Why is there no mechanism in the Korean Constitution for dissolving the National Assembly? So wondered former Prime Minister Kim Whang-sik recently, asserting that such a mechanism would be useful to resolve the current political stalemate.Opposition lawmakers denounced Kim, who also served as a Supreme Court justice, for making the reckless comment. They asked if he wanted to go back to the era of dictatorship, when the president could dissolve the Assembly at will.Of course, Kim did not mean a

Editorial Dec. 3, 2013

Here’s some holiday cheer: 120 million American families no longer have to file income tax returns; the top individual rate is lowered by 20 percent; the top corporate rate is cut by more than half; the government gets the same amount of revenue; and the tax system is slightly more progressive.OK, it’s not a free lunch. It would be accompanied by a 12.9 percent value-added levy, which critics like to call a national sales tax.This is the brainchild of Michael Graetz, a Columbia University law pr

Viewpoints Dec. 3, 2013

Two years ago, Doreen Flynn of Lewiston, Maine, won her case against the U.S. government, successfully arguing that bone-marrow donors should be able to receive compensation.Flynn, a mother of three girls who are afflicted with a rare, hereditary blood disease called Fanconi’s anemia, has a strong interest in bone-marrow transplantation. At the time of the court ruling, her oldest daughter, Jordan, 14, had already received a transplant, and one of the younger twins, Jorja, was expected to need o

Viewpoints Dec. 3, 2013

From reading the New York Times, you might think that religious conservatives had started a culture war over whether company health-insurance plans should cover contraception. What’s at issue in two cases the Supreme Court has just agreed to hear, the Times editorializes, is “the assertion by private businesses and their owners of an unprecedented right to impose the owners’ religious views on workers who do not share them.”That way of looking at the issue will be persuasive if your memory does

Viewpoints Dec. 3, 2013

In poor and middle-income countries, a lethal malady once prominent mainly in affluent parts of the globe is raising its ugly head. Cancer incidence rates are increasing at double that of the rest of the world.Especially alarming are the fatality data. As Jason Gale reports in the December issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine, while developing countries account for about half of new cancer cases, they have about 70 percent of cancer deaths.Lack of access to the latest diagnostic technology and ch

Viewpoints Dec. 3, 2013

Thanks to ever-improving technology for intercepting phone calls and text messages, it’s getting easier for U.S. companies’ competitors, both foreign and domestic, to engage in corporate espionage through remote wiretapping. Such activity, which has been widespread in India for years, could be thwarted if U.S. wireless carriers would upgrade their network infrastructure and encryption practices.However, the federal authorities who are in a position to require this seem more interested in keeping

Viewpoints Dec. 2, 2013

If the U.S. is currently ruled by stalemate ― with polarized parties crippling its Founders’ checks and balances ― Germany has too much uniformity and too little contest, which is the lifeblood of democracy.Consider the numbers in last week’s deal creating a new “grand coalition” government. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, who once billed themselves as conservatives, and the Social Democrats, left of center, will control almost 80 percent of the seats in the German parliament. Im

Viewpoints Dec. 2, 2013

Imagine Thanksgiving 2014: Travel is a breeze. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. The glut of American oil has prompted an unprecedented decline in airfares.As an experienced traveler, you’re tucked away happily in a window seat toward the front of the plane. Your bag fits neatly in the overhead bin. With the skill of a great actor, you have mastered the “don’t say a word to me” vibe. When your seatmate arrives, you look forward, or down at a book, or maybe even at your smartphone. (More on that in

Viewpoints Dec. 2, 2013

Being 50 minutes late for his first meeting with Pope Francis was nothing unusual for Russian President Vladimir Putin. That‘s just the way he is ― a character trait that provides some insight into his attitude toward power.When Putin arrived on time to an audience with Pope John Paul II in 2003, the punctuality was considered a newsworthy aberration: “The President Was Not Even a Second Late,” read the headline in the newspaper Izvestia. He had been 15 minutes late for a similar audience in 200

Viewpoints Dec. 2, 2013

The Communist Party summit that recast Xi Jinping as a reformer extraordinaire has produced its first foreign-policy initiative: poking Japan in the eye. That seems to be the point of China’s declaration of a vast “air defense identification zone,” in which Beijing has essentially claimed the airspace around disputed islands administered by Japan. The provocation came just two weeks after the party called for a new national security council to coordinate military, domestic and intelligence opera

Viewpoints Dec. 1, 2013