No argument is necessary about whether President Obama‘s six-hour visit to Afghanistan was political. Of course it was. Obama is running for re-election. The better question is whether a celebration is justified.Regarding the mission to assassinate Osama bin Laden -- and Wednesday was the anniversary of it -- some crowing is fine. The Navy SEALs’ mission was successful, and spectacularly so. Obama ordered it. He took the political risk and won a victory for America. Any president would remind pe

A favorite theme in international debate nowadays is whether Asia’s rise signifies the West’s decline. But the current focus on economic malaise in Europe and the United States is distracting attention from the many serious challenges that call into question Asia’s continued success.To be sure, today’s ongoing global power shifts are primarily linked to Asia’s phenomenal economic rise, the speed and scale of which have no parallel in world history. With the world’s fastest-growing economies, fas

Vladimir Putin’s return to the Russian presidency comes at a delicate time when North Korea’s move toward a third nuclear test is alerting neighboring powers, with the U.S. and China engaged in an increasing military rivalry in the Pacific region.Putin, who began his third presidential term Monday, may well expect this situation to give him more leeway in expanding Russia’s strategic presence in Northeast Asia.He had kept his grip on power while serving as prime minister during the past four yea

A recent survey by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry showed local small and medium-sized enterprises are far less competitive than SMEs in Germany, Japan and other industrialized countries.If the competitiveness of small companies in advanced nations with a strong manufacturing sector is put at 100, that of Korea’s SMEs scored 59.6, according to the survey of 151 economic experts here.Among the key problems cited by the experts for holding back domestic small firms were a lack of innova

The government is ratcheting up efforts to stimulate investment by domestic and foreign companies to sustain economic growth and strengthen the nation’s weakening growth potential.In recent months, the economy has lost much of its growth momentum due to a worsening external environment. In the first quarter of the year, the economy expanded 2.8 percent from a year ago, the smallest increase since the 1 percent gain in the first three months of 2009.Yet the first-quarter performance was much less

Korea has started building two new nuclear reactors, reaffirming its unwavering commitment to developing atomic energy. The government hailed the 1,400-megawatt reactors as “a new milestone” in Korea’s nuclear technology development, as their key components, such as the man-machine interface and reactor coolant pumps, were all designed and produced locally. The two reactors, both based on the nation’s Advanced Power Reactor design, will be built at the Uljin power plant on the southeastern coast

TEL AVIV ― The failure of the Obama administration, its Western allies, and several Middle East regional powers to take bolder action to stop the carnage in Syria is often explained by their fear of anarchy. Given the Syrian opposition’s manifest ineffectiveness and disunity, so the argument goes, President Bashar al-Assad’s fall, when it finally comes, will incite civil war, massacres, and chaos, which is likely to spill over Syria’s borders, further destabilizing weak neighbors like Iraq and L

Three decades ago, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was confronted with a nation bordering on irrelevance, a stagnant economy and a set of entrenched beliefs about the relationship between government and the people. Thatcher faced down striking coal miners and forced through a series of free-market reforms that unshackled Britain’s economy and made it vibrant once again. To the chorus of accusations that she was killing the economy, she replied: “There is no alternative.” She was right. Sho

The one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden has reignited public debate over the effectiveness of harsh interrogation techniques in U.S. antiterrorism efforts.The discussion is welcomed by an ex-CIA official who has published a book defending controversial interrogation techniques such as simulated drowning, also known as water boarding, as needed to save American lives.That might have been the case when fictional spy Jack Bauer would save the day on the old TV series 24, but top

BEIJING ― The Bo Xilai saga of power, wealth, corruption and murder has brought the issue of China’s princelings (offspring of the Communist Party’s former and current senior leaders) to the front and center of the international discourse on contemporary China. Three underlying assumptions about the princelings drive the noisy speculations about Chinese politics by many mainstream commentators: The princelings form a powerful interest group, akin to a political aristocracy, that exerts decisive

Three more North Korean companies have recently been placed on a U.N. blacklist of corporations banned from international trade. On Wednesday, a U.N. Security Council committee decided to add the companies to the blacklist as sanctions on North Korea against its April 13 rocket launch.The U.N. decision followed China’s consent to sanctions on the three companies. The number fell far short of the 40 or so North Korean companies that the United States, South Korea and other countries had reportedl

South Korea, which relies on external trade for growth, needs to promote free trade. The need for free trade is shared by China. Still, they find formidable obstacles to their pursuit of a free trade agreement.Growth in South Korea’s trade with China, which is larger than combined Korean-U.S. and Korean-EU trade, will certainly accelerate when many of the tariff and non-tariff barriers are removed or lowered. It is only natural for South Korea, which has concluded free trade agreements with both

Spain is the crucial front in Europe’s battle to contain its economic crisis, and the fight is going badly. Spain’s economy is in a tailspin. Some forecasters say the unemployment rate, already a punishingly high 24.4 percent, could reach 30 percent. The government’s credit rating has just been downgraded, and its cost of borrowing ― close to 6 percent ― is putting its solvency in question. Investors are watching the country’s banks with mounting concern. Europe’s leaders cannot blame Madrid. Ma