The Korea Herald

Foreign entrepreneurs learn to thrive in Korea

Jun 16, 2011

Robert Taylor, an American entrepreneur living in Seoul, clearly remembers one of his earliest attempts to pitch his life coaching services to a marketing director at a big Korean firm. “For 45 minutes, we sat there while he told me why my business wouldn’t work,” said Taylor. “He assured me that cold calling simply couldn’t succeed in Korea, because everything is based on relationships.”Fortunate
Lotte enters China, E-Mart retreats

IndustryJun 16, 2011

Lotte opens store in Tianjin; E-Mart looking to sell outletsLotte Shopping will open its first wholly invested department store on Friday in Tianjin, China, company officials said Thursday.The country’s top retail giant said the store in Tianjin will be the third establishment built overseas, but the first operated “Korean style.”The department store, located in one of the largest cities in China,
U.S. inflation slows as gas prices fall

IndustryJun 16, 2011

Falling energy costs temper price rises; Americans pay more for cars, clothing and hotelsWASHINGTON (AP) ― Falling energy prices cooled overall inflation in May, offering some relief to consumers who have been coping for months with high gas prices.Consumer prices rose 0.2 percent, the smallest increase in six months, the Labor Department said. It was the first drop in energy costs in nearly a yea
Sunfull leader gets national award

PeopleJun 16, 2011

Professor Min Byoung-chul of Konkuk University received a national award Tuesday for his role in fighting cyber bullying and negative online comments.The professor of intercultural education and renowned English educator started the “Sunfull Movement” in May 2007 to promote a healthy culture of online communications. Professor Min Byung-chul receives a national award for his role in fighting cybe
Actress takes up social activism

PeopleJun 16, 2011

Kim Yoh-jin emerging as a leading figure on TwitterKim Yoh-jin, an established actress, is attracting attention as a social activist as she takes part in various rallies on sensitive social issues.The police are considering summoning the actress for questioning over her participation in a sit-in protest at Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction’s shipyard in Busan last week.She was one of the ac
Next Playboy has ‘runaway bride’ sticker on cover

PeopleJun 16, 2011
[Editorial] Public sector corruption

EditorialJun 16, 2011

A recent survey on the trends of corruption in the Korean public sector has found that 2010 was the worst year since 2000 in terms of businessmen’s perception of corruption among high-ranking government officials. According to the Korea Institute of Public Administration, 86.5 percent of the respondents said corruption was serious among senior public officials last year, the highest level since it
[Editorial] Aborted reform bid

EditorialJun 16, 2011

A parliamentary bid for judicial reform appears to have foundered in the face of stiff opposition from prosecutors, judges and the presidential office. The special parliamentary committee that has grappled with the tough task of reforming the judicial system since February last year has decided to stop work this month, leaving most of the main issues on its agenda unresolved.The committee reached
[William Pesek] Goldman cools on economy ignoring ‘China years’

ViewpointsJun 16, 2011

Just when we thought we’d seen everything from Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai prime minister has managed to clone himself. The genetic copy in question is Thaksin’s younger sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who is running for his old job. If you think this sounds like the political version of a cheesy horror film, imagine how Thailand’s 68 million people feel. They’ve seen this one before and it d
[Peter Singer] Verifying truths of moral claims

ViewpointsJun 16, 2011

OXFORD ― Can moral judgments be true or false? Or is ethics, at bottom, a purely subjective matter, for individuals to choose, or perhaps relative to the culture of the society in which one lives? We might have just found out the answer.Among philosophers, the view that moral judgments state objective truths has been out of fashion since the 1930s, when logical positivists asserted that, because t
Church-state clash will tell China’s future

ViewpointsJun 16, 2011

“As a sensitive day known to all fell in this week, many brothers and sisters began to be restricted at home,” report the leaders of the Shouwang congregation, one of the largest unauthorized “house churches” in Beijing. “Some were told to report at their respective local police stations or neighborhood committees” that answer to the communist government.The “sensitive day” is June 4, the annivers
[Ramesh Ponnuru] Free Republicans from middle-class tax trap

ViewpointsJun 16, 2011

For more than 30 years Republicans have won elections by promising to cut middle-class taxes, or at least to stop middle-class tax increases. No domestic issue has been as reliable a vote-winner. But now Republicans are in a bind. The huge deficit makes tax-cut promises seem impractical. They also worry that cutting middle-class taxes will leave high earners paying an even larger share of income t
[Ramin Jahanbegloo] Two years on Iran’s Green Movement is losing steam

ViewpointsJun 16, 2011

Celebrated in June 2009 as a model of nonviolent protest against autocracy, the Iranian Green Movement has lost much of its strength and mobilizing capacity inside Iran while the Arab Spring has toppled regimes across the region.In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak is under arrest. But in Iran, the two defeated candidates in the disputed presidential elections of June 2009 who played such an important role in
Pakistan denies army major was arrested because of CIA link

World NewsJun 16, 2011

ISLAMABAD (AP) ― The Pakistani army denied Wednesday that one of its majors was among a group of Pakistanis who Western officials say were arrested for feeding the CIA information before the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden.The New York Times, which first reported the arrests of five Pakistani informants Tuesday, said an army major was detained who copied license plates of cars visiting t
Ko Un’s poems on German literary group’s ‘best list’

FilmJun 16, 2011

Poet Ko Un’s collection of poems, “Instant Flowers,” has been listed on the “Best List” compiled by litprom, a non-profit organization in Germany that promotes literary works from Africa, Asia and Latin America, last week.The German organization selects a total of seven books written by authors in Africa, Asia and Latin America that have been translated into German twice every year ― one in March