Re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama faces a long list of challenges that have deep implications not just for his country but for the entire world. To tackle these tasks, Obama will need courage, insight, and above all things, the cooperation of the Republicans. The biggest challenge confronting Obama is putting the U.S. economy back on track. The world’s largest national economy is currently reeling under colossal government debt. The debt mountain has topped $16 trillion and keeps growing du

Despite the sluggish economy, the job market has remained surprisingly buoyant this year. According to the Bank of Korea, the economy is expected to add 430,000 jobs this year, an impressive performance that Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jae-wan described as a “job bonanza.”Yet the outsized employment gains are likely to come to a halt soon. As the economic slowdown takes hold, the job market is contracting rapidly. Research institutions paint a gloomy employment picture for next year, w

“We are not as divided as our politics suggests,” said the man who had just been re-elected president with barely 50 percent of the vote. For Barack Obama, it was the best kind of rhetoric: a self-serving statement that also happens to be true. The president’s remarkable victory over Republican nominee Mitt Romney last night was a near-landslide in the Electoral College, especially if his lead in Florida becomes official (with almost all the results in, it stands at about 46,000 votes). And if h

Asian and European leaders meeting in Vientiane this week have an opportunity for frank discussion on inter-regional issues of concernThe Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) this week in Laos will mark a good opportunity for leaders to discuss political and economic cooperation and a future direction so that the two regions can work constructively together.The meeting this year is held against the backdrop of many incidents that will shape the future of inter-regional cooperation, including the ongoing c

Central government offices, it appears, are unaware that state finances are in a critical situation.This is the only deduction that can be made from an annual Board of Audit report on government accounts for fiscal 2011, which lists inappropriate government spending. A total of 529.6 billion yen in state funds were misused, the second-highest on record.The report found 89 sewage treatment plants across the country were being poorly operated after being built with subsidies from the Land, Infrast

Giving a speech in Seoul last month, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked Korea to “act as a catalyst” in pushing for the global body’s three major goals of sustainable development, the prevention and management of conflicts and the establishment of human rights and democracy across the world. The former Korean foreign minister lauded the country as the “unprecedented model in the world for achieving the three tasks.”His request added to mounting calls for Korea to contribute more to the int

Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee brought a group of executives to Los Angeles and Tokyo in 1993 to show them how their products were treated in electronics stores in the cities. They felt embarrassed when they saw a few home appliances manufactured by Samsung put in an out-of-the-way corner of the shops they visited.In the two decades since then, Samsung Electronics Co. has grown into the world’s top maker of smartphones, computer memory chips and flat-panel TVs. The company announced this wee

If you’re in Beijing this week, there are some things that you may not find. Balloons or ping-pong balls, CNN on the TV in your hotel workout room, taxi windows that roll down and dissidents.These are not random shortages. They are targets of a government crackdown aimed at preventing the slightest disruption of its 18th Communist Party Congress, which has the task of approving new leaders for the world’s biggest nation.The party is fearful of balloons and ping-pong balls because they could carr

Savvy investors eyeing the next big thing in China should consider cigarettes, nicotine gum and cancer-treatment providers. That is the upshot of a new Brookings Institution report that raises burning questions about the family of Li Keqiang. He is expected to be named China’s next premier at a Communist Party congress that began on Thursday. Li’s brother, Li Keming, is deputy director at China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which dominates an industry that some health officials estima

The people of Beirut imagined the worst when they heard a sudden loud, ground-shaking blast shatter the daily hum of the charming Ashrafieh neighborhood a couple of weeks ago.When they found out that a powerful car bomb had killed Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, the country’s top intelligence official ― despised by Iran, Syria, and their Lebanese allies, Hezbollah ― they had a pretty good idea who had carried out the assassination. Syria and its allies have a long track record of killing their Lebanese e

The use of unapproved parts in nuclear power plants for the past 10 years is yet another indication of their operator’s insensitivity to nuclear disaster risk. Moreover, it was not its own safety check but an outside tip-off that brought the case to light.Since 2003, eight suppliers have faked warranties for 234 types of parts and provided Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., the operator of 23 nuclear reactors in the nation, with 7,682 unapproved items. More than 5,200 have been put to use, 99 perc