The Korea Herald

International cooperation crucial for Ebola

Aug 14, 2014

A widespread infection with Ebola virus has been reported in West Africa. International cooperation is essential to prevent the expansion of this terrible disease.The deadly virus has been spreading from Guinea since February. The death toll from the epidemic has topped 900 in Guinea and its two neighboring countries, Sierra Leone and Liberia, marking the largest number of victims since the first patient with Ebola virus was confirmed in 1976.Deaths from the virus have been also confirmed in Nig
[Nayan Chanda] An opportunity that India let go

Aug 14, 2014

Foreign pressure often provides governments with a handy lever with which to overcome domestic vested interests and push through long-overdue reforms. The rules on agricultural subsidies set by the World Trade Organisation are one such tool. A reform-minded Narendra Modi government should have taken advantage of them to make it easier to dismantle the nation’s populist and financially ruinous policy of providing food subsidies as well as free water and electricity.Instead, New Delhi stood alone
Dangers of equating reform with stricter control

Aug 14, 2014

Siam Cement Group’s latest TV commercial is worth watching.Featuring children from all 10 ASEAN nations, it shows what our younger generation expects from technology. A Vietnamese boy hopes that one day a house will be able to generate electricity on its own. A Thai girl foresees medical advancements. A Myanmar girl dreams of clean food. Yes, all this requires technological development ― which fits SCG’s vision of itself as an innovative organisation. Importantly, it also fits its ambition to be
[Chun Sung-woo] Learn from Yi’s leadership

Aug 13, 2014

The popularity of “Roaring Currents,” a period movie on Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s (1545-1598) great victory over a much larger Japanese invading fleet in 1597, continues its sweeping upturn. The film broke another box-office record on Sunday, passing the 10 million viewer mark at the fastest pace for a flick screened in Korea, a nation of about 50 million people. It took just 12 days from its premiere to pass the milestone and the number of movie goers is still rising.At first, few expected the movie
[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Responding to Ebola epidemic

Aug 13, 2014

NEW YORK ― The horrific Ebola epidemic in at least four West African countries (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria) demands not only an emergency response to halt the outbreak; it also calls for re-thinking some basic assumptions of global public health. We live in an age of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that can spread quickly through global networks. We therefore need a global disease-control system commensurate with that reality. Fortunately, such a system is within rea
How to fight Islamic State jihadists

Aug 13, 2014

About a century ago, after World War I, British and French leaders carved up the Middle East and set the modern borders of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.Now a growing force of Sunni extremists fighting under the banner of the Islamic State are creating a new nation in the same region ... at gunpoint. Its boundaries are not yet set in ink on a map. But the jihadists have seized vast chunks of Syria and Iraq with a clear goal: Establish a new “caliphate,” an Islamic state led by a supreme religi
Japan needs more Jim Beam

Aug 13, 2014

Two things caught my eye last week: the Bank of Japan, which decided to lay off the monetary stimulus, and Jim Beam ― the latter not for reasons you might think.BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda is a smart and battle-tested policymaker. By now, he has to know that pumping more money into the econony won’t end Japan’s deflation. Falling prices are as much about the aging population as anything else, and only structural change can arrest the trend. Kuroda seemed to admit as much by taking no new action as
Corrections come on regular basis

Aug 13, 2014

Last month, we discussed how we might be on the verge of a correction. We also noted the futility of trying to time the start and finish of such events. What actually matters is how you react ― or overreact. As my colleague Josh Brown has observed, “since the end of World War II (1945), there have been 27 corrections of 10 percent or more, versus only 12 full-blown bear markets (20 percent or worse).”However, the data show that the distribution of corrections isn’t smooth. Indeed, almost half (4
[Robert J. Fouser] What’s in your bibimbap?

Aug 12, 2014

Over the past month, people from different walks of life have told me that much of the kimchi served in restaurants is imported from China. A chef friend at a local restaurant told me that most of the ingredients in bibimbap come from China. The same holds true for vegetable side dishes. Imported food from China costs less than growing it and preparing it in Korea because of the cost of labor. This is particularly true of vegetables that require time-consuming preparation.Much imported food cont
Another Apple alibi sours

Aug 12, 2014

Complacency is a sin in business in general and a deadly one in technology; now that devices with the Android operating system have surpassed Apple’s iOS in web-browsing share, the iPhone maker is guilty of hubris. The day is coming when Apple will either need more aggressive pricing, or a qualitative jump echoing the one that first made it a leader in mobile.Few remember now that in 2009, the year Samsung introduced its first Galaxy smartphone running Google’s Android OS, the South Korean compa
[Kim Seong-kon] Korea needs colorless and color-free men

Aug 12, 2014

We know those who subscribe to political correctness prefer the term “a man of color” to “a colored man,” which they believe is tainted with racial bias. Indeed, “a man of color” sounds more positive and attractive since it implies that the person has a unique charm and personality. Even in Korean, “a man of color” (saekal itneun namja) has good connotations and refers to a man of charming and inimitable character. In Korean society, however, we certainly need colorless or color-free men because
Ebola provides a painful lesson on Liberia

Aug 12, 2014

Dr. Elinor Graham and her friend, Dr. Roseda Marshall, are two remarkable doctors united by their concern for the well-being of the Liberian people. In recent weeks they have been gathering medical supplies and raising awareness about Liberia among Americans.Liberia is one of several West African countries struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak that as of late last week had taken almost 900 lives. And it is one of the three most affected countries, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau, non
How U.S. can avoid the next housing bust

Aug 12, 2014

The boom-and-bust in the housing market has ruined lives, wiped out vast amounts of wealth and taught some hard lessons ― including at least one that Congress has seen fit to ignore: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have got to go.These huge, government-sponsored companies buy mortgages from lenders and bundle the loans into securities for sale to investors. They guarantee the underlying loans, and their guarantee is backed, in effect, by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury.Fannie and Fredd
[Sanjeev Sanyal] The last pagans standing in Iraq

Aug 11, 2014

SINGAPORE ― With U.S. President Barack Obama belatedly ordering air strikes and humanitarian airdrops of food and relief supplies to refugees in northern Iraq, the world is finally taking action against the Islamic State. Within a few months, the jihadist group, which until recently called itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has taken control of large parts of both countries, where it has proclaimed a new “Caliphate.” But the real reason to fear the Islamic State is not its lust for powe
Can Obama rise to the moment in Iraq?

Aug 11, 2014

To many, President Barack Obama’s authorization of airstrikes in Iraq ― and their commencement a few hours ago ― appears to be a major shift in U.S. posture. Certainly, this is the hope of millions of Kurds, tens of thousands of Yezidis, and countless other Iraqis desperate to stave off further gains by the radical fighters of the Islamic State in the Levant. Undoubtedly, it was a tough decision for the president, who has long been reluctant to use force in the Middle East and has prided himself