When South Korean officials talk about the growing nuclear challenge from the North, they use red-alert phrases like “existential threat,” “imminent danger” and “dagger at the throat.” They want Americans to understand that this long-running story of brinksmanship has entered a new phase. One senior South Korean official told me starkly: “A nuclear missile from the North can land ...

  You have to hand it to economists — they say the darndest things. In a Wall Street Journal survey, a group of economists “put the odds of the next downturn happening within the next four years at nearly 60 percent.” Oh no. Today, we will make another entry in the catalog of how worthless predictions tend to be, and ...

  With the passing of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the naming of his son to the throne, the question of when and to whom power would be transferred in Thailand has finally been answered. The real question, however, remains: how to empower the Thai people. While little can be said about how Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn might rule — ...

  The world’s envoys just pledged to make the planet safer by reaching a pact to curtail hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs are the fastest growing greenhouse gases. They are used in air conditioners, fridges and aerosols. Cutting HFCs will reduce global warming by 0.5 degrees by 2100. However, the transition from HFC to substitutes like ammonia, water or gasses called hydrofluoroolefins, ...

  When President Mauricio Macri took office in Argentina last December, he faced two monsters that his 44 million compatriots know only too well. The first was an economy ravaged by spendthrifts, who’d driven public finances into disarray and then papered over the mess with magical statistics. The second was the quandary of how to restore sensible government without inflicting ...

  Stanford historian Ian Morris is fond of saying that “each age gets the thought it needs.” According to this maxim, ideas like the Enlightenment, communism or even Christianity are a product of the economic and political circumstances of their times. It’s easy to believe that libertarianism might have been a good fit for the late 20th century. Coming out ...

  It’s fun to imagine a world without cash.Liberated from the burden of physical currency, consumers could make purchases from the convenience of a mobile device. Every transaction would come equipped with fraud protection, reward points and a digital record of its time and location. Comprehensive tracking could help the Internal Revenue Service reclaim billions of tax dollars lost to ...

  Kigali / AFP In a major step toward curbing global warming, world envoys reached an agreement on Saturday to phase out potent greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners. Under the amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on protecting the ozone layer, rich countries are to take action sooner than developing nations. The agreement was greeted by applause ...

  Mogadishu / AFP A week of violent clashes between rival forces in northern Somalia has killed 11 people and forced more than 50,000 to flee, the UN humanitarian agency said on Saturday. Tensions between the rival regions of Puntland and Galmudug soared last month after Galmudug said 13 of its soldiers were killed in a misdirected US airstrike which ...

  Warsaw / AFP The family of Poland’s former president Lech Kaczynski, who died in a 2010 plane crash, has agreed to his exhumation as part of a new inquiry into the accident, his twin brother said on Saturday. “I have agreed with the prosecutor’s decision on the exhumations. The remains of my brother… will be among the first, if ...