Global tension is reaching fever pitch.Yesterday India displayed its defence prowess by successfully test firing a new long-range missile. It demonstrated that the country has joined the league of nuclear powerhouses.“This launch has given a message to the entire world that India has the capability to design, develop, build and manufacture missiles of this class, and we are today a missile power,” said VK Saraswat, head of India’s Defence Research and Development Organization, which developed an

We are approaching a dangerous precipice in South and North Korea relations. The North says that it is preparing for “special actions” to take place. There should always be a degree of skepticism, but in lieu of their failed rocket launch and Kim Jong-un’s rise to power, most likely there will be yet another provocative and aggressive action. Yet, another aggressive action is not so insignificant this time. Many South Koreans who live in Seoul, not far from certain destruction if a war were to s

North Korea is threatening “retaliatory measures” for a decision by the United States to withhold 240,000 metric tons of food promised as part of an agreement announced less than two months ago. Never mind that the cancellation followed Pyongyang’s failed launching of a missile designed to put a satellite into space, an operation the U.S. considered a violation of that same agreement, not to mention U.N. Security Council resolutions. The regime’s chutzpah and hypocrisy know no bounds.At the same

NEW DELHI ― India and Pakistan are enjoying one of the better periods in their turbulent relationship. Recent months have witnessed no terrorist incidents, no escalating rhetoric, and no diplomatic flashpoints. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari just made a successful, if brief, personal visit to India (mainly to visit a famous shrine, but with a lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh thrown in). Sixteen years after India granted Pakistan most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status, Pakistan is

More than two dozen countries, including China, France, Korea, Mexico, Russia and the United States, face potential leadership transitions this year. A central factor determining the outcomes of these events is the prospect for more jobs and incomes. A topic not on the political radar, however, is climate change. Yet, it should be ― because our growing understanding of climate science and economics warns us that sustaining people’s well-being, in large and small economies, hinges on confronting

Demoralized as the Russian capital’s protest movement may be, there are still plenty of angry people out in the hinterlands. They have less to lose than well-fed Muscovites, and president-elect Vladimir Putin has yet to figure out how to handle them.In the southern provincial capital of Astrakhan, population 520,000, a soft-spoken, bespectacled historian named Oleg Shein has emerged as the new hope of the opposition. As of this writing, he has been on hunger strike for more than a month, putting

Which of the following describes careers in software engineering? A. Intellectually stimulating and gratifying. B. Excellent pay for new bachelor’s degree grads. C. A career dead-end. The correct answer (with a “your mileage may vary” disclaimer) is: D. All of the above. Although the very term “coding” evokes an image of tedium, it is an intellectually challenging activity, creative and even artistic. If you like puzzles and are good analytically, software development may be your cup of tea. You

The Justice Department filed suit last week against Apple Inc. and two major book publishers, Macmillan and Penguin Group USA, accusing them of colluding in 2010 to raise the prices of e-books. Three other publishers that were investigated -- Hachette, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins -- agreed to a settlement, which Sharis A. Pozen, the acting director of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said “will begin to undo the harm caused by the companies‘ anticompetitive conduct, and will r

Demoralized as the Russian capital’s protest movement may be, there are still plenty of angry people out in the hinterlands. They have less to lose than well-fed Muscovites, and president-elect Vladimir Putin has yet to figure out how to handle them.In the southern provincial capital of Astrakhan, population 520,000, a soft-spoken, bespectacled historian named Oleg Shein has emerged as the new hope of the opposition. As of this writing, he has been on hunger strike for more than a month, putting

More than two dozen countries, including China, France, Korea, Mexico, Russia and the United States, face potential leadership transitions this year. A central factor determining the outcomes of these events is the prospect for more jobs and incomes. A topic not on the political radar, however, is climate change. Yet, it should be -- because our growing understanding of climate science and economics warns us that sustaining people’s well-being, in large and small economies, hinges on confronting

A few years ago, according to the Justice Department, publishers decided on a strategy to fight the grave and gathering menace posed to their business model by the rise of digital books: They would meet about it. “These meetings took place in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants,” says the department’s complaint in its antitrust lawsuit. Later meetings took place in Europe, though presumably not at the Paris Chipotle. The case will turn on whether the publishers were meeting to