Many supporters of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, trade agreement are arguing that its fate rests on President Obama’s bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Japan this week. If Japan and the United States can sort out market access issues for agriculture and automobiles, the wisdom goes, this huge deal ― in effect, a North American Free Trade Agreement on steroids ― can at last be concluded.But this view obscures the many seemingly intractable problems TPP n

Republican politicians are at war over the world.Representative Peter King of New York says that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky encourages “paranoia.” Paul says his critics are distorting his views. Walter Jones, a North Carolina representative seeking his 11th term, is being challenged in a primary that features ads saying he “preaches American decline” and “opposes sanctions on Iran.”It has been at least 20 years since Republicans have argued this angrily about foreign policy. Voters don’t much ca

The concept of “balle balle,” or “quick, quick!,” is at the very core of Koreans’ view of themselves. After rising from the ashes of war in the 1950s, bouncing back from financial collapse in the late 1990s, and growing into a technology-and-entertainment powerhouse over the last decade, South Korea has turned its ability to get the job done in a bewilderingly short time into a national hallmark.But amid grief, recriminations and breathless news coverage, the investigation into the tragic sinkin

Here‘s a bit of good news for nervous Democrats: President Barack Obama’s health-care law isn‘t going to be the albatross many feared it would be in this year’s congressional elections. Enrollment has soared, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the program will cost less than initially projected and that premiums will rise only slightly this year.House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid aren‘t popping the Champagne, however. The economy could clobbe

It’s hard to think of another book on economics published in the past several decades that’s been praised as lavishly as Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century.” The adulation tells you something, though not mainly about the book’s qualities. Its defects, in my view, are greater than its strengths ― but the rapturous reception proves that the book, one way or another, meets a need.Martin Wolf of the Financial Times calls it “extraordinarily important.” Paul Krugman, writing in the New Yor

In recent months, Chinese leaders have pledged drastic steps to clear their nation’s smog-choked air. The bigger question, though, may be how far they’re willing to go to clean up its water.Say one thing for the lung-burning pollution that regularly blankets Beijing and other cities: At least everyone can see the problem. In contrast, a recent benzene spill that poisoned the water supply of Lanzhou ― a city of more than 2 million people ― was terrifyingly odorless and colorless. If anything, pol

The newly appointed defense minister of Moldova ― the charming but intermittently hapless ex-Soviet Republic stuck between Ukraine and Romania ― is a sturdy-looking ex-prison official named Valeriu Troenco. He seemed, from a slight distance, to be an affable fellow, but he was deeply, dismissively uninterested in answering a question that I asked him after his swearing-in ceremony.The ceremony was held in the presidential offices. While on a trip to Moldova and Ukraine earlier this month, I was

If you’re like most middle-class parents, you’ve probably gotten annoyed with your daughter for constantly checking her Instagram feed or with your son for his two-thumbed texting at the dinner table. But before you rage against technology and start unfavorably comparing your children’s lives to your less-wired childhood, ask yourself this: Do you let your 10-year-old roam the neighborhood on her bicycle as long as she’s back by dinner? Are you comfortable, for hours at a time, not knowing your

“The Power of 49”: That’s how Indian activists have started describing the potential influence of women, who make up just under 50 percent of the population, in the country’s ongoing elections. Political parties are courting women for the first time as a bloc, a transformative force that could upend both caste-based voting patterns and the conventional wisdom in New Delhi if they cast their ballots along gender lines.Unfortunately, campaign pledges on women’s issues and advertising blitzes targe