[Tyler Cowen] Tech progress is silver lining of 2020

For obvious reasons, 2020 will not go down as a good year. At the same time, it has brought more scientific progress than any year in recent memory -- and these advances will last long after COVID-19 as a major threat is gone. Two of the most obvious and tangible signs of progress are the mRNA vaccines now being distributed across America and around the world. These vaccines appear to have very high levels of efficacy and safety, and they can be produced more quickly than more conventional vacc

Dec. 28, 2020

[Trudy Rubin] How can Biden approach Russia mess that Trump left?

This column is about a massive cyberattack and a pair of poisoned underpants that lead to a giant question: Can Joe Biden figure out how to handle Vladimir Putin’s Russia after President Donald Trump leaves town? Trump is ignoring the just-discovered hack of federal government and much of corporate America by Moscow, even as he still claims the Russia hack of the 2016 election was “a hoax.” Never mind that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has named Russia as the culprit. Trump b

Dec. 28, 2020

[Serendipity] I love you. That is why I am staying away, for now

I have been working from home for most of the last two weeks after the government implemented the Level 2.5 social distancing scheme. During the period, I have stepped outside the house on three occasions -- once to a department store and once to a bookstore to get Christmas presents that could not be bought online and then once more to buy wrapping paper. Each outing was a brief affair, dashing in and out of the store after getting what I needed. No lingering and browsing. So, I may not be ent

Dec. 25, 2020

[Lee Kyong-hee] Ringing out the pandemic year -- with hope

As 2020 draws to a close, a loud sigh will be heard around the world. But the daunting battle against the COVID-19 pandemic remains. It is as widespread and deadly as ever, a situation unimaginable on New Year’s Eve last year, when China first informed the World Health Organization about a “pneumonia of unknown cause” spreading in Wuhan. The Johns Hopkins University tally, so far, has counted more than 76 million cases and some 1.7 million deaths around the planet. Just-relea

Dec. 24, 2020

[Doyle McManus] Can Biden get out of mess in Iran?

Joe Biden is going to have a lot of complicated issues competing for his attention when he takes office next month. Among the thorniest is Iran. During his presidential campaign, Biden promised to revive President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with the Tehran regime. That’s the one President Donald Trump denounced as toothless and abandoned in 2018. Since then, Trump has imposed ever more punishing economic sanctions on Iran, but they haven’t caused Iran to bend to his wil

Dec. 24, 2020

[Bobby Ghosh] Europe waking up to Iran’s bad behavior

In the Persian version of the fable of the scorpion and the frog, the frog is replaced by a turtle, but the rest of the tale is familiar. The turtle is stung even as it is doing the scorpion a good turn -- ferrying it across a river -- and is told, by way of explanation, that this is merely an expression of the arachnid’s nature. The moral of that tale may finally be dawning on European leaders who have been keeping the Islamic Republic from falling into the water for the past four years.

Dec. 23, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] Grateful for everything, even in the pandemic

Christmas is just around the corner, but sadly, this year Santa Claus may not be able to come due to the pandemic. Still, however, we should be grateful for his lifetime of service to children, coming all the way from the North Pole every Christmas. The Bible teaches us to be grateful, saying we should be “thankful in everything, in all circumstances,” in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Yet these days, so many of us are constantly grumpy and cranky, complaining instead of being thankful. In

Dec. 23, 2020

[Ivo Daalder] Europe’s problems will persist, even with Biden in White House

The election of Joe Biden produced a huge sigh of relief in Europe. “Welcome back America!” tweeted Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. “Let’s work together!” exclaimed French President Emmanuel Macron. And it wasn’t just in France, but all over Europe that leaders welcomed the news that the White House would soon be occupied by someone who would want to work with them -- in contrast to Donald Trump, who had openly disdained the allies and declared the European Union a

Dec. 22, 2020

[Lionel Laurent] Macron has same issue as Louis XVI

When King Louis XVI, his two brothers and his sister-in-law were inoculated against smallpox in 18th-century France, the public worried about the risks. Though the experiment was a success, even sparking a new type of hairstyle, the doubts never went away. As vaccines took off during the 19th century, the age of Pasteur, so did resistance, apathy and distrust. A similar challenge faces French President Emmanuel Macron, who’s holed up in the Elysee Palace after testing positive for COVID-1

Dec. 22, 2020

[Tim Culpan, Noah Smith] Securing supply chains doesn’t mean bringing them home

While much of Joe Biden’s first term in office will involve digging out from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession, the incoming president has also vowed to change the way the US manages its supply chains. This is framed as a way to make America more resilient in the face of crises after struggling to secure much-needed protective and medical materials in the early days of the coronavirus. But it’s obvious that his supply-chain policy centers on weaning the US and its allies off China

Dec. 21, 2020

[Trudy Rubin] What Biden needs to handle China

As President Donald Trump continues to spew lies about “election fraud” and attack democratic institutions, he is handing China a huge Christmas gift. Trump touts his hardZ-line tack toward Beijing as a historic policy shift. He warned during the election campaign that if Joe Biden won, China “would own the United States.” On the contrary, President-elect Biden grasps something Trump never understood. The president’s chaotic China policy -- and his failed tr

Dec. 21, 2020

[Digital Simplicity] What happens to users when Google suffers massive outage?

