The Korea Herald

[Christine M. Flowers] Standardized tests valuable in measuring aptitudes

Aug 11, 2014

I always felt like a little bit of an imposter in college.It wasn’t that I was straight and a significant percentage of the Bryn Mawr population loved both Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson (take whatever inference you want from that ...)It wasn’t that I was pro-life and most of my sister students were busy protecting their ovaries from my rosaries.It wasn’t that I loved football, and the only Eagles they were interested in were the ones on the endangered species list.The real reason I felt as
The damaging legacy of Nixon and Watergate

Aug 11, 2014

On Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon went on national TV to announce his resignation effective at noon Aug. 9. No president had ever been forced from the White House, because no political scandal had ever destroyed a president’s ability to lead the nation. Nixon’s Watergate scandal did.This week, the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s departure, is a good time for reflection, because many Americans interested in political issues are too young to have experienced the shocking realization that their
Plan Colombia worked; why not try the same in Central America?

Aug 11, 2014

For the citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the crisis prompted by the surge of children from Latin America coming across the U.S. border is not simply an immigration story. It is about more than unemployment, poverty, gang violence and the other forces that split families and lead parents to make desperate decisions.As people from these countries repeatedly tell me, the crisis comes down to this: What will it take for my homeland to become a place where I can safely live, work and
[David Ignatius] Helping Africa increase security

Aug 10, 2014

WASHINGTON ― President Barack Obama touted this week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit as “an extraordinary event.” That may sound like hype, but the gathering featured some innovative new ideas to prevent terrorism and lawlessness from spreading in Africa as it has in the Middle East. Obama announced two new programs that will help African nations combat internal disorder and the drift toward violent extremism. One is a partnership to assist countries in building rapid-deployment forces that can int
Central banker buys India too much slack

Aug 10, 2014

Raghuram Rajan may be too good a central banker for India’s own good.Of course, the stability the Reserve Bank of India governor has bestowed on Asia’s third-biggest economy is a good thing. When he started the job 11 months ago, the currency was plunging and markets were betting the country would be the first BRIC ― Brazil, Russia, India and China ― downgraded to junk. Today, those risks seem very distant ― and that may just be the problem.The calm that greeted Narendra Modi when he assumed pow
[Stephen L. Carter] Obama isn’t ready for another Cold War

Aug 10, 2014

In announcing new sanctions on Russia last week, President Barack Obama was at pains to insist that the standoff over Ukraine doesn’t mark the beginning of a new Cold War. No doubt he’s right ― but commentary on the Ukraine crisis has continued to embrace the Cold War analogy anyway. International observers have done so, too. So have some Russian commentators: “Russians Will Suffer in Putin’s New Cold War,” warns the opposition Moscow Times.Apparently, lots of people in the U.S. have similar wor
Argentina’s Griesafault

Aug 10, 2014

NEW YORK ― On July 30, Argentina’s creditors did not receive their semiannual payment on the bonds that were restructured after the country’s last default in 2001. Argentina had deposited $539 million in the Bank of New York Mellon a few days before. But the bank could not transfer the funds to the creditors: U.S. federal judge Thomas Griesa had ordered that Argentina could not pay the creditors who had accepted its restructuring until it fully paid ― including past interest ― those who had reje
Real border problem and what U.S. must do

Aug 10, 2014

The faces of frightened young children huddling together just inside our border are heartrending. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has the right attitude. Enough talk. Let’s act.Merely deploying National Guard units underscores the pressing need for a national dialogue that places immigration into a more sensible context. Too many politicians miss the real issues and exploit the topic for partisan gain.Immigration is a symptom. Immigrants have different motives for coming here, but a core problem stems fro
[Rachel Marsden] Cybersecurity hype and reality

Aug 8, 2014

LAS VEGAS ― The big players in the global information-security industry are intermingling with computer hackers this week at the annual Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. Even Chris Inglis, who stepped down as the deputy director of the National Security Agency earlier this year, is scheduled to attend the conference in his new capacity as an advisor to the American security-intelligence company Securonix. The purpose of the event is to reveal and discuss new threats and research in the field of
Richard Nixon, good liberal

Aug 8, 2014

Nixon without Watergate; it’s like Beethoven without music or “The Godfather” without violence.On the 40th anniversary this weekend of the resignation of the 37th U.S. president, his illegal activities, falling under the rubric of Watergate, dominate. That likely will be the case on the 140th anniversary; he is the only president ever to resign from office, just before he would have been the first convicted of impeachment offenses.Yet there was a lot more to the five and half years of Richard Ni
[Robert Reich] Due reward for social workers

Aug 7, 2014

What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society.Does anyone seriously believe that hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen is worth the $2.3 billion he raked in last year, despite being slapped with a $1.8 billion fine after his firm pleaded guilty to insider trading?On the other hand, what’s the worth to society of social workers who put in long and difficult hours dealing with patients suffering from mental illness or substance abuse? Probably higher than the
Obama is no foreign policy wimp

Aug 7, 2014

I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that the U.S. is doing very well at the international Great Game under President Barack Obama.Now, you may think U.S. hegemony is a good thing or a bad thing (personally I prefer it to the alternatives currently on offer). And you may disapprove of Obama’s methods, which include the scary advent of drone warfare. But in terms of pure realpolitik, Obama seems to be very far from the weak, ineffective statesman that the Republicans try to portray him as.Let’s
[Salman Haidar] Kerry should set India-U.S. ties back on the rails

Aug 7, 2014

Internationally, this has not been a comfortable period for the United States. Cascading crises in different parts of the world threaten to undo what was achieved not so long ago under U.S. aegis, at great cost of blood and treasure. Destructive fundamentalist and authoritarian forces that seemed to have been firmly repressed have revived in more malevolent form than ever, and rebels now feel strong enough to challenge state structures in open combat.The perpetually simmering Israel-Palestine di
Thai economy needs more than a good image

Aug 7, 2014

At a recent major business seminar, everyone was speaking about the obvious. Thailand’s economic outlook, the participants said, was all right for the short term but highly unpredictable in the long run. Of course, the vicious political cycle was cited and nobody was confident that another loop of uprising, potential bloodbath, an elected government targeted for abusing its mandate, and then a coup wouldn’t happen again. In addition, some expressed concern that potential investors living far awa
We can still learn from history

Aug 7, 2014

Covering politics and politicians isn’t good for the health. No one can live life as an endless series of nanosecond-like encounters.Sometimes it seems as if my existence is colored, even defined by blips of information from Iocal media outlets, images and sound bites.Then there are the instant buzz issues, that change every few hours: What will be the impact of Prabowo Subianto’s petulant challenge to the Indonesian presidential election results?How will President-elect Joko Widodo’s first cabi