The Korea Herald

[William D. Cohan] Ending the moral rot on Wall Street (Part 1)

ViewpointsAug 16, 2011

The following is the first installment of a three-part article on Wall Street corruption and remedies for it. ― Ed.What will it take for Americans to finally get the message that much of Wall Street, in its current form, is a corrupt enterprise in need of a top-to-bottom overhaul, a task that the ye
[Pankaj Mishra] London’s rioters are Thatcher’s grandchildren

ViewpointsAug 16, 2011

I am often asked, when in the U.S. or Europe, whether I feel frightened while traveling through such obviously dangerous places as Afghanistan and Kashmir. It’s hard for me to explain, and so I never confess, that I feel more insecure on the streets of Tower Hamlets, a London borough just south of T
[Joel Brinkley] Settlements keep Mideast unsettled

ViewpointsAug 15, 2011

GUSH ETZION, West Bank ― Shaul Goldstein knows that most everyone on earth dislikes him and his kind. For some it’s visceral hatred. For others he represents the largest obstacle to solving a problem everyone everywhere wants resolved.“We are the enemy of the world,” he volunteered without any promp
[J. William Leonard] When national secrecy gets out of hand

ViewpointsAug 15, 2011

Every 6-year-old knows what a secret is. But apparently our nation’s national security establishment does not.Consider this strange case from earlier this year. On June 8, the National Security Agency, a top-secret government spy agency, heralded the “declassification” of a 200-year-old publication,
[Editorial] East Sea or Sea of Korea?

EditorialAug 15, 2011

Various arguments are presented in the disputes between nations over geographical names. One can cite legal, political, traditional, historical and academic grounds to justify a preferred name for a certain place. The name of a sea, a gulf or a strait has little legal importance, as it rarely involv
[Editorial] Rain, rain, rain

EditorialAug 15, 2011

Koreans will remember the summer of 2011 as having the heaviest rains in their life. The Korea Meteorological Administration’s observatories have recorded new records of precipitation per hour, the number of consecutive rainy days and other statistics. People lost their lives in mudslides, in sudden
[Brahma Chellaney] Ethnic tremors an obstacle to stability in China

ViewpointsAug 15, 2011

NEW DELHI ― In the face of spreading civil unrest among China’s Uighur population, the Chinese government’s love-fest with its all-weather ally, Pakistan, may be starting to sour. Indeed, the authorities in China’s Xinjiang province are charging that a prominent Uighur separatist that they captured
[Seth Masket and Hans Noel] Don’t look to a third-party candidate to lead U.S.

ViewpointsAug 15, 2011

Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Barack Obama and an independent and pragmatic president beholden to no party, ideology or interest group are walking down the street. At the same time, all four spot a dollar bill on the ground. Who gets the dollar?Obama, of course. The other three are figments of your
[Rachel Marsden] A disconnect on immigration

ViewpointsAug 15, 2011

Ipsos has just released a poll measuring citizens’ perception of immigration in 23 countries. Despite what politicians around the world would have their countrymen believe, the average person isn’t buying the benefits of current immigration policy.The poll proves that our collective gut is indeed in
Do we need so many public NETs?

Aug 15, 2011

As Gyeonggi Province cuts foreign teacher numbers ... A native English teacher at the National Institute for International Education in Seoul. (Yonhap News)The future of NETs in KoreaThere are currently about 30,000 native English teachers in South Korea, a majority of whom work at private scho
Readers’ voice

Aug 15, 2011

On teacher numbers ...Even if non-native speakers of English are relatively good at teaching conversational English, it’s very difficult to teach culture, slang, idioms, customs, etc. When I taught at a public middle school, the non-native conversation teacher taught mostly in Korean. The only diffe
[Robert Reich] Jobs bill needed to stop double-dip

ViewpointsAug 14, 2011

Republicans repeatedly assured the nation that once the debt-limit deal was done ― capping spending, cutting the budget deficit, and getting “98 percent” of what they wanted, according to House Speaker John Boehner ― the economy would bounce back.Guess what? Just the opposite seems to be happening.
[Jeff Dietrich] Home sweet shopping cart for those on skid row

ViewpointsAug 14, 2011

It looked like an anti-terrorist takedown: five cop cars, 10 police officers, a yellow skip loader and a 5-ton dump truck. They screeched to a halt and blocked off 6th Street in front of our soup kitchen in downtown Los Angeles. But their target this spring was not a suicide bomber or a hidden nucle
[Editorial] Korea Herald birthday

EditorialAug 14, 2011

Today, The Korea Herald entered its 59th year as Korea’s window to the world and bridge to the global community, a job performed with a strong sense of dedication to public service. Born only a few weeks after the cease-fire of the Korean War, the English-language newspaper has been published withou
[Editorial] Double anniversary

EditorialAug 14, 2011

After six decades, “8.15” ― the double anniversary of the 1945 liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II and the 1948 inauguration of the Republic of Korea’s first government ― is fading as a national day celebrating Korea’s independence. Busy Koreans need to do some soul-sea