SAO PAULO -- Brazil’s political crisis appears to be coming to a head. Now that the lower house of the National Congress has voted in favor of President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment for violating fiscal rules, the Senate’s 81 members will vote in the coming days on whether to try her. If 42 agree, she will be suspended for up to 180 days, during which time Vice President Michel Temer will assume the presidency. If the Senate does not produce a two-thirds vote for conviction during that period, R

April 19, 2016

The communique issued by the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers at the conclusion of talks in Washington this weekend had a somewhat unreal, and worryingly ironic, tone. Noting that global growth “remains modest and uneven,” the G20 warned the large advanced economies against continuing their prolonged, excessive reliance on unconventional monetary policy to power growth. Yet the communique, which was issued in the names of the specialized policy makers most closely involved in pe

April 19, 2016

Six million children in Ethiopia are hungry and without clean water. It is in all of our interests to help Ethiopia overcome the worst drought in 50 years. 　 When 4-year-old Malou first arrived at the Save the Children stabilization center in the small community of Fedeto, she was severely underweight and limp, her feet swollen. But having been treated for the effects of malnutrition, and it seemed starting on the road to recovery, she now has a second battle on her hands -- to overcome pneumoni

April 18, 2016

Spring is coming, but people living in Northeast Asia are encountering blooming respiratory illnesses as well as the cherry blossoms. Trade winds carry the fine yellow dust of the Mongolian deserts eastward to China, the Korean Peninsula, Japan and, in much smaller amounts, the West Coast of the United States. It is an event that is particularly severe in the March-April months, accompanied by images of Asians wearing surgical masks, scarves and even respirators while going about their daily act

April 18, 2016

Paying doctors a fee for each service they provide gives them incentive to offer the maximum number of treatments, as well as pay less attention to how well patients recover. This is why the Barack Obama administration -- and just about everyone else -- wants to change the way doctors get paid.But as the administration’s latest step away from the fee-for-service model illustrates, it’s doing too little, too slowly to accomplish the change that’s needed.On Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Med

April 18, 2016

Social media continues to teach its users that in this increasingly diverse, multicultural, multiethnic nation, people should deliberate long and hard -- and even get a second and third opinion -- before they say or post anything.For corporations, the senseless use of social media in the rush to one-up competitors could result in the loss of customers and a lot of too-real dollars and cents.Sprint Corp. CEO Marcelo Claure has made himself an object lesson for others after he posted a clip on Twi

April 17, 2016

I wrote at the beginning of January that economic conditions this year were set to be as weak as in 2015, which was the worst year since the global financial crisis erupted in 2008. And, as has happened repeatedly over the last decade, a few months into the year, others’ more optimistic forecasts are being revised downward.The underlying problem — which has plagued the global economy since the crisis, but has worsened slightly — is lack of global aggregate demand. Now, in response, the European

April 17, 2016

The assumption that a college education should take four years is baked into American culture. Colleges in the colonial days were founded on the premise of a four-year degree, a concept imported from Europe. Harvard University experimented with a three-year degree when it was founded in 1636, but the test was short-lived, and the four-year degree has been the standard ever since. We expect students to enter college at 18 and leave when they turn 22, and we worry about those who take a more circu

April 17, 2016

If the Central Intelligence Agency’s role is to discreetly promote the economic and political interests of the United States, then there’s one country that ought to be awfully disappointing to the agency right now: Saudi Arabia. In fact, if there’s an issue on which America and Russia could potentially agree, it would be the damage Saudi Arabia has recently wrought upon the national and economic security of both nations.　Take Syria, for example. The CIA operation to train Syrian rebels goes by t

April 15, 2016

It is highly significant that the Group of Seven major powers — including the three nuclear powers of the United States, Britain and France — issued a clear message to pursue the eradication of nuclear weapons, doing so from a city flattened by the atomic bomb.The G7 adopted the Hiroshima Declaration on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation at its foreign ministers’ meeting in Hiroshima.“The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced immense devastation and human suffering,” the declaratio

April 14, 2016

Hong Kong is an indisputable part of China, so think the Chinese. A new political party has been launched by young students who orchestrated the 2014 pro-democracy protests against mainland China. The new political party intends to campaign for a fresh referendum that will decide Hong Kong’s future and also its possible independence from the mainland. Hong Kong enjoys many freedoms, civic and political that are unheard of and unimaginable in the mainland. Chinese authorities viewed the earlier s

April 14, 2016

What would you do if you were the richest person in your community and you had issues with your neighbors on property rights?　If you were emotionally stable or did not have a chip on your shoulder, you would reach out to them to come up with a win-win solution to your conflict.　If you were emotionally challenged or harbored feelings of insecurity, you would perform acts that show your superiority or your neighbors’ weakness in relation to your strength. Like a bully, you may even use force or in

April 14, 2016