Most Popular
-
1
Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
-
2
Bae Doo-na shares portraying Korean identity in Hollywood's 'Rebel Moon'
-
3
S. Korea votes in favor of Palestinian bid for UN membership
-
4
[From the Scene] Monks, Buddhists hail return of remains of Buddhas
-
5
Medical schools granted enrollment quota flexibility for next year
-
6
Yoon offers first one-on-one meeting with opposition leader next week
-
7
France rejects opening Paris flight routes to T'way Air, deals blow to Korean Air merger
-
8
Chinese man behind drug scam targeting teens nabbed in Cambodia
-
9
Iran fires air defense batteries in provinces as sound of explosions heard near Isfahan
-
10
[Graphic News] French bulldog most popular breed in US, Maltese most popular in Korea
-
[Lee Jae-min] ETS tax laudable but misplaced
The global aviation industry is still scratching its head while digesting the contents of the latest bid by Brussels to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Starting from Jan. 1, the EU included the aviation industry in its CO2 Emission Trading System and started imposing extra taxes on airliners. Actual payments will not take place until 2013, but the system is now up and running. A very laudable effort indeed, but here is the trick: This program of the EU applies to all foreign airlines as well, if
Feb. 21, 2012
-
Asia’s development and importance of leadership
Asia’s development has been so successful that it has been labeled a “miracle.” However, if this is true for economic growth, the picture looks far less impressive if you look at other dimensions of economic development. A return of leadership is needed. Looking at Asia’s phenomenal economic growth figures since the second half of the 20th century, it becomes easy to understand why international observers have used the word “miracle.” From 1975 to 2000 East Asia grew faster than any other region
Feb. 21, 2012
-
[Kim Seong-kon] The charm of living in Korea
Twenty-eight years ago when I was at the L.A. airport waiting for a plane to Seoul, I watched on television clashes between riot police and the tear-gassed students of South Korea, who were protesting against the military dictatorship. I was embarrassed and reluctant to go back to Korea, even though I was returning home after six years in the States. Upon arriving at Gimpo Airport, I was taken aback by the unfriendliness and arrogance of the immigration and customs officers, who treated internat
Feb. 21, 2012
-
Laudable but Misplaced: EU’s Aviation ETS Tax
The global aviation industry is still scratching its head while digesting the contents of the latest bid by Brussels to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Starting from Jan. 1, the EU included the aviation industry in its CO2 Emission Trading System and started imposing extra taxes on airliners. Actual payments will not take place until 2013, but the system is now up and running. A very laudable effort indeed, but here is the trick: This program of the EU applies to all foreign airlines as well, if
Feb. 21, 2012
-
Mixing Medicare and mudslinging in campaign
Don’t look now, but the 2012 election is turning into a national referendum on what to do about Medicare.Democrats want to run on the issue ― and to charge that Republican proposals to change Medicare into a voucher-based system would end the current guarantee of virtually unlimited health care for the elderly.The chairman of their House campaign committee, Rep. Steve Israel, D-New York, has told candidates to stress three issues: “Medicare, Medicare and Medicare.”At least some Republicans ― suc
Feb. 21, 2012
-
GOP extremists turn their attention to transportation bills
Both parties and both houses of Congress appear to have worked through their differences and are poised to extend a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits and avoid drastic cuts in reimbursement rates for physicians treating Medicare enrollees.The optimist thinks, “So Congress CAN deal with real problems, even in a campaign year.”The pessimist thinks, “The Republicans’ radical wing already lost this fight in December, and party leaders saw no reason to follow the fringe to a repeat defeat in
Feb. 21, 2012
-
The inferno in Honduras
The horrifying inferno that engulfed a prison in Honduras and claimed 355 lives or more didn‘t have to happen. In the months preceding this disaster, Honduran officials, beginning with President Porfirio Lobo, ignored multiple warnings that conditions at the jails were ripe for a calamity.One report by the United Nations said overcrowding was out of control by any standard. On any given date, 800 prisoners were confined in a facility built for 500. Those numbers, outrageous in themselves, were b
Feb. 21, 2012
-
A New European Growth Agenda
Austerity alone cannot solve Europe‘s economic and financial crisis. Growth and jobs need to be promoted with equal zeal. European Union leaders now recognize this: kick-starting growth in 2012 was high on the agenda at the European Council’s meeting on January 30. But the big question remains: How?The need for immediate action is clear. The eurozone’s economy contracted in the last three months of 2011; even Germany’s shrank. The new year is looking grim. France is flat-lining (as is Britain).
