CAIRO ― Last week, Egyptian voters delivered a stunning setback to the Islamist candidate for president, who had anticipated an electoral triumph so great that it would catapult his movement to power throughout the Middle East.True, Mohammed Morsi, the standard-bearer of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party, won the most votes out of a field of 13 in Egypt’s first free presidential elections. But, despite the Brotherhood’s organizational talents, Morsi collected only around a quart

Choosing a worthy president and commander in chief is not a casual task for voters.Those laboring to compare and contrast President Obama and Mitt Romney on war and foreign policy have a vexing assignment.Obama’s record invites approval and stirs frustration at the same time. He is working to leave Afghanistan, but not fast enough. He recently won support from NATO on a 2014 departure date to follow handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2013.To its credit, the Obama White Ho

This past week South Korea hosted the APEC education summit in Gyeongju ― a certain nod to Korea’s recent rise in the international arena with events such as the 2010 G20 summit and the nuclear summit hosted last month. Korea is making waves in respect to its educational system with statements of affirmation from such luminaries as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and U.S. President Obama. There are naysayers from within the “trenches” of Korean education who challenge this grand rhetoric, how

The curtain has been raised on the 19th National Assembly. The public has high expectations for the new parliament as the legislative procedure for contentious bills has been changed to promote inter-party compromise and prevent unsavory brawls among lawmakers.Yet the behavior of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party apparently has not changed much. They are reenacting the familiar haggling over the distribution of the chairmanships of the Assembly’s 18 standin

Not a day passes these days without corruption scandals grabbing headlines. On a daily basis, the media reports on corruption allegations involving presidential confidants, government officials, savings bank owners, police officers, etc. So much so that we are getting numb to corruption.For many years, Korea has been committed to fighting corruption. Successive governments have made earnest efforts to crack down on it. As a result of a continued anti-corruption drive, Korean society has become m

While I studied at teachers’ college, I dreamt of being a good teacher who played a small part in making our society better, and I also wanted to enjoy my free time reading English literature. I vividly remember how elated I was when I became an English teacher at a public school. However, my teacher’s life was very different from what I had expected. I was too busy to talk about a better society while working with accumulated paperwork and teaching textbook English for exams. I could not even f

Japan’s economy has been in a deep funk for two decades. China is in desperate need of a new economic and political model. And yet Korea keeps going from strength to strength, and is on track to overtake Japan’s income per capita.Korea’s economic catch-up has been nothing short of miraculous. Its income per capita has jumped from less than 20 percent of Japan’s four decades ago to 90 percent today. The catch-up vis-a-vis the U.S. is equally impressive ― from about 10 percent of U.S. income per c

This past week South Korea hosted the APEC education summit in Gyeongju -- a certain nod to Korea’s recent rise in the international arena with events such as the 2010 G20 summit and the nuclear summit hosted last month. Korea is making waves in respect to its educational system with statements of affirmation from such luminaries as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and U.S. President Obama. There are naysayers from within the “trenches” of Korean education who challenge this grand rhetoric, ho

Official figures paint a picture of the Korean job market that is far from bleak. On the contrary, Korea appears to be near “full employment,” given the 3.5 percent April jobless rate ― somewhere near an acceptable level of unemployment.But President Lee Myung-bak’s administration is desperate to create jobs by boosting growth. That points to a problem that cannot be described by the official jobless figures alone. Lying at the core of the problem is hidden unemployment. In other words, so many

One of the serious mistakes made by President Lee Myung-bak’s administration was to issue licenses to four new “general programming” cable television channels and one news-only channel last year. This is shown by their abysmal ratings, which reveal an average viewer share of less than 1 percent.One of the questions raised is why four general programming channels were allowed to operate when it was widely believed that, given the market size, two would be more than enough. Moreover, the advertisi

What spreads almost as fast as necrotizing fasciitis, a.k.a. flesh-eating infection? News stories about it.Surely by now you’ve heard about the horrifying case of Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old Georgia graduate student who cut her leg on May 1 and was on life support by May 4. When Copeland regained consciousness, much of the plugged-in world knew what she still did not: Her left leg had been amputated, skin on her abdomen had been removed and she still risked losing her right foot and all 10 f