worldwide alarm, principally due to the growing plausibility that Pyongyang may soon be capable of mounting a nuclear warhead upon an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach, among other targets, the United States mainland. Stanford nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker estimates North Korea ha

Sept. 19, 2016

Stalin, in the first decade of Soviet power, backed the idea of “socialism in one country,” meaning that, until conditions ripened, socialism was for the USSR alone. When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared, in July 2014, his intention to build an “illiberal democracy,” it was widely assumed that he was creating “illiberalism in one country.” Now, Orban and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and puppet master of the country’s government (thou

Sept. 18, 2016

It’s hard to learn your ABCs when all you can see on the page are blurry squiggles. That’s the problem that hundreds of thousands of American children face as they start school with undiagnosed vision problems. Fortunately, helping them needn‘t be expensive or complicated. It’s just a matter of getting parents, schools and vision professionals to work better together.Most kids’ vision checkups are the kind that involve reading pyramids of letters and numbers from 6 meters away. But these often f

Sept. 18, 2016

“There’s going to be a global shaming campaign.” -- Professor Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul, South Korea, on an international plan to rein in North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, Sept. 11, 2016, the Washington Post.　Earlier this month, North Korea celebrated the 68th anniversary of its regime with an underground nuclear blast, its fifth since 2006. A few days before that, the North launched a round of medium-range ballistic missile tests toward Japan.　The responses have been predictably

Sept. 18, 2016