The Korea Herald

Milk shortage continues due to heat wave

IndustryJul 22, 2011

On Thursday afternoon, Jeong Hyun-sook, a 55-year-old housewife, belatedly realized she did not have enough milk for breakfast. She rushed to a nearby supermarket but all she could find was organic milk, which was almost twice the price of ordinary milk. “A clerk said that the milk shelf often becomes empty earlier than usual recently. I was just stunned,” she said.Jeong eventually bought two 200-
‘Carmakers to see reduced surplus from revised FTA’

IndustryJul 22, 2011

The modified Korea-U.S. free trade agreement will bring in less surplus for domestic carmakers than had initially been forecast, a government report said Friday. The FTA, signed in 2007 and modified in November is expected to expand local carmakers’ trade surplus by $488 million annually, $53 million less than the equivalent figure under the earlier terms agreed. The two nations agreed to scale ba
Big companies hire more ex-officials as directors

Jul 22, 2011

Affiliates of South Korea’s top 30 conglomerates employed more former government officials as outside directors this year, data showed Friday, amid escalating criticism of the practice.A total of 308 former government officials were working as outside directors at the 1,140 affiliates of the leading conglomerates as of end-June, up from 256 a year earlier, according to the data compiled by local r
U.K. police asked to probe phone ‘pinging’

World NewsJul 22, 2011

LONDON (AP) ― Scotland Yard, still reeling from the alleged police role in Britain’s phone hacking scandal, was asked Thursday to investigate another explosive claim: that journalists bribed officers to locate people by tracking their cell phone signals.The practice is known as “pinging” because of the way cell phone signals bounce off relay towers as they try to find reception.Jenny Jones, a memb
Libya’s Gadhafi rules out talks with rebels

World NewsJul 22, 2011
Microsoft Windows fizzles as PC fears loom

World BusinessJul 22, 2011
Oil up on IEA decision, U.S. data, Greece optimism

World BusinessJul 22, 2011
[David Ignatius] Plotting a post-Assad road map

ViewpointsJul 22, 2011

WASHINGTON ― As the Obama administration steps up its support for regime change in Syria, the Arab Spring is moving into what could be its hottest phase. The puzzle is how to help the Syrian opposition gain power without foreign military intervention ― and without triggering sectarian massacres inside the country. For months, as protests mounted in Syria, President Obama waited to see if Bashar al
[Editorial] Burmese army’s licence to rape is region’s shame

ViewpointsJul 22, 2011

In 1989, following the collapse of the Communist Party of Burma, a number of armed ethnic armies entered into a series of ceasefire agreements with Rangoon. The fighting stopped, to a degree, but deep down nobody believed it would last. It was just a matter of time before the various groups resumed fighting.For more than two decades, the so-called peace deals rested on shaky ground with little eff
[Editorial] Nonregular workers

EditorialJul 22, 2011

Remedying discrimination against nonregular workers has emerged as a burning issue as political parties are competing to win their hearts and minds to ensure victory in next year’s parliamentary and presidential elections. Irregular workers are a political force to be reckoned with. As of March, they accounted for 5.77 million or 33.8 percent of the nation’s 17.06 million paid workers. When daily
[Editorial] GNP’s new vision

EditorialJul 22, 2011

The Youido Institute, the think tank of the ruling Grand National Party, has released a report to outline a new vision for the party. The document, unveiled Wednesday, signals the beginning of a major debate within the ruling party over the revision of its platform in preparation for the general and presidential elections slated for next year. Thus far, the GNP’s vision has been “the advancement o
[Editorial] Again, justice for victims of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge rule

ViewpointsJul 22, 2011

The wheels of justice turn slowly in Cambodia, but they grind nevertheless. Last month, a United Nations-backed tribunal began the second war crimes trials that attempt to hold accountable the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge. This trial is proving more contentious than its predecessor ― in which the defendant accepted both the legitimacy of the tribunal and the need for an accounting. This time,
[Andrew Sheng] Globalization with constraints

ViewpointsJul 22, 2011

The globalization issue is the most misunderstood and confusing topic today. In the last 20 years, there was a dominant view that globalization was good for everyone. But the Asian and global financial crises, caused in part by volatile global capital flows, have proved that there is what I called “global gain, local pain.” It does not mean that we reject globalization, but that there are risks th
[Editorial] Japan’s electricity crisis will continue to deteriorate

ViewpointsJul 22, 2011

Kansai Electric Power Co. manually shut down the No. 1 reactor at its Oi nuclear power plant in Oicho, Fukui Prefecture, on Saturday (July 16) to investigate what caused the pressure to drop inside a tank in the reactor’s emergency cooling system.The Oi nuclear plant is a major source of power, with an output capacity of nearly 1.2 million kilowatts. Kansai Electric, which depends on nuclear power
[Editorial] Forced finale is fitting end for Murdoch’s Frankenstein

ViewpointsJul 22, 2011

On July 7, News Corp, one of the world’s most powerful media organizations, announced that it was closing News of the World, Britain’s largest-selling newspaper. This decision was taken in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that first emerged in 2007, but which has deepened significantly over the past few weeks. Although Rupert Murdoch has claimed that News of the World was closed on moral grou