As a Korean, it may be hard to make an impartial comment on the escalating dispute between Korea and Japan over the territorial rights to Dokdo. Basically, we Koreans do not consider the Dokdo issue a symmetrical controversy because Korea has had “effective control” over the group of islets in the East Sea for more than six decades. No one believes that there can be any change to it.Yet, it should be worthwhile to examine what logic the Japanese have developed to support their claim on “Takeshim

Signatures on paper have almost disappeared in shops in Seoul, with digital signatures taking their place. Digital signing is convenient and quick. But one may have noticed a difference between the two: In the conventional paper format, the signer and sales clerk apparently take the procedure more seriously than when its digital. Oftentimes I have a sales clerk who hits the “ok” button on his or her cash register in the middle of my putting my signature on the pad, which basically terminates the

Language reflects the culture from which it is derived and developed. It mirrors the customs, emotions and psychology of the people who speak the tongue. English, for example, is known to be a highly rational language that does not allow logical fallacies, inconsistency or incoherency. If you write grammatically incorrect sentences or contradict yourself in the same paragraph, your writing will immediately lose its validity and credibility. British and American college students’ term papers, for

With drug abuse having spread to more sectors of society ...Is Korea’s drug policy working?If law enforcement figures are any guide, Korea’s illegal drug problem pales in comparison with much of the rest of the world. There were 7,011 arrests for drug offenses in 2011, according to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, a 7 percent drop from the previous year. The U.S., by way of comparison, in 2010 made more than 1.6 million drug arrests, more than 36 times Korea’s figure, even after differences in p

TOKYO ― Has Japan’s political paralysis finally lifted? The recent agreement, after a long debate, between the government and leading opposition parties to double the consumption tax ― from 5 percent to 8 percent in 2014, and then to 10 percent in 2015 ― suggests that it has. But there is a real risk that the government will mistake this measure for the end of the reform process. In fact, it is ― or should be ― only the beginning.By virtually any measure, official Japanese debt is the highest in

Central banking used to be an august profession ― highly respected, almost revered, mainly because they looked after everybody’s money. But now that Wall Street can print more money than God, and the Fed and European Central Bank are still printing money to keep their economies from deflating, central bankers have lost their god-like status. Every year in August, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas would host an event in Jackson Hole for central bankers and key thinkers about money to debate the