The world’s wealthiest are prospering. As of February 2017, there were about 2,000 billionaires in the world. This micro-elite controls over US$7.6 trillion, an increase of 18 percent from 2016.

A billionaire’s spending power is difficult to grasp, both because most...

Imagine you are about to go on vacation. You have been looking forward to it for some time. But your robotic personal assistant has other ideas. It calmly explains to you that it will be cheaper, safer and more efficient for it to take your place on the holiday trip.

In one sense,...

During the early hours of Jan. 31, there will be a full moon, a total lunar eclipse, a blue moon and a supermoon – all at the same time. None of these things is really all that unusual by itself. What is rare is that they’re happening all together...

This has been a particularly bad influenza season, starting early especially in the South and West Coast in the U.S. This follows a severe season in Australia during our summer.

There...

Innovation is widely viewed as the engine of economic growth.

To maximize innovation and growth, all of our brightest youth should have the opportunity...

Earlier this month, hopes were high that a bipartisan deal could be reached to resolve the fate of the “Dreamers,” the millions of undocumented youth who were brought to the U.S. as children.

Those hopes all but vanished on Jan. 11 as...

Imagine you’re speeding along on a highway. Suddenly, the traffic ahead of you slows, forcing you to hit the breaks. Eventually you arrive at the source of the bottleneck: a mattress lying in the right...

It’s beginning to feel like the 1980s all over again.

Already this year, we’ve seen Donald Trump tweeting provocative nuclear threats about North Korea. A terrifying (but false) incoming missile alert set Hawaiians on edge, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned (and then postponed) a nuclear attack preparedness...

North and South Korean athletes will march under one flag during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea.

The “Korean Unification Flag” is both a highly symbolic marker of reconciliation and a reminder of a divided Korea, a condition that has lasted since 1945.

As a scholar of East Asian international...

The two-week protest movement that rocked cities across Iran earlier this year has largely subsided, but the fallout from the government’s harsh response has just begun. More than 3,700 people were arrested and 23 were killed in sometimes violent nationwide marches that started on Dec. 28, 2017, in response to an austerity budget proposed by...