Skyhigh sell-offThe President Lee Myung-bak administration proposed a partial privatization of Incheon International Airport in 2008 with a plan to sell off a 49 percent stake, including 15 percent to a foreign airport operator. Lee said the move would improve the competitiveness and efficiency of the country’s main gateway. The plan was ultimately shelved in the face of public antipathy. Last year, the Grand National Party drew up a bill for a similar plan, only to see it stalled indefinitely a

WASHINGTON ― Is American power in decline, relative to the rest of the world? That question is at the center of a provocative study by the U.S. intelligence community exploring what the world might look like in 2030. The answer, judging by comments from a panel convened to discuss the topic, is that America faces serious trouble: The U.S. economy is slowing, relative to its Asian competitors, which will make it harder for the country to assert its traditional leadership role in decades ahead. Th

CAMBRIDGE ― Libyans have a new lease on life, a feeling that, at long last, they are the masters of their own fate. Perhaps Iraqis, after a decade of warfare, feel the same way. Both countries are oil producers, and there is widespread expectation among their citizens that that wealth will be a big advantage in rebuilding their societies. Meanwhile, in Africa, Ghana has begun pumping oil for the first time, and Uganda is about to do so as well. Indeed, from West Africa to Mongolia, countries are

NEW YORK ― Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get worse, it appears that they have. Even some of the ostensibly “responsible” members of the eurozone are facing higher interest rates. Economists on both sides of the Atlantic are now discussing not just whether the euro will survive, but how to ensure that its demise causes the least turmoil possible.It is increasingly evident that Europe’s political leaders, for all their commitment to the euro’s survival, do not have a good grasp of what

“Emma Sullivan just became the new Ferris Bueller.”That was the astute observation of a writer for Roll Call, one of countless panegyrics to the 18-year-old Kansan who refused to apologize to Gov. Sam Brownback for sending a not-very-nice tweet about him to her 60-some followers.The tweet in question, which Sullivan composed on Nov. 21 at a Youth in Government Program in Topeka, went as follows:“Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”Of course,

On her final full day in office, President Roza Otunbayeva of Kyrgyzstan became the first senior Kyrgyz official to forcefully denounce “bride kidnapping,” an entrenched custom in her Central Asian state.“Bride kidnapping is a tradition of the Kyrgyz people,” she acknowledged as she was preparing to leave the presidential palace on Nov. 29. “But these crimes often force women to commit suicide.”Young men kidnap about 15,000 girls each year, Otunbayeva said. They simply grab a girl walking down t