WASHINGTON China suffered a significant setback this month in its bid for dominance in the South China Sea, and its leaders are following a familiar script after such reversals: They’re making angry statements but taking little action while they assess the situation. The U.S. is playing a characteristic role in such a flare-up, too. Rather than crowing about victory, it’s ...

  Japan has taken a bold step and Abenomics is once again at play. But will it yield the desired results? This is a pertinent question which has no easy answer. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a 28-trillion yen ($266 billion) economic stimulus package ahead of the crucial Bank of Japan (BoJ) meeting. BoJ is also expected to ...

  Ramesh Ponnuru Bill Clinton took on a daunting task on the Democratic convention’s second night: convincing Americans who have been watching his wife for a quarter-century that their picture of her is mistaken, that she is not the candidate of the status quo but “the best darn change-maker” he has ever known. He told us about Hillary Clinton’s parents ...

  The news in late June that Russia and Turkey were making noticeable moves toward repairing relations damaged last year when a Russian jet was shot down by Turks along the border with Syria was overshadowed by a terrorist attack at the Istanbul airport on June 28. Unrelated as the two events were, the news cycle quickly spun away from ...

  The willingness of Hillary Clinton campaign’s to suggest that Russia has interfered in the U.S. presidential election — in the form of President Vladimir Putin’s supposed help for Donald Trump — exposes the weakness of the Democratic candidate’s presidential bid. The campaign is wasting ammunition on loud but inefficient accusations, instead of looking for avenues of attack that would ...

  Verizon’s purchase of Yahoo! for $4.83 billion, while an interesting exercise in combining content, networks and mobile services, highlights the broken norms for paying executives of U.S. corporations. The short version is that issuing and repricing of stock options compensates executives for bull markets rather than their own performance is absurd. When the deal is complete, Yahoo Chief Executive ...

  Noah Smith One of the core pieces of modern macroeconomic theory, handed down to us by the great Milton Friedman, probably missed the mark. And now it might be on the way out. And this shift has big implications for how we think about economic policy and finance. The idea is called the permanent income hypothesis (PIH). Friedman first ...

  London / AFP European and Japanese shares rallied on Wednesday after Tokyo launched a massive stimulus package, with sentiment buoyed also by accelerating British economic growth and upbeat company results. Traders were meanwhile awaiting the US Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate decision and accompanying statement. London stocks rose 0.5 percent as data showed the British economy grew by 0.6 ...

  Bloomberg Emerging-market stocks rose toward the highest level since China’s currency devaluation last year, while volatility fell to an 11-year low, on optimism earnings are improving and central banks remain supportive of growth. Egyptian stocks rallied the most in the world after the government said it’s nearing the final stages of talks for an International Monetary Fund loan. Turkey’s ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM Solar Impulse 2 returned safely to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday morning to successfully complete its historic round the world flight without using a drop of fuel. The first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe using only solar power, Solar Impulse 2 touched down at 04:05 to a rapturous reception at Al Bateen Executive Airport in the UAE ...