A host of Google services including YouTube and Gmail were down for about an hour on Monday, leading to the trending hashtag “#YouTubeDOWN.” For those who rely heavily on Google’s productivity services, the outage is a sobering reminder that their digital life is essentially breakable at any moment. At a time when a growing number of people work from home with the help of a wide array of digital devices, sudden glitches of the internet network, core business-related services a

Dec. 19, 2020

[Robert J. Fouser] South Korea pulls through 2020

The year 2020 has been a very cruel one, as the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe. As of mid-December, 74 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported and 1.65 million people have died from the disease. The disease has affected all countries, though some have been hit harder than others. School closures have affected at least 1 billion children worldwide, and economies have been devastated. After a long decline, poverty in developing countries is increasing again, causing widespread sufferin

Dec. 18, 2020

[Kim Myong-sik] 21st National Assembly, Behemoth of the 21st century

South Korea’s 21st term of the National Assembly is the Behemoth of the 21st century -- it can do anything, bad things mostly. The Book of Job in the Old Testament describes it: “When the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth ... “Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?” (40:23-24)　 The new representative body elected in the general election on April 15 has acted in the fashion of a

Dec. 17, 2020

[Cass R. Sunstein] Undoing Trump‘s last-minute regulations

Donald Trump’s administration is doing an extraordinary amount of “midnight rule-making” -- issuing regulations at the very end of the president’s four-year term. This will cause real trouble for the Joe Biden administration, which will have to try to unwind a lot of it. As of now, Trump’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has a whopping 136 regulations under review, suggesting that there might well be a last-minute tsunami. Some of the last-minute re

Dec. 17, 2020

[Josef Joffe] Who will succeed Merkel?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union has ruled the 71-year-old Federal Republic for a total of 50 years. When she steps down next fall after 16 years in office, it is safe to assume that another Christian Democrat will succeed her. Who will it be? Within the next few weeks, the CDU will hold its 33rd party convention, and choose a new leader. Whoever it is will most likely be anointed as the CDU’s candidate for chancellor when Merkel steps down, and there is

Dec. 16, 2020

[Slawomir Sierakowski] Poland’s populist Catch-22

A half-billion people across the European Union have effectively been held hostage by United Poland, a tiny Polish political party that is largely unknown even among the country’s voters. At issue was a principle that 66 percent of Poles support: EU funding should be made conditional on a recipient country’s respect for the rule of law -- a key provision in the EU’s 2021-27 budget and COVID-19 recovery fund. Reports this week ahead of an EU summit to discuss the issue suggest

Dec. 15, 2020

[Andreas Kluth] Letter from US expats to Yellen

Dear Dr. Yellen: Congratulations! You’re probably the next treasury secretary of the US. That’ll throw you into daunting policy cauldrons -- from financing America’s massive deficits to managing China and taming the tax code. With so much in your inbox, we urge you not to forget about one large group of Americans: us. We’re US expats, and there are 9 million of us. If we were a state, we’d be the 11th largest. And we’re suffering from a problem that you can f

Dec. 14, 2020

[Andreas Kluth] Merkel’s deal with Hungary, Poland a compromise too far

Angela Merkel has done it again: She’s “merkeled.” In German, that neologism means to hedge, delay, dilute and fudge -- as the eponymous German chancellor is wont to do. There’s much to be said for this elastic style of politics, especially in the labyrinthine European Union. Merkel’s latest fudge, however, will weaken and undermine the bloc, and tarnish her legacy. The compromise was struck between her government, which currently holds the EU’s rotating pres

Dec. 14, 2020

[Contribution] What is more important: Sending anti-North Korea leaflets or providing food and medical supplies for hungry children?

About 48 years ago, in 1972, the July 4th South-North Joint Communiqué came to force between the two Koreas during the Park Chung-hee administration. Both parties agreed not to slander each other. However, neglecting the agreement, there were some groups of people that sent anti-North Korea leaflets—which is considered to be psychological warfare—to the North. The National Assembly has been pushing legislative efforts to regulate this activity since 2008. Now that a mature the

Dec. 13, 2020