When the Capital Market Consolidation Act went into effect in February 2009, the government expected a “big bang” in the domestic financial industry. As the new law lowered barriers separating financial services, policymakers anticipated financial companies would actively pursue mergers and acquisitions among themselves to grow into large, multifunctional investment banks.The much expected big ban

Editorial Feb. 10, 2011

North Korea’s military said Thursday that it would not engage in dialogue with its South Korean counterpart any longer, laying the blame for the collapse on Wednesday of the two-day working-level military talks between the two Koreas on the South. The North’s state media quoted its delegation to the failed talks as saying that “the South do not wish for improvement of inter-Korean relations and ar

Editorial Feb. 10, 2011

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act” introduced Jan. 20 in the U.S. House of Representatives is a broad attack on women’s reproductive health care. The talk for the last couple of days has been the bill’s supposed attempt to redefine rape ― limiting a “rape” exemption to “forcible rape” ― but the potential harm to women is larger.The bill would prevent the use of taxpayer funds for abortion

Viewpoints Feb. 10, 2011

Remember all that stuff about how the credit crunch was going to usher in a new age of austerity? The financial industry would shrink; the gulf between the haves and the have-nots would close; and taxes would rise for the top earners, forcing them to contribute more to society.Well, guess what? It didn’t happen.In fact, we just had a “rich-get-richer” recession. U.K. data suggest the gap between t

Viewpoints Feb. 10, 2011

If current demographic trends continue, within the next half-century Muslims will constitute a sizable part, perhaps even a plurality, of Russia’s population; indeed, Moscow currently has more Muslim inhabitants than any other European city. And unlike those in Amsterdam or Paris, most of Moscow’s Muslims are citizens, not immigrants ― products of the Russian Empire’s 19th century southward expans

Viewpoints Feb. 10, 2011

“The army is the people’s army and Mubarak is no longer our president!”On the 13th day of the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the anti-regime protesters’ chants still ring loud.I walk briskly toward the square, past the long queues of people impatiently waiting to get in, and join the protesters who have now set up makeshift camps. Today’s “newcomers” have to pass several security checkpoints b

Viewpoints Feb. 10, 2011

Events in Egypt are seesawing so quickly it is difficult to assess if the current trajectory points toward gradually escalating violence or a more orderly transition that will end President’s Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.Yet here is what is clearly not happening ― an Iranian-style Islamic Revolution.As anyone watching television can see, the demonstrators filling Tahrir Square are not Islamic radi

Viewpoints Feb. 9, 2011

During the State of the Union address, President Barack Obama challenged the nation to invest in clean-energy technologies so the U.S. would “out-compete” and “out-innovate” the rest of the world.Indisputably, this country needs less polluting and more efficient energy sources to make the critical transition from fossil fuels to the 21st-century technologies needed to keep the nation economically

Viewpoints Feb. 9, 2011

Events in Egypt have journalists around the world asking: Hmmm, could that happen here?In Tokyo, the answer is no. The student riots of 1968 remind us never to say never. The thought of today’s youths congregating at Shibuya Crossing, tossing Molotov cocktails and demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, though, is a colossal reach. Mass protests in Japan are a rare, rare thing.Yet there

Viewpoints Feb. 9, 2011

The revolution unfolding in Egypt and other Arab lands has set Israeli hearts racing with anxiety. There are so many ways in which regime change in Egypt could prove calamitous for Israel that it’s hard to know where to begin. And yet, the very fact that Israelis have to spend their nights worrying about what comes tomorrow in a country with which they signed a peace treaty more than 30 years ago,

Viewpoints Feb. 9, 2011

For the most part, economic markets have shrugged while the turmoil in Egypt has escalated. If President George W. Bush was right about the long-term impact of the Iraq War, that might change.We may all have to share in economic hardship as the price for a freer world.There are sound arguments, to be sure, that the economy will remain calm. On its own, the uprising in Egypt seems unlikely to cause

Viewpoints Feb. 9, 2011