The Korea Herald

Choi Hung-jib named CEO of Kangwon Land

PeopleJul 14, 2011

Choi Hung-jib, 60, was named the new CEO of Kangwon Land, a resort and casino in Gangwon Province, on Tuesday. The move makes the former vice governor of Gangwon the seventh president of the nation’s only casino for locals, established in 2008 in Jeongseon, 214 kilometers east of Seoul. Choi Hung-jib“The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics will be an opportunity for Kangwon Land to leap to a global b
[Gordon Brown] Why Europe slept during crisis

ViewpointsJul 14, 2011

LONDON ― When the history of the 21st century is written, people will rightly ask why it was that Europe was found wanting during its most intractable economic crisis.They will ask why Europe slept as an undercapitalized banking system floundered, unemployment remained unacceptably high, and the continent’s growth and competitiveness plummeted.Worse still, if a reconstruction plan does not come so
[Allan Luks] Charities can act as the United States’ conscience

ViewpointsJul 14, 2011

Among the many proposals to raise taxes and cut and reallocate government spending to regain our country’s economic health, one of the most sensitive is decreasing the tax deductibility of charitable contributions.The independent Congressional Budget Office recently reviewed 11 options for revising the income tax treatment of charitable giving, and it grouped them into four categories. All establi
[Editorial] For-profit hospitals

EditorialJul 14, 2011

The long drawn-out controversy over the establishment of for-profit hospitals in Korea has been rekindled as the government and the ruling Grand National Party seek to pass bills allowing such hospitals on Jeju Island and in the Incheon Free Economic Zone. If passed through the National Assembly in August as planned, the bills will allow private investors to set up and operate hospitals in the two
[Editorial] Small is beautiful

EditorialJul 14, 2011

The government and the ruling Grand National Party have agreed to increase the number of welfare staff at local governments by 30 percent to improve the administration of social welfare programs. Under the plan, announced Wednesday, the government would add 7,000 new public officials to the existing workforce by 2014.The plan is aimed at easing the shortage in field workers responsible for deliver
[Francois Godement] China bargain-hunting in Europe

ViewpointsJul 14, 2011

PARIS ― In Shakespeare’s plays, comedy often meets tragedy. Perhaps Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reflected on this as he watched a performance of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon during his recent European tour. And, apropos the play, he may have been thinking: “To buy or not to buy?” In Bulgaria last March, one of his ministers quipped that “there will always be someone pointing fingers at us, whether
[Adam Skaggs and Maria da Silva] America’s judiciary: Courting disaster

ViewpointsJul 14, 2011

Denouncing a proposal to cut $150 million out of a courts budget that has already absorbed a $200 million reduction, California’s chief justice, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, recently warned that the “devastating and crippling” cuts would “threaten access to justice for all.”California’s not alone. Last month, 350 court employees in New York were laid off to offset $170 million in cuts to the state judicia
[Steffen Hertog] The perils of economic populism in the Mideast

ViewpointsJul 14, 2011

The first signs of a post-revolutionary hangover are everywhere in the Arab world. Where unity of purpose once defined the reform movements in Egypt and Tunisia, now particular interests are coming to the fore. Forces for change are fracturing. Conflicts revolve not just around the constitutional framework of the transition away from dictatorship or the place of Islam in public life, but increasin
Serial bombings in Mumbai kill 17, wound 131

World NewsJul 14, 2011

Indian militant group suspected for worst terrorist attacks in India since 2008MUMBAI, India (AP) ― Three coordinated bombings tore through the heart of India’s busy financial capital during rush hour Wednesday, killing 17 people and wounding 131 in the worst terrorist attack in the country since the 2008 Mumbai siege.Bloody bodies were strewn in the dirt of Mumbai’s crowded neighborhoods and mark
Karzai killing highlights Afghanistan’s ‘strongman’ problem

World NewsJul 14, 2011
Russia lays out ‘step-by-step’ approach on Iran

World NewsJul 14, 2011
U.S. begins drawdown of troops from Afghanistan

World NewsJul 14, 2011

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AP) ― The first troops to leave Afghanistan as part of the U.S. drawdown handed over their slice of battlefield Wednesday to a unit less than half their size and started packing for home.When the 650 members of the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment arrived in Afghanistan in November 2010, bases didn’t have enough housing, translators were in
Old Seoul Station restored as culture space

TheaterJul 14, 2011

The old Seoul Station building has been restored to the way it looked in 1925 and will open as a new culture space, Korea Craft and Design Foundation announced Thursday. The station’s new name will be “Culture Station, Seoul 284” upon its opening in August. Originally named Gyeongseong Station during Japanese colonial rule, the old Seoul Station was designed by Tsukamoto Yasushi of Tokyo Imperial
Gwangju Biennale to explore meaning of design

TheaterJul 14, 2011

About 300 international artists to participate in event, which may miss Chinese co-director due to Beijing’s oppression of dissidents Ai Weiwei, co-director of the 4th Gwangju Design Biennale, may not be able to attend the show in September but his artwork will. “Field,” the 1.15 meter tall rectangular installation measuring 7.4 meter by 7.4 meters made with a series of porcelain pipes, which the
Exhibit in N.Y. explores creator of the Muppets

TheaterJul 14, 2011

NEW YORK (AP) ― It seems so familiar to us now ― puppet characters on television that are so real, so expressive, so alive that we forget there’s a human being doing the actual work behind the scenes.There’s a reason that’s so familiar, the organizers of an exhibit opening this weekend in New York say: Jim Henson.The master puppeteer and media innovator behind pop culture icons such as Kermit the