[Ricken Patel] Why is Biden silent on Modi?

India’s democracy is in danger. There is no sound moral, political or economic case for President Joe Biden and other democratic leaders to pretend this isn’t happening. Yet the red carpets keep being rolled out. This week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be welcomed for a lavish state dinner at the White House on Thursday aimed at fostering a “free, open, prosperous, and secure Indo-Pacific” region. On India’s current trajectory toward repression, this w

June 23, 2023

[Clifford A. Young, Justin Gest] Elections a salve to soothe populism

As Donald Trump’s star rises again even with multiple criminal indictments looming, many observers fear that anti-establishment populism in America is no longer just a flirtation, but a feature of our democratic system. More generally, it has become common to think that democracies anywhere -- with their open public spheres, majoritarian institutions and propensity for frustrating incrementalism -- have fueled the rise of populist leaders and demagogues. Examples of the success of “s

June 22, 2023

[Joseph E. Stiglitz, Tommaso Faccio] Global minimum corporate tax needs more work

It has now been over two years since G-7 leaders announced a groundbreaking agreement to divvy up taxation of multinational corporations’ profits. That breakthrough followed years of fraught negotiations under the aegis of the OECD/G-20 Inclusive Framework, which then adopted the same agreement later that year. By establishing a 15 percent global minimum tax rate that companies would have to pay wherever they operate, the agreement aimed both to deter profit-shifting through tax havens an

June 22, 2023

[Kim Seong-kon] How to end the Korean War forever

This year commemorates the 70th anniversary of the truce of the Korean War. Technically, the Korean War has not ended yet, and therefore the Korean people have been living in a state of suspension for the past 70 years. In the eyes of the electronic generation, it is as if the screen were stuck on “pause,” and could resume anytime when someone presses the “play” button again. Strangely, however, many Korean people seem to be oblivious of their precarious situation. Such

June 21, 2023

[Noah Feldman] US Supreme Court on tribal rights

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s majority opinion for the Supreme Court in Haaland v. Brackeen is conservative in the good, old-fashioned sense of the word. In upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act, the court reaffirmed precedent and declined an invitation to revolutionize the law with a reactionary constitutional holding. Along the way, Barrett demonstrated a style of doctrinal confidence and aphoristic clarity reminiscent of her old boss, Justice Antonin Scalia. The opinion marks a step in

June 21, 2023

[Conor Sen] EVs complicate GOP message

It’s still very early days, but if you're wondering how the 2024 presidential campaign might be different from the last matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, one place to start is electric vehicles. Battery-powered cars are one of the biggest economic vulnerabilities that Republicans have in the battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan and Arizona that could wind up deciding the winner. The growth of electric vehicles is unique in that it touches an area of the US economy

June 20, 2023

[Tracy Hadden Loh] Cities are recovering, but not their downtowns

A fiscal “doom loop.” A transit “death spiral.” The “office apocalypse.” Since the traumatic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, these pessimistic terms have been applied repeatedly to the state of our cities. Analysis of Census data from my Brookings Institution colleague William Frey found that from 2020 to 2021, during the peak of the pandemic, major metropolitan areas including New York and Los Angeles lost a significant number of residents. A net 175,0

June 20, 2023

[Sebastien Treyer, Bertrand Badre] What Paris finance summit must do

Lack of investment for sustainable development in the world’s poorest, most vulnerable countries is one of the most pressing global issues today, especially now that many of these countries are in debt distress, or will be soon. The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and ongoing climate-driven disasters are preventing many developing economies from achieving liftoff and exacerbating the global economy’s structural asymmetries. This is the decade when

June 19, 2023

[Robert J. Fouser] Future of Multilingual Tourist Information

A visit to Seoul is not complete without a walk in Bukchon. For all the talk of commercialization and the heavy tourist impact, the rows of traditional Korean-style houses make it one of Seoul’s most unique cityscapes. On a recent visit to the Bukchon Traditional Culture Center near Exit 3 of Anguk Station, I noticed a small but interesting change. The sign in front of the building explaining Bukchon now has the explanation in five languages: Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese and Thai.

June 16, 2023

[Wang Son-taek] Conflict between Korea and China is wildly coming

In the wake of Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming's "betting" remarks, relations between South Korea and China have soured in just a few days, creating a diplomatic crisis. Ambassador Xing said on June 8 that somebody who would bet against China in the Sino-US competition should regret it. In response, the South Korean government summoned him the next day to issue the warning that he had violated the Vienna Convention, which stipulates the duty of diplomats. The Foreig

June 15, 2023

[Peter Singer] Can we compare pain across species?

