Opinion

  The communique issued by the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers at the conclusion of talks in Washington this weekend had a somewhat unreal, and worryingly ironic, tone. Noting that global growth “remains modest and uneven,” the G-20 warned the large advanced economies against continuing their prolonged, excessive reliance on unconventional monetary policy to power growth. Yet ...

  In June 2015, Shinzo Abe became the first Japanese prime minister to visit Ukraine since its independence in 1991. Many observers hoped his visit was a turning point lifting Ukraine-Japan relations to a higher level. Upon Japan’s invitation, the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, paid a reciprocal visit to Japan from April 5 to 7 this year. During his ...

  China is determined to become the low-emissions electric-car capital of the world. Unfortunately, its car buyers aren’t cooperating. Cleaner Cars The Chinese government has been spending billions on research grants, steep subsidies and new infrastructure — such as charging stations — to encourage consumers to go electric. It hopes to boost the number of such vehicles on the road ...

  Bob Gates has unusual standing in the debate about the Obama administration’s foreign policy: He was defense secretary both for a hawkish President George W. Bush and then a wary President Obama. He understood Bush’s desire to project power and Obama’s scepticism. Gates characteristically finds a middle ground in the argument that has been swirling since Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic ...

  Tech-savvy UAE is quickly adapting to smart solutions in all segments, thanks to the state policy announced to transform to the smart government, with the aim to expedite the knowledge and digital economy. Being instrumental in the knowledge-driven economy, the banking sector is speeding up its efforts to improve quality of service for customers. Hence by adapting to Business ...

  Justin Fox Six states lost jobs during the 12 months ended in March. It’s a familiar bunch — Alaska, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Wyoming — all hammered by either coal’s decline or the collapse in U.S. oil drilling that has followed the collapse of global oil prices. (That price plunge was of course brought on in part ...

  The Republican nomination race has three more stages to go, and each of the three candidates left in it is concentrating on a different one. First, the candidates have to win votes in the remaining contests to maximize the number of delegates bound to them on the first ballot. Second, they have to prevail in selecting delegates: making sure ...

  Now that Secretary of State John Kerry has become the highest-ranking American official to visit Hiroshima, the door has been opened for U.S. President Barack Obama to make a far more momentous decision to visit the site of the American atomic bombing during his visit to Japan next month. The president came close to such a visit in his ...

The new Ukrainian cabinet, confirmed by the parliament on Thursday, is more interesting for the people it doesn’t include than for those it does. Ukraine’s experiment with bringing foreign reformers and private sector professionals into the government is now officially over, and it has failed. President Petro Poroshenko tapped his long-time protege and ally, former parliament speaker Volodymyr Hroisman to ...

Almost everyone agrees that America’s income tax is too complex. Considering this, you might expect that simplifying the income tax would be a slam dunk. Sure enough, the various presidential candidates have proposed sweeping overhauls. But any agreement is mostly rhetorical. The odds that the next president — whoever it be — will engineer genuine tax simplification are negligible. On ...