In the classical Greek tragedy The Bacchae, the god Dionysus, powered by a thirst for vengeance, battles the inflexible and closed-minded King Pentheus for the soul of Thebes. Ultimately, Pentheus’s rigidity -- his attempt to suppress, rather than understand or adapt to, the emotions inflamed by the passionate and unconventional Dionysus -- proves to be his undoing. Dionysus emerges victorious, and Pentheus is ripped to shreds.Today, the emotional and mercurial Donald Trump is challenging the US

Economists too often talk about policy changes in the abstract, ignoring the drawbacks that even sensible reforms can bring. For years, analysts have been urging China to shift its economy away from heavy industry and toward services and consumption. Yet now that Beijing is taking heed, the costs are piling up.　Most obvious is a deepening gulf between winners and losers. A recent study from Peking University found that China has become one of the most unequal countries in the world. The richest

The government and a group of automobile and energy companies have teamed up to promote hydrogen-powered vehicles. They launched the Hydrogen Fusion Alliance last week to make more effort in putting more hydrogen vehicles on the road and building the infrastructure needed.Leading the alliance is the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which seeks to foster the budding hydrogen auto industry into a future growth engine. The ministries of energy and transport are also participating in the vent

The 20th National Assembly is to open its first 100-day regular session Thursday. Before the session opens, it seems appropriate to remind legislators of the message that Korean voters delivered to political parties through the April general election.The election replaced a two-party system that caused frequent disruptions of the National Assembly with a three-party system in which no single party controls a majority of parliamentary seats.   The unmistakable message was that political parties s

I caught a glimpse of Vladimir Putin‘s Russia in a Moscow police station 25 years ago.The USSR was disintegrating around me. I was a University of Pennsylvania graduate student in Russian history spending a year in Moscow poring over newly declassified Soviet Communist Party archives. As I immersed myself in documents that revealed startling details about the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the revolution of 1991-92 was transforming the Soviet Union.Although on the streets things seeme

In the eyes of young people, older people may look like an entirely different species. Of course, you cannot stereotype someone simply because he is old, and yet many older people are hopelessly pathetic and unbearable for many reasons. For example, they are incredibly stubborn and impudent, and authoritative and overbearing. Many older men display the characteristics of male chauvinists, too. Due to the destitute situation in which they were raised, they are likely to be stingy, parochial and n

Donald Trump, the US Republican Party’s presidential nominee, has again shaken up his campaign organization. In doing so, he is revealing more about himself and his so-called management style than he may want people to see. Few presidential campaigns have featured such evident chaos and churn in personnel.Two people who have never run a presidential campaign, and whose political instincts contradict each other’s, are now running Trump’s operation.Kellyanne Conway, his new campaign manager, is a

“We hit the jackpot here.” -- Astrophysicist Guillem Anglada-Escude, on a planet “more or less” like Earth orbiting Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our solar system.An open letter to our friends on Earth II or Proxima b (or whatever you call your planet):Greetings, fellow cosmos dwellers!We were thrilled to hear the news that your Earth -- we hope you don’t mind if we call it that -- is a lot like our Earth. Slightly bigger, yes. And we’re told your year takes only 11 days (which means Chr

On Aug. 25, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced a series of measures aimed at raising South Korea’s low birthrate by 2020. The measures focused on changing the workplace culture so that people will have more time to spend with their families, which should encourage them to have more children. The government also promised to increase support for infertility treatment and increasing paternity allowances for parents who have a second child. The government hopes to raise the fertility rate

Culture ministers from South Korea, China and Japan have agreed to work together to coordinate cultural activities throughout the upcoming Olympic Games in East Asia. The three countries will hold non-sport events -- dubbed the “Culture Olympics” -- during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea said the “Cultural Olympics” may comprise of events focused on East Asian culture an

The currency swap between South Korea and Japan will likely resume in the coming months as the two countries’ finance ministers reached a consensus on Saturday to promptly start negotiations on the bilateral financial pact.The two countries’ previous currency swap deal expired in February 2015. The new swap is designed to prepare for currency volatility arising from negative external factors - effectively acting as a buffer against sharp currency swings.A currency swap is an accord between two p

In the coming weeks, Colombians will be asked to cast a vote like none other in the country’s history. The sole question on the ballot will be whether Latin America’s third most populous nation should ratify a historic peace agreement to end the longest-running guerrilla insurgency in the Western Hemisphere.　It seems like a silly question: After a conflict that has raged for half a century, taken 220,000 lives and uprooted more than 6 million people, what’s to decide? And yet, it’s a measure of

The bearded guys in muted-plaid shirts and the lean women with low-maintenance hair may look like they’re on vacation, but they’ve come for serious business: the Outdoor Retailer show, which this month drew 29,000 attendees to Salt Lake City. There, deals get done for mosquito-resistant shirts and night-vision scopes, along with every imaginable form of hiking shoe, water bottle, tent, kayak, lantern and backpack, as well as the materials to make them.Although the National Park Service is celebr