In recent weeks, I have been touring the United States and the United Kingdom, promoting "Animal Liberation Now," my new book on the ways in which we are inflicting suffering on hundreds of billions of nonhuman animals, especially in factory farms. The persistence of this vast, entirely unnecessary suffering is one of the great moral issues of our time. Some people doubt this claim because they think that humans matter incomparably more than animals. But it is increasingly accepted, am

June 15, 2023

[Kim Seong-kon] Without children, we have no future

Recently, in a school zone in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, a bus hit and killed a second grader who was crossing the street with the “Walk” signal. The bus driver did not come to a full stop while making a right turn at the red light. The little boy’s father witnessed the tragic scene while waiting for his young son from the other side of the street. This kind of traffic accident is rare in advanced countries. In the US, for example, in states where turning on red lights is al

June 14, 2023

[Ottoline Spearman] Eradicate sexist nationality laws

Neha is a young Nepali woman, born in Nepal to a Nepali mother. She grew up there and had dreams of becoming a doctor. But, despite being an extremely bright student and at the top of her class, Neha could not take the entrance exam for medical school. Her ambition went unfulfilled, because she was not recognized as a citizen of Nepal. Nepal is one of the 24 countries that deny women the right to pass their nationality to their children. It is also one of almost 50 states where women do not enjo

June 14, 2023

Growing bilateral cooperation highlighted on Sweden Day

The Swedish Embassy highlighted the growing bilateral cooperation between the European country with Korea as it celebrated Sweden Day 2023 on Friday. Sweden Day, a national holiday, is observed on June 6. This year marks a double jubilee celebration for Sweden. It commemorates 500 years of independence since the election of King Gustav Vasa in 1523 and the 50th year on the throne for Carl XVI Gustaf, Sweden’s current and longest-reigning monarch. Delivering remarks at the event, Swedish Am

June 13, 2023

[Trudy Rubin] NATO must make Putin pay for war crimes

When Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya addressed a special Security Council session on Tuesday about the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, he confronted his Russian counterpart as “the representative of Putin’s terrorist regime ... that has detonated a bomb of mass environmental destruction.” That says it all. Who can doubt that it was Moscow that unleashed the largest man-made disaster in Europe since the 1986 nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl? But Chernobyl -- an

June 13, 2023

[Harry Litman] What Trump‘s indictment means

In one sense, it was breathtaking: The first ever indictment of a former president by the Department of Justice he once oversaw -- and therefore the most important federal charges in US history. In another, it was expected. Once Donald Trump had received a formal target letter from the department, his fate was effectively sealed. But that was only the latest in a series of recent signs that charges were inevitable. The months and years of questions about whether the Biden administration should

June 13, 2023

[Richard Maude] All Talk, No Dialogue on Asian Security

The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest security conference, has wrapped up its 2023 meeting in Singapore. The context for this year’s summit was not propitious: Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine grinds on, while Chinese President Xi Jinping continues his uncompromising approach to global affairs. If one thing was obvious during the two days of defense diplomacy, it is that the Sino-American competition is far from being ma

June 12, 2023

[Adam Minter] PGA-LIV merger only the beginning

Human rights and golf were rarely mentioned in the same breath until the launch last year of LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed tour organized to challenge the PGA. Fans, sponsors, players and PGA executives claimed to be appalled at the involvement of a country connected to 9/11 and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, among other long-standing human rights concerns. Predictably, then, the news on Tuesday that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have agreed to a merger largely backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereig

June 12, 2023

[Serendipity] Dancers show we are one in humanity

Whether as innocent as a young child moving to her favorite Disney tune or as highly choreographed and tightly executed as the moves of a K-pop band, dancing is an elemental expression of the self and a universal form of communication. At the Busan International Dance Festival, which took place from June 2-4 in the southern port city, 40 dance teams from around the world communicated pure joy, whimsical caprice, despair and hope, human struggles and victory. Watching the dancers perform on an ou

June 9, 2023

[J. Bradford DeLong] Can US escape its 2nd gilded age?

Some of us are more optimistic than others about the future. We optimists recognize that it is still possible to escape from the traps that America’s Second Gilded Age has laid. During a gilded age, productive capabilities are directed away from providing most people with necessities and conveniences, and toward exorbitant spending on status-seeking and other worthless activities. Inherited wealth typically plays a major role, and it is often deployed to block and delay any transformation

June 8, 2023