The auditing profession’s top U.S. overseer usually does a flawless job of safeguarding the most embarrassing secrets of accounting firms and their corporate clients. Fortunately, every now and then, the watchdog slips up. Take the case of Kyoto Audit Corp., a Japanese affiliate of the Big Four auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers. On Feb. 14, the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board released its first-ever inspection report on the Kyoto-based firm. The report said the board’s staff reviewed

Viewpoints March 7, 2012

It was a setback for the “flagbearer of Japan‘s semiconductor industry,” and it symbolizes the decline in Japan’s industrial competitiveness.Elpida Memory Inc., the only domestic manufacturer -- and the No. 3 maker in the world -- of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) used for personal computers and other products, has given up its self-rehabilitation efforts and filed for protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law. This means the company has gone bankrupt.Competition is fierce in the DR

Viewpoints March 7, 2012

You probably feel it intuitively. The grids underlying our digital lives -- our bank accounts, mobile phones, e-mail, medical records -- are more vulnerable than ever. Companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Sony Corp. have recently reported serious breaches of their networks. NASA said last week that hackers had launched 13 major attacks against it last year, including one in which they gained access to networks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages active space mi

Viewpoints March 7, 2012

The bitter winter chill is gradually easing. It looks like the nation has been able to meet peak demand for electricity over the winter and avoid a greatly feared electricity crisis.However, industry and individual households must not let their guard down. Power suppliers across the country are walking on a tightrope, and the electricity shortage has become chronic.Almost one year has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake. Most nuclear reactors across Japan have been left idle even after

Viewpoints March 6, 2012

The World Bank has warned China that its economic growth model, which depends heavily on exports and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is unsustainable. Though criticized for some past judgments, this advice from the World Bank is sound. It comes in a report, co-authored with the Development Research Center of China’s State Council, which recommended that Beijing reduce the dominant role of SOEs in order to promote the free market.Having amazed the world with the dramatic results of the economic r

Viewpoints March 6, 2012

It was a setback for the “flagbearer of Japan’s semiconductor industry,” and it symbolizes the decline in Japan’s industrial competitiveness.Elpida Memory Inc., the only domestic manufacturer ― and the No. 3 maker in the world ― of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) used for personal computers and other products, has given up its self-rehabilitation efforts and filed for protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law. This means the company has gone bankrupt.Competition is fierce in the DRAM

Viewpoints March 6, 2012

This may come to be known as the Samuel Alito election. The U.S. presidential contest is predominately about Barack Obama’s stewardship of the economy and the political-cultural divide in the Republican Party. It’s also about the huge sums of money sloshing around, after Justice Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court and provided the swing vote in the 2010 Citizens United case. Supporters claimed that allowing unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions wou

Viewpoints March 6, 2012

This may come to be known as the Samuel Alito election. The U.S. presidential contest is predominately about Barack Obama’s stewardship of the economy and the political-cultural divide in the Republican Party. It’s also about the huge sums of money sloshing around, after Justice Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court and provided the swing vote in the 2010 Citizens United case. Supporters claimed that allowing unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions wou

Viewpoints March 6, 2012

The World Bank has warned China that its economic growth model, which depends heavily on exports and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is unsustainable. Though criticized for some past judgments, this advice from the World Bank is sound. It comes in a report, co-authored with the Development Research Center of China‘s State Council, which recommended that Beijing reduce the dominant role of SOEs in order to promote the free market.Having amazed the world with the dramatic results of the economic r

Viewpoints March 6, 2012

What is a government program? And are you on one right now? Those are the questions Cornell University political scientist Suzanne Mettler has been posing. For her book “The Submerged State,” she asked a scientifically selected sample of 1,400 Americans whether they had ever used a government social program. Only 43 percent copped to having done so. Then she read off 21 social programs, such as Medicare and the home-mortgage interest deduction, and asked the same question again: Have you ever us

Viewpoints March 5, 2012

After a year of political unrest and thousands of civilian casualties at the hands of government forces, the common assumption is that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the Syrian people. But the reality is far more complex, with key factions continuing to see their fates as intrinsically linked to the Assad regime’s survival.The core of Assad’s support still lies within the minority Alawite sect, of which he is a member. Many Alawites, who make u

Viewpoints March 5, 2012

For Mexican-Americans and others trying to get ahead, education had been the stairway to the middle class. Education meant security and basics such as health insurance. This heaven meant better jobs and a small house for old age.But now this stairway has fallen into disrepair. One rung after another has been destroyed.The first rung was financial assistance. Many Latino students and poor blacks and whites could afford college only through grants and subsidies. But over the last two decades, coll

Viewpoints March 5, 2012

When Lee Yong-deuk, leader of the more moderate of Korea’s two national labor unions, joined the main opposition Democratic United Party as an appointed member of its executive council last year, he must have had specific goals to attain other than simple policy coordination. Observers guessed he must have been aiming at securing “several” National Assembly seats for his colleagues at the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, if not for himself, in the forthcoming general elections. Last week, Lee

Editorial March 5, 2012

It does not take much expertise in North Korean affairs to know what is behind the anti-South Korean hysteria Pyongyang is exhibiting these days. First of all, a hate-the-South campaign is the best stimulant to generate people’s loyalty to the new leader, who suddenly took over power upon the death of his father three months ago.Kim Jong-un, the “supreme dignity” of the North, was in Panmunjeom last Saturday. He exhorted People’s Army personnel at the truce village to be on “the highest state of

Editorial March 5, 2012