The Korea Herald

A better welcome for Iran’s new president

Aug 5, 2013

The U.S. House of Representatives has a peculiar way of welcoming Iran’s new president. Just days before today’s inauguration of Hassan Rohani, who has vowed to improve relations with the outside world and bring transparency to Iran’s nuclear program, the House approved legislation that would impose the harshest sanctions to date on Iran. It’s possible to doubt both the sincerity of Rohani’s pledges (or at least his ability to follow through on them) and the value of the House’s legislation. Par
[Terri Chung] Free my brother from N. Korea

Aug 5, 2013

I will never forget the sound of anguish my mother made as we watched the recently released video footage of the American citizen ― my brother, Kenneth Bae ― in a North Korean labor camp. Our family had been devastated by my brother‘s 15-year sentence of hard labor, but nothing could have prepared us for this.My mother drew in a sharp breath and broke into heaving sobs, gasping for breath, at the sight of her son so diminished. We could see the heavy toll his long imprisonment, since November, h
Obama, Republicans gird for another debt chicken

Aug 5, 2013

Democrats and Republicans, bracing for a game of chicken over a possible government shutdown and a debt-ceiling default, should rewatch the 1955 movie, “Rebel Without a Cause,” starring the American icon James Dean. A thug challenges Dean’s character to race their stolen cars toward an abyss. The first driver who jumps out of his speeding vehicle is a coward. Dean leaps just as his car is about to go over the cliff; the other guy’s leather jacket gets ensnared in the door handle, and he plunges
Follow basic safety rules to prevent water accidents

Aug 5, 2013

On July 15, six workers were killed at the flooded Noryangjin Reservior in Seoul. When the cause of the accident was disclosed, it became clear that the accident was a “man-made disaster.” If even one of the several dozens of people responsible for the construction of the Noryangjin Reservoir had fulfilled their roles properly, the accident could have been avoided; however, it happened as all of them handled it with insensibility and complacency.Three days later, on July 18, five second-year stu
[Jeffrey Frankel] Protectionist shadows cast over solar power

Aug 5, 2013

CAMBRIDGE ― As July ended, a settlement was reached in the world’s largest anti-dumping dispute, with China agreeing to a minimum price for the solar panels that it exports to the European Union. The solution is much less severe than what had been the imminent alternative: EU tariffs on Chinese solar panels were set to rise to 47.6 percent, as a result of the European Commission’s “finding” that China ― whose market share now stands at 80 percent in Europe ― had been “dumping.” Nonetheless, the
Our hotter, wetter, more violent future

Aug 4, 2013

Earth’s atmosphere seems to have found a way to get back at the human race. For almost three centuries, we humans have been filling the air with carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Now, it turns out, the climate change these emissions have wrought is turning people against one another. So says a review, published today, of 60 studies on how climate change helps spark conflict throughout the world. The researchers found a surprisingly close link between climate change and civil wa
[William Pesek] Asia’s $7 trillion problem

Aug 4, 2013

“It’s our currency, but it’s your problem.” This musing from Nixon-era Treasury Secretary John Connally is about to find new relevance as the White House battles Republicans over raising the U.S. debt limit. Connally couldn’t have foreseen how right he would be 42 years on as Asia sits on almost $7 trillion in currency reserves, much of it in dollars. Asia’s central banks engaged in a kind of financial arms race after a 1997 crisis, stockpiling dollars as a defense against turmoil. That altered
Six of Janet Yellen or half-dozen of Larry Summers?

Aug 4, 2013

The strangest part of the increasingly bitter shadow campaign for chairman of the Federal Reserve is that the contest is not really about monetary policy. It’s about financial regulation. The two leading candidates for the job are Janet Yellen, the current vice chairman of the Fed, and Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary and an economics adviser to President Barack Obama. When it comes to monetary policy, they don’t differ drastically. Both support the Fed policy to maintain low interes
Same old stories from the new China

Aug 4, 2013

In July, two stories out of China were big news. One focused on watermelon seller Deng Zhengjia, a poor urban migrant in Hunan province, who became newsworthy only when reports circulated that thuggish chengguan ― members of para-police units ― allegedly beat him to death. A week later, someone very different, Bo Xilai, was back in the news when he was formally charged with “abuses of power” and corruption. Bo ― the former party boss of one of China’s biggest cities, Chongqing, a Politburo membe
[Enrico Letta] New model for Europe needed to beat crisis

Aug 4, 2013

ROME ― It is becoming increasingly clear that if Europe is to overcome its crisis, business as usual will not suffice. We need a Europe that is more concrete, less rhetorical, and better suited to the current global economy. We need to focus not only on the European Union’s specific policies, but also on how to change its “politics” ― a change that must place economic growth at the top of the agenda.Europe does not need a debate between austerity and growth; it needs to be pragmatic. A good exam
Mideast negotiations far from ‘peace process’

Aug 2, 2013

Perhaps the most promising thing that can be said about anticipated Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations is that we don’t know much about them. After hosting talks about talks in Washington this week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said formal discussions would begin within two weeks. No terms of reference were announced, so it’s not clear whether the two sides will begin where previous negotiations left off, from scratch or somewhere in between. This is a plus. When commentators, politici
[Naomi Wolf] Through the lookism glass

Aug 2, 2013

NEW YORK ― Do women suffer from a double standard in the workplace in relation to how they look? Have we gotten past the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) shade of sexism in hiring and promotion ― disproportionately affecting women ― that I identified in 1991 as “the professional beauty quotient”?It is hard to believe that we are still talking about this 20 years later ― but we must. When anti-feminists make the case that there is now a “level playing field” for women, and that any gender gap
‘Zero Option’ might be best option in Afghanistan

Aug 1, 2013

For American forces in Afghanistan, this should be the last straw.It started in early July, when President Obama was once again so furious with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that for the first time he began talking about the so-called “Zero Option” ― bringing home the entire American military presence next year.This came after Karzai lambasted the U.S. for trying to arrange peace negotiations with the Taliban. Lost in his latest fit of pique, Karzai summarily terminated the continuing negotiatio
[David Ignatius] Kerry’s big-bang diplomacy

Aug 1, 2013

WASHINGTON ― How can Secretary of State John Kerry succeed in the “Mission Impossible” of negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement when he faces the same intractable issues that have derailed so many previous peacemaking efforts? Skepticism about Kerry’s project is nearly universal, and it’s understandable when you look at the graveyard of past negotiations. But there are some interesting dynamics beneath the surface that should make observers cautious about premature burial announceme
Buying justice in Indonesia

Aug 1, 2013

Few Indonesians would feel surprised by last week’s arrest of a lawyer and a Supreme Court staff member for alleged bribery as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had sent shockwaves in its attempts to unveil corruption within the judiciary.The KPK caught an advocate from Hotma Sitompul’s legal practice, Mario C. Bernardo, who was reportedly about to hand over a 80 million rupiah ($8,000) bribe to Supreme Court staff member Djodi Supratman on Thursday. The next day KPK investigators sear