The World Trade Organization wrapped up a ministerial meeting Saturday deadlocked on the Doha Round of negotiations for a global free trade pact, and some ministers calling for a new path.Conference chairman and Nigerian Trade Minister Olusegun Aganga summarized the ministers’ regret at the impasse in a concluding statement.The WTO’s 153 member states agreed to “more fully explore different negotiating approaches” and “intensify their efforts to look into ways” to overcome the stalemate, said Ag

NEW YORK (AP) -- Moody’s Investors Services on Friday downgraded Belgium’s credit rating by two notches, citing strains on eurozone countries as they try to finance their heavy debt loads amid the regional financial crisis. The ratings agency cut Belgium’s local- and foreign-currency government bond ratings to “Aa3” from Aa1," with a negative outlook. The ratings remain investment grade. Moody’s said the downgrade comes as soaring borrowing costs strain the finances of heavily indebted countries

President Lee Myung-bak used to say his power would remain intact until his final day in office, brushing aside the possibility of sliding into lame-duck status in his last year in office, as his predecessors did. Set to enter into the final year of his five-year presidency soon, however, he needs to look squarely at irksome truths about his crumbling power base.When his administration was inaugurated on February 2008, Lee looked so indomitable that all his detractors, both actual and potential,

A society is certain to lose vitality and remain stagnant, if not go backward, if its members believe that they cannot move to a higher social status whatever efforts they may make. Such pessimism is gripping Korea, as evidenced by a survey recently conducted by Statistics Korea.According to the 2011 social survey of 17,000 households throughout the nation, almost half the Korean people believe they belong to the working class and six in 10 believe they cannot improve their social and economic s

Are we witnessing the birth of the United States of Europe?There are uncanny similarities between the current round of wheeling and dealing and the founding of the United States of America. The Philadelphia Convention of 1787 represented America’s second try at continental union. In 1781, the 13 states had come together behind a treaty-constitution that broadly resembles present European arrangements.America’s first effort was the Articles of Confederation. Like the European Union treaties, it g

It was one of those uncomfortable moments when you suddenly realize you’re in the wrong place, that you’re a rube from the sticks in a sophisticated city whose customs you don’t quite understand.Politico was recently sponsoring a “Washington Year in Review” symposium, and they’d invited me to be part of the energy panel. So even though I’d spent barely three weeks in Washington this year (and the most memorable nights were spent in its central cellblock for protesting outside the White House to

BEIRUT (AP) ― The Arab League has given Syria until Wednesday to allow observers into the country or else it will likely turn to the U.N. Security Council for action to try to end the deadly violence against regime opponents, Qatar’s prime minister said Saturday.Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani said in Qatar that Arab foreign ministers will hold a “decisive and important” meeting in Cairo on Wednesday to decide on next steps. He said there is near unanimity on taking the Arab League’s pl

BEIJING (AFP) ― An open revolt against officialdom by Chinese villagers last week demonstrated the challenge social unrest poses to the Communist party as it prepares for a generational leadership handover.Angered by decades of government land grabs, the villagers of Wukan drove out local Communist officials and police, erecting roadblocks to stop them re-entering and electing their own leaders.The protest has become a symbol of rising public anger over a plethora of perceived injustices, from c

TUNIS (AP) ― About one year ago, in a hardscrabble town in Tunisia’s arid interior, the death knell sounded for the decades-old system of dictatorships across the Arab world.With a desperate act of self-immolation, a 26-year-old Sidi Bouzid fruit-seller unwittingly unleashed a year of turmoil that toppled at least three autocrats in a region once thought to be immune to democracy.Tunisia’s new leaders together with thousands of others took part in a festival starting Saturday in the town honorin