Most Popular
-
1
Key suspects grilled over alleged abuse of power in Marine death inquiry
-
2
Marine Corps commander summoned by CIO for questioning on alleged influence-peddling case
-
3
Army takes group action against Hybe for neglecting BTS
-
4
Debate rages over ‘overly fatty’ samgyeopsal
-
5
Ador CEO's request for exclusive right to terminate NewJeans' contract with Hybe refused in February
-
6
[Weekender] Korean psyche untangled: Musok
-
7
Naver will consider company benefits in deciding on selling Line shares: CEO
-
8
Woman dangling from power lines rescued by residents holding blanket
-
9
Hankook Tire takes over control of Hanon Systems
-
10
[Herald Interview] ‘Time to Be Strong’ follows retired K-pop idols’ self-discovery
-
Eurozone’s next moral hazard
MUNICH ― The euro crisis has passed through six phases so far. It is worth recalling them, because they show how policymakers stumbled along, trying to put out fires without keeping an eye on where their chosen path was leading them. Currently, markets remain calm, but this is only the beginning of a seventh phase of the crisis, during which Europe will become mired in debt. The sequence so far has been as follows:― The collapse in 2007 of the inflationary credit bubble caused by the euro’s intr
April 30, 2014
-
[Lee Jae-min] Nontariff barriers and FTAs
Frozen orange juice concentrate has been a thorny issue for almost a year. Washington has complained that the Korean Customs Service has been imposing unreasonable “country-of-origin” verification requirements on citrus growers from Florida. These are based on unsubstantiated suspicions that some orange juice concentrates from Florida may in fact originate from Brazil. Ginseng chicken soup (samgyetang) exports have been on Korea’s to-do list since 2004. The necessary sanitary certification has
April 29, 2014
-
Affirmative action’s job isn’t done in U.S.
No matter what you think about last week’s Supreme Court decision blessing state bans against using race in college admissions, the ruling will have a certain outcome: More states will consider bans.Ohio, Missouri and Utah already have ballot measures teed up. Within hours of the decision, a state legislator said he would introduce one in Wisconsin. Those states would join California and seven others, with about a quarter of the U.S. population, in banning race as a consideration in college admi
April 29, 2014
-
The democratic disruption of finance
LAGUNA BEACH ― There seems to be no limit to the exciting possibilities that come from combining technical innovations, the Internet, and social media. It is a phenomenon that has been revolutionizing journalism and entertainment; and, by helping to overcome coordination challenges, it has also had political consequences in a growing number of countries ― all of which means an ever-evolving set of opportunities and risks.What is less appreciated, however, is the extent to which a broadly similar
April 29, 2014
-
[Kim Seong-kon] Woe to a whitewashed sepulcher
Does Korean society resemble the whitewashed sepulcher Jesus referred to when he criticized the scribes and Pharisees? Considering the recent tragic maritime disaster, the answer seems to be “Yes.” One striking example is the condition of the lifeboats on the ill-fated sunken ferry Sewol. According to a newspaper report, most lifeboats on the ferry were useless because their safety pins were either rusted or stuck due to thick layers of white paint. The whitewashed lifeboats looked spic and span
April 29, 2014
-
How Pope Francis is winning hearts and minds
Fifteen months ago, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had chosen his room in a home for elderly Argentine priests. Like other Roman Catholic bishops who turn 75, he had submitted his retirement letter to the Vatican. Then another abdication upended his plans: Benedict XVI, his stamina fading, was the first pope in 598 years to leave by resignation, not death. On March 13, 2013, Bergoglio’s peers elected him pope on their fifth ballot.He took the papal name Francis to evoke Francis of Assisi, a 13th
April 29, 2014
-
[William Pesek] Time for difficult conversation
To many Koreans, Chung Hong-won has done exactly one thing right since the tragic sinking of the ferry Sewol cost hundreds of passengers, most of them high-schoolers, their lives. On Sunday morning, South Korea’s prime minister ― the No. 2 official in the government ― resigned.Ignore the histrionics from opposition lawmakers, who immediately demanded that Chung remain at his post and see through the recovery effort, which has been hampered by bad weather and strong currents. The government’s ini
April 28, 2014
-
Obama’s receding foreign policy dreams
President Barack Obama envisioned building a foreign-policy legacy in his second term: a nuclear deal with sanction-strapped Iran, an end to U.S. involvement in conflicts overseas, and a successful pivot to Asia, including a trans-Pacific trade pact.Fifteen months after his second inaugural, those goals look more problematic, and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have created new crises. Dashed foreign-policy dreams aren’t unique to this second-term president: Dwight D. Eisenho
April 28, 2014
-
The worst empires are those of the mind
U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Asia raises questions within Asia on where Asia is going and how Asia should engage and embrace the West.No understanding of globalization and its impact on Asia can be complete without tracing it to the remarkable period in the 19th century, when the West used the power of the Industrial Revolution and science and technology to carve up the rest of the world into different colonies. In a remarkable book by Indian writer Pankaj Mishra, the tale of Asia’s in
April 28, 2014
-
[Jeffrey Frankel] Oligarchy fallacy in achieving enlightened policies
