The Italian government has announced a stimulus package of 3.6 billion euros ($4 billion) to help the economy cope with the Coronavirus outbreak. The response appears timely and proportionate. Rome can always add to the stimulus later -- provided the financial markets allow it. Roberto Gualtieri, minister of finance, said in an interview Sunday that he was looking at a three-step plan to support companies and workers. Italy is the European country most affected country by the COVID-19 epidemic,

On the eve of the ceremony to sign an agreement with the US to begin peace negotiations, the Taliban declared it had already won. “This is a day of victory,” said Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, a Taliban negotiator. “Victory has come with the help of God.” In one sense, this crowing seems premature. While it’s true that the US intends to reduce its troop presence from more than 12,000 to 8,600, further withdrawals are conditioned on the Taliban adhering to its co

Ostensibly, the Alhambra Palace does not seem to have anything to do with the “fourth industrial revolution.” The former is a famous 13th century Moorish palace located in Granada, Spain and the latter a recent phenomenon that deals with artificial intelligence, the internet of things, 3d printers, smart cars that drive themselves, drone technology, nanotechnology, 5g mobile communications and augmented reality. Recently, however, Korean TV show “Memories of the Alhambra&rdqu

The economic damage from the coronavirus epidemic has prompted calls for Europe to relax its fiscal rules to allow governments to cut taxes and increase spending. The European Commission seems to agree: Paolo Gentiloni, its economy czar, has hinted that affected governments -- such as Italy -- may enjoy some budget “flexibility” to deal with the emergency.　 Granting more leeway is a welcome step, but it’s only a second-best approach. The virus risks affecting some countries mu

Pandemics come and pandemics go. In the grip of a new infection spreading around a planet with no natural immunity, it can feel like the sky is falling. Over the coming months, it’s likely that a significant share of the world’s population will experience some of the dread of the COVID-19 coronavirus that people in China have suffered over the past few months. Many will die. Still, the likely end-point of this outbreak will see it settle down as an endemic disease -- one of the sui

The coronavirus called COVID-19 has spread beyond its origin in Wuhan, China, and has arrived on U.S. shores. I’m a law professor, not an epidemiologist, so my thoughts immediately turned to how the law would shape America’s collective response to a broader pandemic -- and what the government’s power will mean for individual rights under the Constitution. It’s a question that could soon become an urgent one -- I recently interviewed Marc Lipsitch, the brilliant epidemiol

Don’t think about a white bear. What did you just see in your mind’s eye? If the answer was “a white bear,” you’ll have grasped one of the problems facing public health officials in talking about the risks from the Covid-19 coronavirus. The message most experts will want to convey is, naturally, “Don’t panic.” But it’s almost impossible for humans to hear that instruction without its alarming echo: “Panic.” If Covid-19 turns in

In 2003, I co-authored a report on the future of the European Union -- the Sapir report -- in which we observed that the expenditures, revenues, and procedures of the EU budget were all inconsistent with the EU’s objectives. We therefore advocated a radical restructuring of what had become a “historical relic.” Seventeen years later, little has changed. Two years ago, when negotiations on the budget for 2021-2027 started, I pointed out that the outcome would reveal what the EU

  The entire country, and increasingly the world, is gripped by the fear of a possible viral pandemic. In South Korea, what seemed at first controllable is now virtually out of control, with new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infections growing by the hundreds every day and the number of deaths -- most of patients already in poor health with preexisting conditions -- climbing as well. The government has been releasing information on the infected, providing a timeline of their wherea

Last week, the Seoul Appellate Court handed down a sentence of 17 years’ imprisonment to Lee Myung-bak, who was president of the South Korea from Feb. 25, 2008, to Feb. 24, 2013. The judge added two more years to the 15-year term the Seoul Central District Court had given him in October 2018. There are some possibilities of a change in his future. The Supreme Court may deliver him a different final verdict – if he chooses to appeal. The Justice Ministry may suspend the execution of

At the start of this year, things seemed to be looking up for the global economy. True, growth had slowed a bit in 2019: from 2.9 percent to 2.3 percent in the United States, and from 3.6 percent to 2.9 percent globally. Still, there had been no recession, and as recently as January, the International Monetary Fund projected a global growth rebound in 2020. The new coronavirus, COVID-19, has changed all of that. Early predictions about COVID-19’s economic impact were reassuring. Similar e

As news of the surge in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in Daegu spread, The Drudge Report, a sensationalist site run by investigative reporter Matt Drudge, ran a photo of a thermal imaging device monitoring people at Seoul Station. A few weeks earlier, the same site had a photo of a group of demonstrators in Seoul calling for a ban on travel from China. The linked to an article on the spread of “Sinophobia” worldwide. These images touch on an important question that has been

The world is now experiencing an unprecedented crisis due to a new coronavirus pandemic. So is South Korea, where the number of COVID-19 patients are increasing exponentially each week. At the same time, unfortunately, we have so many other compelling issues to deal with these days. Recently, I had a long conversation with professor Lee O-young, an eminent literary critic and former minister of culture, on a variety of issues we are now facing. When our conversation drifted into North Korea&rs

Just one year ago, it was widely believed in many quarters that the Donald Trump Administration was making progress in convincing North Korea to engage in an effort -- albeit a lengthy one -- to denuclearize. The Singapore process that started in that city only nine months before appeared to be giving birth to some real developments, ones that would surely be clear when President Trump’s Air Force One and Kim Jong-un’s retrolooking armored train both arrived in Hanoi. Just as in Si