The Korea Herald

[Lee Jae-min] Pirates, private security firms, consuls

ViewpointsMay 31, 2011

No. 1: One way to sail through the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden with peace of mind is purchasing security services. Protection Vessels International, Ltd. is one of such security corporations founded by former British special forces personnel. It provides escort and protection services to merchant ships. PVI is a maritime version of Blackwater Inc., which provides security services to officials a...
[Dick Polman] GOP’s wake-up call on Medicare

ViewpointsMay 31, 2011

The conservative ideologues in Washington discovered last week that their fond dream of privatizing Medicare is political suicide. This should not have come as a surprise. Back in early April, when the tea-partying House Republicans were preparing to vote yes on a plan to eradicate guaranteed health care for seniors ― one of the most popular government programs of the last half-century ― their o...
[Meghan Daum] Obama’s fast brain versus slow mouth

ViewpointsMay 31, 2011

Apparently, a lot of people consider President Obama to be bumblingly inarticulate. “The guy can’t talk his way out of a paper bag!” a reader wrote to me recently. “Sarah Palin is a brilliant speaker. It’s the president whose sentences are undiagrammable,” said another in response to a column I wrote about Palin. It’s not just my readers, nor is it exclusively conservatives, who hold this view. ...
[Kim Seong-kon] Diplomats and cultural interactions

ViewpointsMay 31, 2011

A few days ago, U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens hosted a farewell dinner party for Patrick J. Linehan, minister-counselor for public affairs, who has been newly assigned to Osaka as consulate general. Since Linehan is my good friend, I decided to attend the dinner to bid farewell to him. When I met Linehan at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, he seemed to be genuinely sad to leave Korea, where ...
[Editorial] China-N.K. ties

EditorialMay 30, 2011

Only a few days after Kim Jong-il returned to Pyongyang from a week-long tour, it may be premature to assess the outcome of the North Korean leader’s latest China visit, his third in about a year. News dispatches by official Chinese and North Korean outlets provide few clues to substantial economic gains for the North but the visit again demonstrated the deepening ties between the two neighbors a...
Kim Jong-il’s China visit points to peace

ViewpointsMay 30, 2011

The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-il paid a successful visit to China from May 20 to 26. The attention-grabbing event marks the further consolidation of relations between the two neighbors. It also sends a strong signal to the outside world that the two will make joint efforts to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. This is Kim’s third visit to Chi...
This is not the time for infighting in Japan

ViewpointsMay 30, 2011

Voices critical of Prime Minister Naoto Kan appear to be getting louder within the Democratic Party of Japan. One cannot give high marks to Kan for his performance as the nation’s leader in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Even so, as Japan faces the difficult task of reconstruction and bringing the nuclear accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant under control, DPJ p...
[Rachel Marsden] Harper a role model for conservatives

ViewpointsMay 30, 2011

A few years ago, if Americans had been asked to name the world’s most conservative countries, Canada likely wouldn’t have been on most people’s list. But as so many previous top contenders, including the U.S., slide into socialism, Canada is beginning to shine as a beacon of free-market success. After decades of Liberal Party rule, broken only by eight years of Conservative governance in the 1980...
[David Ignatius] Arab Spring and the whiff of vengence

ViewpointsMay 30, 2011

WASHINGTON ― “Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.” The wisdom of that couplet from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” extends in many directions. But let’s consider the context of the Arab Spring and its transition from dictatorship to democracy. Revolutions can go off the rails for many reasons. But history shows that one of the most dangerous (if also understand...
[Butch Bracknell] U.S. and the ICC: Unfinished debate

ViewpointsMay 30, 2011

I recently returned from a week in Iraq, where I trained an elite security force unit on human rights and the law of combat operations. Discussions regarding the responsibility of commanders for the acts of their forces migrated to the issue of the United Nations’ International Criminal Court. One Iraqi officer asked me, “If the United States believes in accountability over impunity, why are you ...
[Yoon Young-kwan] N.E. Asia’s threesome has turned four

ViewpointsMay 30, 2011

Like many regions of the world, Northeast Asia faces severe political challenges in creating a viable structure of peace. But, given China’s rising power, such a regional structure is becoming all the more necessary if today’s lack of trust is not to devolve into military antagonism. Relations among the region’s three major powers, China, South Korea, and Japan, are burdened both by territorial ...
[Editorial] Fourth-year blues?

EditorialMay 29, 2011

Prosecutors are investigating a bribery case involving a top Board of Audit and Inspection official ― a scandal that will have grave political implications. It is regarded as one of the numerous scandals of similar or greater magnitude that will certainly come during the final years of the Lee Myung-bak presidency. The criminal suspect, Eun Jin-su, is the first BAI commissioner to resign on susp...
[Editorial] No judicial reform?

EditorialMay 29, 2011

The proposed judicial reform is in danger of being shipwrecked in the face of opposition from the legal profession. Political activists will do well to join hands in efforts to rescue it. Under pressure from judges, prosecutors and lawyers, the special committee on judicial reform is moving to terminate its operation at the end of June, as scheduled, though it is necessary to extend it because f...
Helping hands to Japanese P.M. Naoto Kan

ViewpointsMay 29, 2011

The perseverance that people in northeastern Japan have shown after the massive earthquake and tsunami devastated their communities March 11 has impressed many people around the world. In Northeast Asia, anti-Japan feelings in China and South Korea seem to have receded since the catastrophe, thanks to Tohoku people’s dignified behavior. Under these circumstances, Prime Minister Naoto Kan held m...
Eyes on East Asian future

ViewpointsMay 29, 2011

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea met in Tokyo on May 21-22 as scheduled, even though Japan is still recovering from the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis, demonstrating the three countries’ consensus on regional responsibility. The leaders agreed to strengthen a future-oriented partnership aimed at constructing a nuclear power safety and disaster prevention system, and developing...