Feb. 21, 2012
-
Euro area leaders consider Greek exit at own peril
Leaders of the euro area’s wealthier nations are increasingly raising a provocative question: Might the common currency now be strong enough to end the bailout agony and let Greece go? The short answer is no. In fact, the euro area is probably more vulnerable to a Greek disaster than ever. Until recently, European officials dismissed the idea of Greece leaving the euro as unthinkable. They seemed to recognize that such a move would amount to mutually assured destruction. Aside from the horrendou
Feb. 20, 2012
-
[David Ignatius] Pakistan needs to clear the air
WASHINGTON ― With Pakistan’s civilian government and judiciary showing renewed signs of life, it’s time for them to ask the question the country has been avoiding for nine months: How did Osama bin Laden, the world’s leading terrorist, hide out in a military garrison city near Islamabad without anyone knowing? To ask this question is not to accuse the Pakistani military or intelligence service of wrongdoing. So far, no “smoking gun” has emerged. But many puzzling issues surround bin Laden’s stay
Feb. 20, 2012
-
How the U.S.-Iran standoff looks from Israel
The upheaval in the Arab world has damaged Israel’s strategic environment. Its peace treaty with Egypt, a pillar of national security for more than three decades, is in question. More important, the events in the Arab world have deflected attention from Israel’s most feared scenario, a nuclear Iran, playing into the Iranian strategy to buy time in order to present the world with a nuclear fait accompli. Israel’s leaders fear that the international response is now unlikely to impact Iranian polic
Feb. 20, 2012
-
[Andrew Sheng] Alternatives to conventional economic thinking
At a time when there is great awareness that mainstream economic theory is seriously flawed, many of us are looking for alternative models of economic thinking. I have in my collection a book by an English economist EF Schumacher called “Small is Beautiful,” first published in 1973, but never read it. Last month, I finally read it and was overwhelmed by its brilliant and unconventional approach to economic thinking. The book became almost cult reading when it came out 40 years ago, in the afterm
Feb. 20, 2012
-
Santorum’s surge raises cheers from Camp Obama
“The one who can beat Obama: Rick Santorum,” the television commercial proclaims. That boast brings cheers from two quarters: the faithful followers of the conservative Republican presidential candidate, and the Democratic president’s political strategists. The former Pennsylvania senator is on fire in the Republican contest, threatening the front-runner, Mitt Romney, in the critical Michigan primary next week and nationally. Still, President Barack Obama’s campaign, the super-PACs supporting it
Feb. 20, 2012
-
[David Ignatius] Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood gamble
WASHINGTON ― President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood began three years ago in his famous June 2009 speech in Cairo. Ten members of the Brotherhood were invited to listen to the address, and they heard a passage crafted especially for them: “America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments ― provided they govern with respect for all their people.” Egypti
Feb. 19, 2012
-
Simple, realistic solution to fixing the U.S. economy
Few would deny that the U.S. economy is badly damaged or that the party with the more plausible plan for fixing it is likely to win the coming election. Yet neither has proposed a plan that realists can believe in. While Republicans advocate yet more tax cuts and deregulation, Democrats propose further stimulus and deficit spending. Both are futile.Tax cuts will fail because they reduce government revenue, thereby necessitating additional layoffs at the state and local levels among police, firef
Feb. 19, 2012
-
The case for publicly owned Internet service
In cities and towns across the U.S., a familiar story is replaying itself: Powerful companies are preventing local governments from providing an essential service to their citizens. More than 100 years ago, it was electricity. Today, it is the public provision of communications services. The Georgia legislature is currently considering a bill that would effectively make it impossible for any city in the state to provide for high-speed Internet access networks ― even in areas in which the private
Feb. 19, 2012
-
[Meghan Daum] After the ‘Tiger Mother,’ is America ready for the French version?
A little more than a year has passed since the publication of Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” ― the paroxysm-inducing guide to raising better children through belittlement, intimidation and tyrannical music practice ― and already we have version 2.0. Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bebe” alleges that it’s the French who could teach indulgent, over-scheduling, helicoptering American parents a thing or two about rearing les enfants.Druckerman, a Paris-based American mom of three, obs
Feb. 19, 2012
-
[Joel Brinkley] Robert Mugabe ― world’s most destructive leader
When Catherine Bragg, a senior U.N. official, ended a three-day visit to Zimbabwe last week, she warned that the humanitarian situation there remains extremely fragile.There’s a bit of diplomatic understatement if I’ve ever heard one.Trying to determine who is the world’s most destructive national leader might seem like a daunting assignment. There seem to be so many to choose from. But look at the facts, and you’ll find only one perfectly obvious choice: Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, wh
Feb. 19, 2012
-
How should a ‘hate crime’ be defined?
Further investigation of a recent attack in Philadelphia might justify the filing of hate-crime charges against teenagers who sparked the melee.On a Saturday night two weekends ago, a Penn senior named David Goldman was in the back of a cab, en route to a date. The problem came when the car approached 15th Street.“I was in the backseat, looking out of my window, which was rolled down, and then ― bam! A strong punch came barreling through the window and hit me squarely in the jaw,” he wrote in th
Feb. 17, 2012
-
[Robert Reich] Sad spectacle of Obama’s super PAC
How many billionaires does it take to buy a presidential election? We’re about to find out. The 2012 campaign is likely to be a battle between one group of millionaires and billionaires supporting President Obama and another group supporting his GOP rival.Perhaps this was the inevitable result of the Supreme Court’s grotesque decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, which opened the floodgates to unrestricted campaign money through so-called “super PACs.” But I’m not s
Feb. 17, 2012