The Korea Herald

[Eli Park Sorensen] Reading Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ today

Jun 30, 2013

Following the dramatic news of the U.S. National Security Agency’s extensive surveillance operations, several organizations and journalists turned to George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” in an attempt to find suitable words to describe the situation. The American Civil Liberties Union labeled the case “beyond Orwellian,” while numerous newspaper editorials worldwide made references to the acclaimed novel. Amazon recently reported that sales of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” had gone up 9,538 per
Decrypting Snowden’s Russian layover

Jun 28, 2013

PARIS ― “A traitor is always useful,” a Russian security service friend said to me while discussing NSA contractor turned defector Edward Snowden’s arrival in his country.Snowden has fallen into the open arms of Mother Russia, where he was greeted at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport by a Russian security service contingent. The plan reportedly was for Snowden to pass through Russia en route to another country, after sharing America’s stolen secrets with Hong Kong authorities. As luck would have it,
[Dominique Moisi] America’s disinterest in Europe

Jun 28, 2013

JERUSALEM ― “Europe is boring: thank God, for you and for us,” my interlocutor told me. “Today, drama is in the Middle East, growth is in Asia, hope is in Africa, and proximity to the United States is in Latin America. Europe is nowhere ― it has become the lost continent.”There is, of course, a little provocation and a lot of irony in these remarks. A few years ago, their speaker occupied important positions within U.S. diplomacy; he is now a key figure of the New York establishment. And his pro
Gay-marriage ruling safeguards human dignity

Jun 27, 2013

The word “dignity” can’t be found in the Constitution, but in his majority opinion in U.S. v. Windsor, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy uses it no fewer than nine times (actually 10, if we include “indignity”). The foundation of the court’s opinion, and its real importance, lie in its insistence on human dignity as a constitutional value, one that stands at the heart of our longstanding commitment to equal protection of the laws. In Windsor, the court struck down a central provision of the
[Robert Reich] Why the GOP can’t learn

Jun 27, 2013

It’s as if they didn’t learn a thing from the 2012 elections. Republicans are on the same suicide mission as before ― trying to block immigration reform (if they can’t scuttle it in the Senate, they’re ready to in the House), roll back the clock on abortion rights (they’re pushing federal and state legislation to ban abortions after the first 22 weeks) and stop gay marriage wherever possible.As almost everyone knows by now, this puts them on the wrong side of history. America is becoming more et
On Indonesia’s mass organization bill

Jun 27, 2013

Apparently confident of its substance but cognisant they have “overlooked” the mass organizations, the subject of the bill on mass organizations, the House of Representatives agreed on Tuesday to postpone the passing of the bill into law until July 2.The postponement of the endorsement of this controversial bill will not provide any room for substantial changes, especially as the one-week delay is only for the House to inform mass organizations of the bill’s substance, particularly those article
More organizations mean more taxpayers’ money

Jun 27, 2013

Controversies may rage as strong as the deluge-fed Himalayan torrents over the “larger issues” that contributed to the devastation in Uttarakhand. But there is unquestioned acceptance of what passes as the local administration having simply collapsed ― and the “unprecedented” nature of the downpour is a poor alibi. A common theme runs through the lament of the suffering: had it not been for India’s military and paramilitary there would have been virtually no rescue action. The district authoriti
Taiwan gearing up for new war over trade in services with China?

Jun 27, 2013

Taiwan and China signed what is known as the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement in Shanghai on June 21, and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party is getting ready to start a new trade war between Taipei and Beijing, akin to the American beef and pork wars of 2010 and 2012.Shortly before the pact was signed, DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang said President Ma Ying-jeou should call a halt to the signing, because the general public opposes it. Should it be signed, he threatened, his opposition pa
[Kavi Chongkittavorn] ASEAN, China in tug-of-war on code of conduct

Jun 27, 2013

In the next few months, ASEAN and China must show the world they can find common ground, no matter how thin it may be. Their joint message must be clear: they can work and make progress together towards a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea. With such readiness, it would reduce the ill-feeling that has dominated the global media for the past two years.China’s new Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a successful maiden visit to Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei in early May. During t
Court’s unsatisfying affirmative-action decision

Jun 26, 2013

There will come a day when the U.S. Supreme Court decides that affirmative action is no longer constitutional. The question is whether that day comes before or after the rest of America decides that affirmative action is no longer necessary. All that’s certain is that neither day is today. In a 7-to-1 ruling, the court agreed that the University of Texas can consider race as a factor in admissions. A diverse student body, wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, “is a constitutionally permissible goal.
[David Ignatius] Fallout of Snowden’s actions

Jun 26, 2013

WASHINGTON ― Congress and the courts will sort out the big questions about privacy and surveillance posed by Edward Snowden’s disclosure of National Security Agency monitoring programs. In the meantime, there are some nagging smaller questions raised by this hemorrhage of secrets. These mundane questions interest me partly because the big privacy issues don’t seem all that shocking. In more than 34 years of traveling regularly overseas, I have assumed that foreign intelligence services are picki
Canal in Nicaragua: A big dig ― or big scam?

Jun 26, 2013

Nicaragua’s $40 billion deal with a Chinese company to build a trans-oceanic waterway that will compete with the Panama Canal will either be Latin America’s most important economic project in more than a century or the biggest government scam in the region’s history.There are many reasons to think it may be the latter. The big question, however, is why reputable U.S. consulting firms ― including McKinsey, McLarty Associates and former Transparency International anti-corruption crusader Ronald Ma
A worthy debate on surveillance and privacy

Jun 26, 2013

Even as he condemned Edward Snowden’s leaks about two government surveillance programs, President Obama said he welcomed the debate about whether post-9/11 efforts to detect terrorist plots have undermined Americans’ privacy. That debate has raged since the Guardian and the Washington Post published material provided by Snowden, and two things are clear:― The American public and many members of Congress were unaware of the scope of the government’s electronic surveillance programs, which include
[Kim Myong-sik] In defense of a dead president over NLL remarks

Jun 26, 2013

The political storm over the released minutes of the 2007 South-North summit brings a few questions to the mind of this annoyed watcher. First, was President Roh Moo-hyun really ready to abandon the NLL or did he just mention it as a strategic rhetoric to lead his host to a meaningful negotiation on overall inter-Korean issues? Second, who gains and who loses with the exposure of the details of the dialogue between the two men who both have died? In this summer of 2013, we are confronting a whol
China loses control of its Frankenstein economy

Jun 25, 2013

The world has grown used to the idea that China’s leaders are masterful stewards of their gargantuan economy. They steered brilliantly around the iceberg of the 2008 financial crisis, maintaining growth of near-double-digit rates. So when People’s Bank of China chief Zhou Xiaochuan began clamping down on excessive liquidity last week, some observers viewed him as a Chinese Paul Volcker. Now that the worst was over, Zhou seemed to indicate, it was time for China to rein in lending and prevent a c