Opinion

  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe surprised no one when he led his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to victory in the Upper House elections on July 10. His party won 56 seats, and together with the Sokka Gakai-backed Komeito party, which won 14 seats, the Osaka Ishin no Kai, which won seven seats, and the Party for Japanese Kokoro, which did …

  While some have been shocked by the result of the British referendum to decide whether the state either remains or leaves the European Union, all can agree that what has been even more surprising and discomforting have been both the open displays of xenophobia and the spike in hate crimes against migrants and minorities. The Leave campaign leading to …

  ST. LOUIS America’s economy has now slouched into the eighth year of a recovery that demonstrates how much we have defined recovery down. The idea that essentially zero interest rates are, after seven and a half years, stimulating the economy “strains credulity,” says James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. But last month he and …

  The world’s focus will be on Beijing rather than The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the world’s oldest international arbitration tribunal, set to issue a written decision on Tuesday after the Philippines challenged China’s claim over much of the strategic waterway, China South Sea, in 2013. In an anticipation of the verdict, China has vowed it would not comply …

  Albert R. Hunt Years ago, the conservative activist Grover Norquist was the guest speaker in a class I teach at the University of Pennsylvania. “Older people are the base of the Democratic Party,” he told the class of predominantly liberal Ivy League students. “Do you know what they do every day? Die.” Ironically, Norquist’s argument, that Democrats were on …

Mohamed A. El-Erian Since the onset of the global financial crisis, I have pointed out that advanced economies should learn policy lessons from the experience of the developing world. This argument has been reinforced by two developments last week: the destabilization of the pound after the Brexit vote in the U.K., and indications that the U.S. now has less influence …

  On June 14, 2016, Zimbabwe and Japan signed a major automobile industry trade deal to ship 10,000 Japanese tractors to Harare and train 40 Zimbabweans in Japanese automobile manufacturing techniques. This deal mirrors similar contracts signed by China, Zimbabwe’s principal Asian partner, and reaffirms Japan’s desire to compete with China for economic influence in sub-Saharan Africa. Japan’s investment in …

  Taylor Butch SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS In January 1999, Starbucks opened its first store in mainland China at the China World Trade Building located in Beijing. As of May 2016, the world’s largest coffee company has more than 2,100 stores in 102 Chinese cities and is adding more. It plans to operate an estimated 3,400 stores in China by …

WASHINGTON You can add health care to the causes of growing wage inequality in America. There’s a largely unknown paradox at work. Companies that try to provide roughly equal health insurance plans for their workers — as many do — end up making wage and salary inequality worse. A new economic study shows how this perverse bargain works. It’s simple …

  The Brexit that created a hullabaloo in Europe, could be seen a blessing in disguise for emerging economies in Asia, as it accelerates the arrival of an ‘Asian Century’, led by China and India. By 2050, Asia will account for over half the world’s GDP, almost double that of 2011, according to the Asian Development Bank, with three billion …