The Korea Herald

Korean-Russian garners literature translation award

PeopleJul 10, 2011

Park Mo-ran, an ethnic Korean Russian, won a Korean literature translation award last week.The 24-year-old student translated the novel “The Door of Morning” into Russian and was picked as one of the winners of a competition organized by the Korea Literature Translation Institute. Park Mo-ran (Yonhap News)Witten by Part Min-kyu, the book had formerly won prestigious Yi Sang Literary Award. The you
Spokeswoman Rah steals limelight

PeopleJul 10, 2011

Theresa Rah (Yonhap News)Former journalist praised for presenting PyeongChang Olympic bidTheresa Rah, communications director of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games Bid Committee, has stepped into the limelight as her eloquent and touching presentation is credited with helping the city win the bid last week.As the world watched, the former journalist carried out the presentation of Korea’s decade-lo
[Max Boot] U.S. foreign policy: In praise of nation-building

ViewpointsJul 10, 2011

The signature line of President Obama’s June 22 Afghanistan address was “America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.” This no doubt resonates among an electorate sick of foreign wars and eager to focus on domestic problems, but it is a wrongheaded statement.Whenever America has eschewed commitments abroad and turned inward, the results have been disastrous. The most isolationist
[Editorial] Household change

EditorialJul 10, 2011

A family comprising parents and two children has long been the Korean household prototype. But households are changing like everything else. A recent census has proven that model to be outdated. The new findings demand a change in housing, welfare and other government policies that are focused on the outdated prototype.In 2000, households of four people ― mostly parents and children ― accounted fo
[Editorial] Abuse in the barracks

EditorialJul 10, 2011

Acts of physical abuse committed out of personal malice and those of harsh discipline administered without being sanctioned are prevalent in the barracks. One report comes after another about enlisted men being humiliated, beaten up, sexually abused or ill treated in other ways. But the military authorities have taken few effective measures to prevent them.A report from the Ministry of National De
[Lee Byong-chul] Daughter of dictatorship, democracy

OpinionJul 10, 2011

Park’s success will depend, in the end, on the effectiveness of her campaign in further defining her character along those lines.SEOUL ― It is something of a clich question in South Korea nowadays: Who would be the country’s next president if the election were held tomorrow, rather than in December 2012?Numerous opinion polls show Park Geun-hye of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) to be the le
[Ramesh Ponnuru ] Ponnuru: High court should be pro-business

ViewpointsJul 10, 2011

The idea that the Supreme Court is too pro-business is rapidly becoming the central liberal critique of the institution. During last year’s confirmation hearings for Justice Elena Kagan, Democrats made their theme the need to counter pro-business activism by the conservatives on the court. After the court ended its latest term last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, a Vermont Dem
[Rick Wartzman] Texas, the jobs engine

ViewpointsJul 10, 2011

For the last few weeks, I’ve been unable to get a startling statistic out of my head: Since the recession officially ended, Texas has created more than four of every 10 new jobs in America.That’s right, Texas: the reddest of red states, home to gun lovers and school textbooks that openly question whether the Founding Fathers intended for the separation of church and state. I am no ideologue. Still
[Rachel Marsden] Difference between truth and justice

ViewpointsJul 10, 2011

A judge has lifted former International Monetary Fund Seducer-in-Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s house arrest, releasing him on his own recognizance while retaining his passport until the end of proceedings. While the charges against Strauss-Kahn for allegedly sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid in May still stand, it remains to be seen how long that will be the case.The shift came when the M
[Joyce Appleby] Warring ambitions

ViewpointsJul 10, 2011

James Madison would have smiled had he heard about President Obama’s maneuver, seemingly in defiance of the War Powers Act, to avoid asking Congress to authorize military action in Libya.The act, passed in 1973, came at a time when the Vietnam War had been under way for years without any president asking for congressional approval. Members of Congress wanted future presidents to be obliged to come
NATO hits Libyan missile launchers

World NewsJul 10, 2011

TRIPOLI (AP) ― NATO warplanes on Saturday struck a missile launching position that Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s forces used to target the civilians in western Libya, the alliance said in a statement.Government troops used the missile site outside the rebel-held port city of Misrata to fire indiscriminately on civilians in the area, NATO said.Since the uprising against Gadhafi’s 42-year rule brok
Georgian photographer confesses he spied for Russia

World NewsJul 10, 2011

TBILISI (AP) ― The personal photographer to the Georgian president was shown on television Saturday confessing to supplying a colleague with secret information that was then sent to a Russian secret service.Irakli Gedenidze confessed to giving another photographer, Zurab Kurtsikidze of the European Pressphoto Agency, details of the president’s itinerary, motorcade route and offices for unspecified
GM goes full throttle in race against rivals

TransportJul 10, 2011

Mike Arcamone, CEO and President of GM Korea (Ahn Hoon/The Korea Herald)The race is on. GM Korea, the nation’s No.3 carmaker, is out to challenge its big-time rival Hyundai Motor Co. by betting big on superior quality and designs.“We’re going to challenge. We’re going to challenge our competition in all the segments, but in particular in areas where we have not competed before,” Mike Arcamone, CEO
Love does not dominate but serves: Ko Un

BooksJul 10, 2011

Poet Ko Un speaks to reporter Claire Lee of The Korea Herald near Nowon Art Center in northern Seoul on Friday. (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)Highly acclaimed poet publishes his first collection of love poemsDressed in a sky blue blazer and wearing his signature glasses with black plastic frames, poet Ko Un could not hide his spontaneous, child-like nature on Friday afternoon. “Let’s do this int
Mobile is the next interface: Alfio Pozzoni

FashionJul 10, 2011

Alfio Pozzoni at a workshop in Seoul last week. (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald)Consultant at Benetton communication research center talks about iconic stores of future People receive so much input everyday that it is difficult to attract them with something, Alfio Pozzoni told The Korea Herald. “That is why we have to continuously make improvements in term of contents and surprises.” Pozzoni, Spe