The government and the ruling Grand National Party have agreed to increase the number of welfare staff at local governments by 30 percent to improve the administration of social welfare programs. Under the plan, announced Wednesday, the government would add 7,000 new public officials to the existing workforce by 2014. The plan is aimed at easing the shortage in field workers responsible for deli...

Denouncing a proposal to cut $150 million out of a courts budget that has already absorbed a $200 million reduction, California’s chief justice, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, recently warned that the “devastating and crippling” cuts would “threaten access to justice for all.” California’s not alone. Last month, 350 court employees in New York were laid off to offset $170 million in cuts to the state judi...

The first signs of a post-revolutionary hangover are everywhere in the Arab world. Where unity of purpose once defined the reform movements in Egypt and Tunisia, now particular interests are coming to the fore. Forces for change are fracturing. Conflicts revolve not just around the constitutional framework of the transition away from dictatorship or the place of Islam in public life, but increas...

It’s hard to believe that less than six months ago President Barack Obama was talking about a “Sputnik moment.” In his State of the Union address he proposed huge investments in infrastructure, innovation and education to help us “win the future.” The president still wants those investments, but nowadays he means something different when he talks about the need to “do something big.” At his news...

CAIRO ― Dramatic and once unimaginable changes have occurred in Egypt over the last six months. President Hosni Mubarak has been ousted from office. The people have won the right to new and free elections. The long-feared secret police appears to have been muzzled. But this revolution has only occurred in Cairo and the northern part of the country. Upper Egypt, an area that forms more than two-...

As guests in Korea who only speak French and English, my wife and I have been amazed at the polite and helpful approach most Koreans have shown in helping us to buy groceries, get to the hospital, or travel to a certain destination. Having moved from America, a country with increasingly little patience for foreigners, we both appreciate the warm approach we have come to enjoy in Korea. However, ...

A familiar pattern of past presidential elections is that early in the cycle both parties gin up their base with warnings about dire consequences if the other side controls the next Supreme Court selections; after a few well-timed speeches and fundraising appeals the matter is usually ignored by the electorate. Next year could be different by becoming the first time since 1968 that the Supreme C...

For nearly a decade I’ve been visiting Seoul regularly. Each time I arrive, Seoul is a new city. My current trip finds the city more relaxed than ever. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, there is more time in Seoul. More time for its inhabitants to frequent the ever growing number of cafes. More time for complaining about how bad things are, like the economy and the weather, when they are not. T...

The idea that the Supreme Court is too pro-business is rapidly becoming the central liberal critique of the institution. During last year’s confirmation hearings for Justice Elena Kagan, Democrats made their theme the need to counter pro-business activism by the conservatives on the court. After the court ended its latest term last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, a Vermont D...