Most Popular
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Hyundai Motor eyes 80,000 jobs, W68tr investment at home by 2026
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Seoul bus drivers go on general strike, cause morning rush hour delays
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Korea enters full election mode
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Official campaigning kicks off for April 10 elections
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Dialogue hopes fade as doctors pick hard-liner as new head
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Coupang pledges W3tr to expand Rocket Delivery nationwide by 2027
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[Election Battlefield] Political novice to face off star politician in ‘swing district’
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Immigrant woman stabbed to death by Korean husband
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[Kim Seong-kon] The April 2024 election will decide our future
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[Herald Interview] Son Suk-ku chooses to be swayed by others in navigating life
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Technocrats step in where political leaders fear to tread
In the past 12 months, four European premiers have lost their jobs because they failed to fix their countries’ mounting debt problems. A fifth could join the list on Nov. 20, when Spain holds a general election. The take-away: When leaders fail to address urgent fiscal matters, the capital markets will punish ― and ultimately remove ― them by making the cost of financing debt prohibitively high. Heads started rolling this year when Ireland’s and Portugal’s prime ministers lost elections soon aft
Nov. 17, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Europe’s unending fiscal circus
WASHINGTON ― After so many months of watching Europe’s economic follies, we should better appreciate the merits of America’s bipartisan response to the great crash of 2008. If the Europeans had handled their problems as cleanly as the United States did three years ago, the financial world wouldn’t be spinning like a yo-yo. The U.S. turned a corner in 2008 and 2009 because officials from both parties made good decisions and backed them up. The Europeans, by contrast, just keep dithering. They set
Nov. 17, 2011
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Handicapping a war over Iran’s nuclear aims
As concerns mounted over a possible military confrontation between Israel and Iran, several leading Arab commentators argued that such worries were overblown.This was so even as the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded last week that Iran appeared to have worked on developing a nuclear bomb and as media in Israel reported that the country’s leaders may be nearing a decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Wrote columnist Rachid Hassan, in the Amman-based Ad-Dustour daily: “We are cert
Nov. 17, 2011
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[Michael Smerconish] Scandal cries out for tougher child-abuse reporting law
Among the many things that need to change in the aftermath of the Penn State scandal is Pennsylvania law.First, the commonwealth needs to require that any witness to child abuse must call the police. Second, the statute of limitations for civil claims against child abusers needs to be expanded.Consider that when Mike McQueary saw a 10-year-old boy being raped in the shower at the campus’ Lasch Football Complex, he was under no legal obligation to dial 911 ― much less intervene. According to the
Nov. 17, 2011
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Firms that aid Syria crackdown deserve sanctions
Terrible things tend to happen when Syrian security officials catch their quarry. Dissidents are detained, tortured and sometimes killed. It is thus disturbing to learn that U.S. and European technology companies are working to help the regime of President Bashar al-Assad monitor Internet traffic to keep tabs on citizens. A Bloomberg News investigation revealed that the Italian company Area SpA has been installing a wide-reaching surveillance system for the Syrians, using equipment from the U.S.
Nov. 16, 2011
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[Lee Jae-min] Trade disputes and domestic policies
Antigua and Barbuda is the seventh-smallest country in the world with a population of 70,000. This country, as its name connotes, is composed of two main islands and located in the middle of the Caribbean. It is a former British colony where a British naval fortress was located in the 1700s (this fortress was featured in the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean”).In 2003, this small country waged a David-and-Goliath battle against the United States by bringing a claim against Washington at the WTO di
Nov. 16, 2011
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Facing a nuclear Iran
The United Nations report on Iran’s nuclear program released last week should end the debate, if any debate remained, over whether Iran is moving toward acquiring the ability to build a nuclear weapon. In cautious but convincing detail, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency listed evidence that Iran is still conducting research that would lead to an atomic bomb, much of it in secret military laboratories. And Iran has refused to answer the U.N.’s questions or allow U.N. inspectors to see
Nov. 16, 2011
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Every man a king? U.K.’s better off with its queens
U.S. President Barack Obama said at the Group of 20 meeting in Cannes, France, earlier this month that he was told that he had just been given a “crash course” on the complexities of European politics. Well, that’s us, the folk who brought you Byzantine. We do have the habit of talking about one thing while doing another, like your mother peeling potatoes at the sink while telling you to hurry up and provide her with some grandchildren. And, often, the thing we’re doing is not what it appears, a
Nov. 16, 2011
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[Vivek Maru] Giving legal power to the people
NEW DELHI ― Inspired by Anna Hazare’s hunger strike, thousands of people gathered at Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi to protest governmental corruption. Protesters here and around the country pressed for a specific political change ― a new institution to combat corruption ― and, in principle, they won. Parliament passed a resolution accepting their demands and is now drafting a bill accordingly.But the demonstrations were also motivated by a larger aspiration, one that is more difficult to achieve:
Nov. 16, 2011