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts ― Income inequality has received a lot of attention lately, particularly in two arenas where it previously received little: American public debate and the International Monetary Fund. A major reason is concern in the United States that income inequality has returned to Gilded Age extremes; but inequality has increased in many other parts of the world as well, and remains high in Latin America. What have we learned so far? Perhaps what is most interesting about the curren
April 28, 2014
-
NFL cheerleaders don’t do it for money
I’ve watched all eight seasons of “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team,” and I’m still trying to figure out why those women do it. The dancing part looks like the sort of thing I would have enjoyed, if I had ever been the sort of person who could do a jump-split-kick without pulling, tearing or spraining something. On the other hand, the microscopic scrutiny of social media accounts, the hysteria over even an ounce of weight gain, the hours of exhausting (unpaid) athletic practice … tha
April 28, 2014
-
[David Ignatius] Iraq’s never-ending war
AMMAN, Jordan ― Iraq appears to be slipping back into civil war, and Sheik Zaydan Aljabiri, one of the political leaders of the Sunni insurgent group known as the Tribal Revolutionaries, seems confident that his side is winning.“We are three kilometers from Baghdad airport! We are 20 kilometers from the Green Zone!” Zaydan proclaims in an interview here. Dressed in a princely gold robe and red kaffiyeh, he conveys the tribal authority of one of the leading sheiks of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s
April 27, 2014
-
The cold reality of global warming
Big screen “Noah,” the box office hit, presents the biblical story of near apocalypse and indifference to God’s warnings. Small screen NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, regularly warns of impending man-made environmental doom on its climate.gov website.Whether one is more susceptible to religious parables or scientific findings, the very real effects of contemporary climate change are happening at a stunning pace.If melting ice caps and shifting weather patterns are not eno
April 27, 2014
-
[Yu Kun-ha] Obama urges Japan to recognize past honestly
Last week U.S. President Barack Obama visited Tokyo and Seoul, the first two legs of his ongoing tour of Asia, which is intended to reaffirm Washington’s commitment to the region. His itinerary also includes Malaysia and the Philippines. In Tokyo, Obama gave a big boost to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by unequivocally pledging to protect the Senkaku islands against China. At a joint news conference after the summit, Obama said, “Let me reiterate that our treaty commitment to Japan’s securi
April 27, 2014
-
Russia’s Ukraine action creates Israeli dilemma
TEL AVIV ― As if relations between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government and U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration were not strained enough, Israel has refused to join the United States and its other allies in condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But that decision, though risky, is not altogether surprising: The U.S., after all, lacks an effective policy toward Russia’s presence in the Middle East, making it difficult for countries like Israel to stand up to the Krem
April 27, 2014
-
France’s dissonance quartet
PARIS ― Mozart’s “Dissonance Quartet” is arguably one of the most beautiful pieces of chamber music ever written. The title, linked to its highly unusual first movement, describes perfectly the far less beautiful state of French politics today.A quartet of figures currently dominate France’s political stage: two on the left, Francois Hollande and Manuel Valls; and two on the right, Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppe. It is an understatement to say that contrary to the prerequisites of chamber music
April 27, 2014
-
[Brahma Chellaney] Wake-up calls for Asian allies
NEW DELHI ― The deteriorating situation in Ukraine and rising tensions between Russia and the United States threaten to bury U.S. President Barack Obama’s floundering “pivot” toward Asia ― the world’s most vibrant (but also possibly its most combustible) continent. Obama’s forthcoming tour of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines will do little to rescue the pivot or put his regional foreign policy on a sound footing. In fact, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is just the latest reason
April 25, 2014
-
Obama’s Keystone delay an American nuisance
PARIS ― The day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met for Ukraine crisis de-escalation talks in Geneva with his Russian and European counterparts in an attempt to stabilize the country, Kerry’s department released a statement that undermined America’s own economic and national security ― again.Disrupting Russia’s traditional interests in Ukraine should be nowhere near as important a priority as completing the Keystone XL pipeline in order to cement America’s energy independence and its gl
April 25, 2014
-
[Robert Reich] Antitrust laws in Gilded Age
We’re in a new Gilded Age of wealth and power similar to the first Gilded Age, when the nation’s antitrust laws were enacted. Those laws should prevent or bust up concentrations of economic power that not only harm consumers but also undermine our democracy ― such as Comcast’s pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable.In 1890, when Republican Sen. John Sherman of Ohio urged his congressional colleagues to act against the centralized industrial powers that threatened America, he didn’t distinguish
April 24, 2014
-
Hedge fund guy amplifies Hong Kong crisis
In a decidedly odd twist of fate, Hong Kong’s version of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement has just been thrown a lifeline by a bunch of bankers, whose wealth the movement is meant to abhor. That strange fact alone should give leaders in Beijing pause. This week, in an open letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, former hedge-fund manager Edward Chin and 70 other signatories called for “genuine” universal suffrage for the former British colony. That’s what China promised to deliver within 20 yea
April 24, 2014