Opinion

  The European Central Bank is expected to extend its quantitative easing program further during the meeting of its governing council this week. The irony is that while the ECB has various options for continuing a program that isn’t working, national governments have relatively few options for embarking on one that most agree is sorely needed. As Mario Draghi and ...

  When NASA officials recently dropped in on their counterparts in Beijing, they arrived in secret, issued no press release and, when queried by a reporter, initially didn’t acknowledge the meeting. The topic of such furtive talks? The two sides merely hoped to work together on climate satellites. As it happens, doing so may well be illegal. Since 2011, Congress ...

  Small low-lying islands are vulnerable even to mild climate swings. The monster of global warming is posing an existential threat to them. The annual regional summit of 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), which kicked off on Thursday, saw an upbeat start despite the clouds of uncertainty hovering over these countries. Reason behind the euphoria: They felt that they had ...

You’ve probably been thinking to yourself, “Gee, I wish I couldn’t charge my phone while also listening to music.” Or perhaps, “Gosh, if only my headphones were more expensive, easier to lose and required frequent charging.” If so, you’re in luck. Apple’s newest iPhone, unveiled on Wednesday, lacks the familiar 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. You can listen to music through the ...

It is tragic and fitting that President Barack Obama’s latest failure to reach a cease-fire in Syria would take place at Hangzhou, China, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit Monday. It’s tragic because this latest diplomatic flop in Syria will mean the death toll in that civil war, already at a staggering 400,000, will grow. It’s fitting, though, because ...

  The greatest bank robberies happen from the inside, Manchurian-Candidate style, where a sleeper agent infiltrates an organization and collects intelligence until it’s time to strike. Such was the case in the Bangladesh bank heist. Back in February, Bangladesh’s central bank revealed that it had fallen victim to an $81 million theft. (Actually, the Philippine Daily Inquirer broke the news ...

  The Group of 20 meeting last weekend received only light coverage from the press and market analysts. Imagine my surprise when I read the content-heavy 48-paragraph statement issued at the conclusion of the gathering by country leaders. Either few took the trouble to read the communique or, more likely, its contents were dismissed as wishful thinking that wouldn’t be ...

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have adjusted her policies after last year’s refugee influx. But on Sunday, she was punished anyhow by voters in her own constituency of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. That’s one sign that the EU migration crisis is far from resolved yet. Ever since March, when Merkel rammed through a European Union deal with Turkey under which undocumented ...

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a humiliating electoral defeat in her home state on Sunday. The result, driven by a growing backlash against her policy on refugees, calls for hard thinking not just on her part but also from Germany’s partners in the European Union. Voters in rural Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a tiny state of 1.6 million, didn’t just defeat ...

  Nearly one in every 200 children in the world today is a refugee. Kids now make up about half of all refugees. The stats may not appear as alarming as the ground situation is. Many miseries that the child migrants face are hidden from the view. Displaced undocumented children face the risk of abuse. A new UNICEF report reveals ...