Do elections really make a difference? In the wake of parliamentary elections in South Korea last month, critics of the nation’s chaebol could be forgiven for thinking that they do not.“Chaebol” is the Korean term for the large, family-controlled conglomerates that dominate the South Korean economy. They are particularly associated with the sort of alliances between the state and the private sector that developed under the authoritarian regime of Park Chung-hee.Chaebol are also known for their l

The anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden has renewed a yearlong debate in the U.S. The question: Did torture of captured al-Qaeda agents provide intelligence essential to that operation?Former government officials, including the CIA director, the deputy director for operations and the attorney general, say yes. In a statement last week, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin, members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called these assertions “wrong.” The committee’s compr

Now it has turned out in China that not only power corrupts, but also money. And what if the two join hand in hand? The results are dramatic, tragic, and ruinous, as the cascading events in China show. For nearly three months since February, the world has been watching a drama with suspense and disbelief. Perhaps some sadness, too.What I am talking about is the purge of Bo Xilai, who until April 10 was a high-flying Politburo member and a contender for top leadership of the Chinese Communist Par

Newt Gingrich never saw it ending this way. The former House speaker, who has long thought of himself as a historic figure, envisioned he would be the candidate of innovative “big ideas” and the agenda-setter for the 2012 U.S. election. This either would catapult him to the White House or ensure a consolation prize: a vice presidential nomination or secretary of State appointment in a Republican administration. In the worst case, he would be a genuine senior statesman in his party. Instead, as h

At times of economic crisis, politicians like to blame investors, preferably foreign investors. Harold Wilson, the British prime minister in the 1960s, pointed the finger at bankers in Zurich. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia accused George Soros of undermining his country’s financial stability in the late 1990s. And in parts of Europe today, it is increasingly common to blame hedge funds, “locust”-like investors, or even credit-default swaps for the euro-area crisis. This is almost e

Addressing the health needs of the world’s most vulnerable people is often a costly and complicated undertaking. But on rare occasions, if the will is sufficient, it can be simple. So it is with the No. 2 cause of death among children in low-income countries: diarrhea. Weak health and poor nutrition can make these children especially susceptible to deadly dehydration. Among those less than 5 years old, 1.5 million die from the condition annually, mostly in Africa and South Asia. India, Nigeria a

JERUSALEM ― Two things stand out in the Middle East since the Arab Spring began ― one that happened, and one that did not. What happened was that for the first time in modern Arab history, authoritarian regimes and rulers were toppled, or seriously challenged, by popular demonstrations, not ― as in the past ― through military coups.But what did not happen might be as important as what did. While dictators associated with military juntas were challenged overnight, the Arab Spring never came to th

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Initial reports indicated the justices weren’t buying the Obama administration’s arguments against a provision that requires police officers to check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.We hope that’s not the case. We think that provision and others in the law need to be struck down, and we hope the court upholds the primacy of federal law and agencies in dealing w

Never one to eat his words, Newt Gingrich is nonetheless being fed replay after replay of the famous ABC News clip in which he confidently declared, “I’m going to be the nominee.”That was Dec. 1. On Wednesday, the morning after Mitt Romney swept five presidential primaries, Gingrich’s campaign staff signaled that he would soon officially concede the obvious: Romney is the presumptive Republican presidential candidate.That Gingrich lasted this long is a testament to... what, exactly? Monomaniacal

Anyone with half a brain knows that bolstering the middle class is critical to securing the future of the U.S. It’s a matter of national self-interest. Setting aside the misery of poverty for a minute, the rich need a skilled middle-class workforce to make their businesses successful or they won’t stay rich for long. Skills, of course, require education, which is why it’s nutty that Republican House members want to cut Pell grants and are making unreasonable demands in the debate over preventing