Could anyone help me to explain the use of "the" in the following sentences?
"The world today is characterized by the free flow of information and commodity. The frequent interaction and growing interdependence among countries have ended the days of regional isolation and absolute national sovereignty."
1. Why they use "the" frequent flow and growing interdependence among countries? Is this because of the word "among country" after it or because or the word "growing", "frequent" before them make it a defined phrase and therefore need "the" or because when an noun with a prepositional phrase "among countries" appears at the beginning of the sentence it needs "the"?
2. Is this possible to remove "the" from "the frequent interaction and growing interdependence"? Is this still correct?
3. Why we don't use "the regional isolation and absolute national sovereignty"? Is this because "isolation" and "sovereignty" are uncountable noun?

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1. "Among countries" justifies the use of "the"

2. Yes, but it makes the first part of the sentence sound like a new phenomemon.

3. Your phrase should be, "Why don't we use...?"  Well, using "the" doesn't depend on the noun being countable or not (but yes, "isolation" and "sovereignty" are abstract nouns and therefore uncountable).  Look at "the X of Y" pattern.

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Thank you very much, Peachey!

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I also had to read the sentence twice to work out whether it should be "has ended" or "have ended". We can count "frequent interaction" and "growing interdependence"  to mean "they", so "have" works for me.

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It comes from an model IELTS essay book. Could you tell me why you use "have"? I see there are two subjects connected by "and". I'm not a native speaker so I don't know whether it is correct or not. Thank you very much MoiraWendy. It's a really useful comment. :-)

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Where did this extract come from? Who wrote it? I'd say, "... free flow of information and commodities." Plural. Also, I prefer "... has ended the days of.... " (not have).

So, where did this come from? Magazine article? Book?