NEW YORK ― The United States Supreme Court recently began deliberations in a case that highlights a deeply problematic issue concerning intellectual-property rights. The court must answer the following question: Can human genes ― your genes ― be patented? Put another way, should someone essentially be permitted to own the right, say, to test whether you have a set of genes that imply a higher than 50 percent probability of developing breast cancer?To those outside the arcane world of intellectua

NEWPORT BEACH ― After years of tweaks, Japan has now initiated a major shift in its policy paradigm, with reactions ranging from great optimism that the country may finally be lifted out of a quarter-century of economic stagnation, to concerns that the authorities’ dramatic change of course may in fact end up making things worse. But, while debate naturally focuses on Japan’s economic, financial, and political maneuvers, the tipping point could well lie abroad.Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new gov

This past week the College Board, which administers the U.S. Scholastic Aptitude Test, canceled the May administration of the test for the entire country of South Korea, and only for South Korea. The rest of the world took the test as scheduled. While the exact reasons were not explicitly described, an email communiqu to the applicants stated that it appeared likely that some prospective test takers here had already been exposed to some of the questions. Behind this delicate description is the f

ABU DHABI/NEW YORK ― For a child, receiving a vaccine takes just a moment (and perhaps a few tears). But such moments are crucial for getting children off to a healthy start in life, and for advancing progress on global health and development goals.Along with Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, we attach great importance to the world’s first global summit, being held this week in Abu Dhabi, aimed at ensuring that all children have access to the full benefits of vac

NEW DELHI ― Stoking tensions with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines over islands in the South and East China Seas has not prevented an increasingly assertive China from opening yet another front by staging a military incursion across the disputed, forbidding Himalayan frontier. On the night of April 15, a People’s Liberation Army platoon stealthily intruded near the China-India-Pakistan tri-junction, established a camp 19 kilometers inside Indian-controlled territory, and presented India’s gove

The Boston Marathon bombing has brought out the xenophobes.Often when America suffers some large, inexplicable tragedy, we want to blame “foreigners” and look for ways to fortify ourselves against them. It’s more reassuring to believe that an evil lies outside our borders ― in “them” ― than to face the possibility that it’s randomly among us.And like the communist scare before it, the so-called “war on terror” ― a war without end ― offers a convenient means of targeting the source as a foreign m