Opinion

  It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about Donald Trump’s inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence. In February, acknowledging Black History Month, Trump said that …

  There are two conflicting visions of where artificial intelligence will take humankind. Some people worry that when robots become capable of programming themselves, they’ll realize that humans are useless and do away with us. Others think that on the day when robots become sentient — that is, the moment of the singularity — humans will be one with the …

  This summer, Bill Winters completes two years at Standard Chartered Plc, the emerging-markets lender whose share price is still 32 percent below where it was when the former JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive took over as CEO. While the bank’s drop in first-quarter impairment costs is making investors optimistic about asset quality, further upside will depend on Winters becoming …

  Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be moving ahead for plan to establish safe zones in Syria backed by peacekeepers with a high degree conviction. And to achieve this, there is marked change in the interaction between major powers supporting rivals in the Syrian conflict. Putin secured the US backing for the proposal to create safe zones in Syria …

When President Xi Jinping announced in 2015 that China would pump $46 billion worth of investments into Pakistan, the recipients of his largesse seemed less surprised than one might have expected. The military and political elites of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan have long extracted aid from outside powers in return for keeping a lid on things at home. As …

  The plumber who’ll sort out India’s bad-loan mess is about to get powerful new tools, and an overflowing toilet will soon be clean. Or that’s how investors are reacting to weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings from the country’s largest private-sector bank by assets. How sentiment changes. At the end of 2015, when concerns over Indian lenders’ balance sheets reigned supreme, ICICI …

  A hacker who has unsuccessfully tried to hold Netflix for ransom has achieved an unexpected result: His failure shows that subscription-based business models in content distribution is making piracy pointless. Intellectual property owners’ slowness in adopting these models is the only reason content is still being pirated. Someone calling himself (or herself, or themselves) TheDarkOverlord stole most of the …

  Here’s a shocking statement: President Trump is basically right that the world is too dangerous and that the US should hold peace talks with, let’s see, Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin and any other autocrats who are making trouble. American values tell us to oppose the undemocratic policies of these …

  Mortgages are perhaps the only specialist lending that will survive in India. Every other form of credit, especially subprime, is made so risky by the country’s fickle policies and populist politics that it must eventually lose its independence in the safety of a deposit-taking bank. Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd., India’s biggest micro-lender, is a good example. Bad loans at …

  British Prime Minister Theresa May recently surprised the country — and most of her ministers — by calling an election for early next month. Up against self-imposed deadlines, and anxious to increase her majority in Parliament, she’s scrambling to devise a policy platform. With Brexit looming, this isn’t a normal election, and the usual litany of detailed proposals won’t …