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Oh man, girls are beating the boys in tests
The latest round of test results are in for America’s shoolchildren, this one from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and there is the usual good and bad news.American kids, for example, are doing better in math than they were in 1990. On the other hand, the gap between white and minority students remains large ― except for Asian students, who got their own category this year and beat everybody.But I noticed something that never seems to change much. Although girls do about as well
Nov. 15, 2011
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[Nouriel Roubini] Eurozone’s endgame has started
NEW YORK ― The eurozone crisis seems to be reaching its climax, with Greece on the verge of default and an inglorious exit from the monetary union, and now Italy on the verge of losing market access. But the eurozone’s problems are much deeper. They are structural, and they severely affect at least four other economies: Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, and Spain.For the last decade, the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) were the eurozone’s consumers of first and last resort, spending
Nov. 15, 2011
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A sensible solution to student loan debt
The college class of 2010 now has a dubious distinction. Its graduates who had student loans owed a record-high average of $25,250, up 5.2 percent from the previous year, according to a new report from the Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit advocacy group.Last month, President Obama announced a plan to make it a little easier for 1.6 million college graduates to repay their government loans, recognizing the drag that $1 trillion in student debt is placing on the economy.In the early 1990s, mos
Nov. 15, 2011
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What not to do about Iran ― military action
JERUSALEM ― Last spring, Israel’s former spy chief, Meir Dagan, said bombing Iran would be “a stupid idea” for Israel. It would mean regional war and give Iran “the best possible reason to continue its nuclear program.”Those words hung in the air during an extraordinary media debate here over the last two weeks that preceded the release of a U.N. report giving new evidence of Iranian plans to build nuclear weapons. The debate laid out details on a topic rarely discussed here in public: Should th
Nov. 15, 2011
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[Kim Seong-kon] Are you insured for emergencies?
In the U.S., insurance seems to be an imperative prerequisite of human existence. The American people are well-known to be thoroughly prepared for a rainy day and thus have various contingency plans for emergencies. Compared to Korea where people are more optimistic and thus do not feel compelled to be insured, the Americans’ fondness for (or obsession with) insurance seems somewhat excessive and redundant. Americans seem to think they need an insurance policy for virtually everything. For examp
Nov. 15, 2011
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A healthier way to provide U.S. universal care
Last month, the Obama administration abandoned the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, the landmark national long-term-care insurance program that was included in the 2010 health-reform law. CLASS was probably doomed from the start ― a victim of political ill will and poor design. Premiums would have been high and too few healthy people would have enrolled. But it would have been an important first step toward the fiscally sustainable national-insurance program we need
Nov. 14, 2011
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[Robert Reich] The coming collision in the U.S.
The biggest question in America these days is how to revive the economy.The biggest question among activists now occupying Wall Street and dozens of American cities is how to strike back against the nation’s almost unprecedented concentration of income, wealth and political power in the top 1 percent.The two questions are related. With so much income and wealth concentrated at the top, the vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing. (Peop
Nov. 14, 2011
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[Meghan Daum] Personhood USA: Zygotes on a slippery slope
When I first heard about Personhood USA, I got it confused with Up with People, the organization best known for song-and-dance troupes that go around the world singing songs like “Which Way America?” and “What Color Is God’s Skin?” When I realized it was actually an anti-abortion group devoted to the idea that any fertilized human egg should be considered a person, I still couldn’t shake the image of wholesome young performers spreading fetus love across the globe. Instead of singing about peace
Nov. 14, 2011
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How to overthrow the Iranian regime without war or sanctions
PARIS ― It seems the “success” of the Libyan campaign has again whetted the appetite of Western powers to intervene more aggressively in Iranian affairs. However, the threat of military intervention and the use of economic sanctions that bring suffering for ordinary Iranians only strengthens the grip of Iran’s mafia regime on its power. Any leader who implicitly or explicitly advocates such policies therefore, in effect, plays into the hands of a fragile regime that can only sustain itself throu
Nov. 14, 2011
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[Joel Brinkley] China obsessed with Occupy Wall Street movement
Right now, China is obsessed with the Occupy Wall Street movement, deathly afraid that it will spread there. How can I tell?The China Daily recently ran a column headlined: “U.S. Media Blackout of Protest is Shameful.” The Lexis-Nexis news service shows that on the very day that column ran, the American news media carried 282 stories about the movement, and in the weeks before, the total was 631.So I called the author, Chen Weihua, deputy editor of China Daily USA. He’s based in New York.“Well,
Nov. 14, 2011
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Looking for a bride? Tajiks turn to kidnapping
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan ― Kidnapping the woman you want to marry is a well-known, if illegal, tradition in parts of Central Asia. Until recently, such abductions occurred mainly among ethnic Kyrgyzs and Kazaks.But now the idea seems to be catching on among Tajiks as well.“Our neighbor was abducted on her wedding day by the guy who was in love with her,” said Qaisiddin, a resident of the Jirgatal district in Tajikistan. “No one knows where he took her.”According to the resident of this district with
Nov. 13, 2011