Opinion

How far can the euphoria over Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. go? Even by the standards of online retail, its rise has been extraordinary. Revenue has grown by an average 52 percent annually over the past five years. Its 158 billion yuan ($23 billion) of sales in the 12 months through March was more than 10 times the 2011 figure. Far ...

The White House has called it a “revolution,” the “beginning of a new era,” and the “single most exciting thing we can do.” More modestly, you might just call it a pretty good idea. At an otherwise grim moment in Washington, that’s something to cheer. President Donald Trump announced a plan to turn the air-traffic control system over to a ...

Leaders of the European Union are allowed a moment of joy at the outcome of the UK election. Britain’s voters have just handed the Conservative Party, author of the country’s Brexit disaster, its head. But the EU shouldn’t let the cosmic justice of this outcome cloud their judgment about where their own interests lie. The Brexit decision is unlikely to ...

No country has more potential for the improvement of the human condition than India. Home to more than 1.3 billion people and soon to overtake China as the world’s most populous country, India is also still desperately poor — its gross domestic product per capita is less than $6,000 in purchasing power parity terms, less than half that of China ...

It’s a bad day to be a UK press baron. Fleet Street’s finest had lined up to endorse Theresa May ahead of an election that backfired badly for her. Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid Sun, credited for swinging elections in the past, had called on Brits to keep Jeremy Corbyn’s “sinister Marxist gang” from power. Given the result could also jeopardize his ...

Three recent bank rescues in Europe could form the backbone of a textbook on how to deal with large, failing banks — and how not to. These are the uncompromising bail-in of Banco Popular in Spain, the controversial rescue of Monte dei Paschi di Siena in Italy and the much-praised but in fact horribly botched nationalization of Ukraine’s largest bank, ...

Seventy years ago on Monday, Secretary of State George Marshall delivered a Harvard commencement day address that became the framework for what we call the ‘Marshall Plan’ for European recovery. It’s a cruel anniversary this year, as we watch President Trump dismember the world order that Marshall and his colleagues helped build. Dean Acheson, one of Marshall’s colleagues and his ...

With Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord, China and India will have to shoulder the burden of keeping a lid on global warming. But even if the two most-populous nations are willing to take up the mantle, their ability to pull it off is uncertain. India’s solar industry offers a case study. Thanks to a ...

Credit where credit’s due: The sale for 1 euro of Banco Popular Espanol SA, a failing Spanish bank, to rival lender Banco Santander SA shows how the euro zone should handle such cases. The regulators acted swiftly and fairly. Global markets barely noticed. This is a model for future interventions. Banco Popular’s troubles date back to Spain’s real-estate crisis, which ...

The prosecution of intelligence contractor Reality Leigh Winner under the Espionage Act is a sure sign that the Trump administration’s war on leakers has begun. But as the opening battle, it’s poorly chosen, and a serious mistake in prosecutorial discretion by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who should know better. Winner has the wrong profile for a headline-grabbing prosecution by ...