The Korea Herald

[David Ignatius] A revolt’s extremist threat

ViewpointsOct 12, 2012

ALEPPO, Syria ― Leading the fight in Sakhour on the eastern side of this embattled city is the Tawafuk Battalion of the Free Syrian Army. It reports to a new coordinating body known as the Military Council, according to Mustafa Shabaan, the acting commander of Tawafuk. But wait a minute: A young fighter named Thaer tells me there are six or seven other battalions fighting in Sakhour, too, in what many claim is the decisive battle for Aleppo. Who commands these disparate fighters? And what about
[Editorial] A fresh start

EditorialOct 11, 2012

The latest selection of Kim So-young, a woman appellate court judge, as a Supreme Court justice nominee marks a fresh turn in the court’s nomination process. It should be welcomed on at least two counts.If approved by the legislature, her selection will mark an end to a long-held, misguided practice of keeping one prosecutor-turned justice on the court’s 14-member bench. It will also contribute to promoting diversity in the male-dominated bench. She will become the nation’s fourth woman justice
[Editorial] Neighborly relations

EditorialOct 11, 2012

In announcing a decision not to renew a currency swap contract with Japan on Tuesday, South Korea denied that domestic politics over a territorial dispute had a hand in making the decision. So did Japan, which claimed that the decision was based “purely on economic and financial factors.”Both of them were saying it was no longer necessary to extend the $57 billion swap deal because Korea had gained resilience to external financial risks. But few would believe it was Korea’s improved economic and
[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Monetary easing and growth

ViewpointsOct 11, 2012

NEW YORK ― Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic took extraordinary monetary-policy measures in September: the long awaited “QE3” (the third dose of quantitative easing by the United States Federal Reserve), and the European Central Bank’s announcement that it will purchase unlimited volumes of troubled eurozone members’ government bonds. Markets responded euphorically, with stock prices in the U.S., for example, reaching post-recession highs.Others, especially on the political right, worr
U.S. government should settle with Abdullah Kidd

ViewpointsOct 11, 2012

In the aftermath of 9/11, the federal government allowed its anxiety about possible future attacks to overwhelm its commitment to due process and the rule of law. An early manifestation of that overreaction was the rounding up of Arab and Muslim men on the pretext of holding them as potential witnesses at the trials of others.One victim of that policy was Abdullah Kidd, who was known as Lavoni Kidd when he played football for the University of Idaho. A convert to Islam, Kidd was arrested in 2003
Democratic system no excuse for inaction

ViewpointsOct 11, 2012

When former Taiwan Vice President Vincent Siew said last week that he has seldom found Taiwanese society so powerless and lost, he cut his old boss some slack by highlighting the challenge of democratic governance. Gone is the autocratic era when decisions were made by a few people and could be quickly implemented; the president now has to build consensus, Siew later pointed out. Democratic inefficiency has been much talked about after the Great Recession. People were shocked by the ineptitude o
Diet must get to work

ViewpointsOct 11, 2012

Although both the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the No. 1 opposition Liberal Democratic Party have chosen their new party leaders, the ruling and opposition forces still cannot agree on when to start an extraordinary Diet session. The primary responsibility rests on Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. He must fulfill his promise to then LDP chief Sadakazu Tanigaki to dissolve the Lower House “in the near future” by clearly showing when he will do so. If he does so, the ruling and opposition fo
Stimulus versus discipline: Which is the right road?

ViewpointsOct 11, 2012

The world’s finance ministers face a crucial opportunity when they meet this week. At stake is a sustainable economic recovery, but their weighty task is to find the balance between monetary easing and financial discipline that will deliver it.The meeting will focus on the budget stand-off in the U.S. and the debt crisis in Europe.The annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank this year was timely indeed. The gathering of the world’s economic decision-makers came amid
[Peh Shing Huei] Icebreaker for China-Taiwan ties

ViewpointsOct 11, 2012

Cross-strait relations are adding a curious shade of brown.As the green of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) edges towards the communist reds on the mainland, an earthy tone is being splashed across one of the world’s most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints.It is not a bad thing, said analysts, as former Taiwan premier Frank Hsieh, the highest-ranking DPP leader to visit the mainland, wrapped up his five-day landmark trip here.Beijing must be happy that even the pro-independence party
[Editorial] Tighter border guard

EditorialOct 10, 2012

A recent string of defections by North Korean soldiers across the inter-Korean border, as intelligence sources here suggest, may point to crumbling discipline within the key apparatus shoring up the impoverished regime. A 17-year-old soldier crossed the Military Demarcation Line near the truce village of Panmunjeom on Saturday after shooting two superiors dead. Four days earlier, another soldier defected to the South on the eastern front. A third North Korean soldier crossed the heavily-armed la
[Editorial] Gloomy Nobel season

EditorialOct 10, 2012

For Koreans, the Nobel Prize season is a period that makes them feel modest and even humiliated about their academic and intellectual levels, which are far below the world’s best.This year’s Nobel week kicked off Monday with the announcement of the medicine prize, which went to Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka and Britain’s John Gurdon for discovering that adult cells can be transformed back to early stem cells which can then be used to form any tissue type. No Korean name has been mentioned as a possibl
[David Ignatius] Face to face with a revolution

ViewpointsOct 10, 2012

ALEPPO, Syria ― A red-faced fighter named Faisal arrives at the forward headquarters of the Free Syrian Army pleading for weapons. He’s just come from the front line in a neighborhood called Sakhour, which has been under attack by the government’s forces for three weeks. As he shouts at his superiors, you can hear the thunder of incoming artillery about a half mile away. Faisal rages that his men are dying and he needs rocket-propelled grenades to fight the tanks of President Bashar al-Assad’s a
New style, but still the same old North Korea

ViewpointsOct 10, 2012

Pyongyang again disappointed those predicting it was about to change its ways. For months, experts and major media organizations have proclaimed imminent economic reform, even declaring that “North Korea has virtually abandoned the planned economy.” A rare second Supreme People’s Assembly this year could only mean codification of free-market principles, or so it was argued.Yet the legislative assembly came and went in late September with nary a whisper of economic reform. What went wrong? There
Climate-change denial getting harder to defend

ViewpointsOct 10, 2012

It was a long hot summer.The United States experienced the warmest July in its history, with more than 3,000 heat records broken across the country. Overall, the summer was the nation’s third warmest on record and comes in a year that is turning out to be the hottest ever. High temperatures along with low precipitation generated drought conditions across 60 percent of the Lower 48 states, which affected 70 percent of the corn and soybean crop and rendered part of the Mississippi River non-naviga
Living with death by drone

ViewpointsOct 10, 2012

Last week, Stanford University and New York University released a major study about the use of drones in the ever-evolving but never-ending war on terror. Unfortunately, many commentators missed the report’s key message: Drones are terrorizing an entire civilian population.I was one of the researchers for the study, and spent weeks in Pakistan interviewing more than 60 people from North Waziristan. Many were survivors of strikes. Others had lost loved ones and family members. All of them live un