The Korea Herald

[Robert Reich] The triumph of progressivism

May 24, 2013

Many of you soon-to-be college graduates are determined to make the world a better place. Some of you are choosing careers in public service or joining nonprofits or volunteering in your communities.But many of you are cynical about politics. You see the system as inherently corrupt. You doubt real progress is possible.“What chance do we have against the Koch brothers and the other billionaires?” you’ve asked me. “How can we fight against Monsanto, Boeing, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America? They b
India’s dark underbelly: neglected youths

May 23, 2013

Talk about India always begins with recognition that it’s one of Asia’s rising powers, a state with a fast-growing economy and burgeoning political influence on the world stage.But a closer look shows a dark underbelly that portends a sad time ahead.Put simply, the state is so badly neglecting its young, the next generation of the nation’s business and political leaders, that India is threatening its very future.“Why are the youth angry?” Rahul Ghandi pointedly asked a few weeks ago. He’s a prom
[David Ignatius] Testing time for Syria’s rebels

May 23, 2013

WASHINGTON ― It’s a rule of thumb in Middle East conflicts that whenever peace talks are announced, each side steps up the fighting so it can grab as much territory as possible before the cease-fire lines are drawn. This struggle for position is happening now in Syria, in the run-up to planned negotiations in Geneva next month that will be co-sponsored by the United States and Russia. But the battling on the ground is so intense, and the demand for additional weapons so vocal, that a skeptical p
[Zahid Hussain] Pakistan’s new era under Sharif

May 23, 2013

Good, bad or ugly, the 2013 elections are over; and now testing times are ahead for the new incumbents. It is the third coming for Nawaz Sharif, a remarkable turn of fortune for a leader who was ousted from power by the military at gunpoint in 1999 and convicted on treason charges.With the independents jumping on its bandwagon and support from allied parties the PML-N is now close to reaching the coveted two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.It may not be the same ‘heavy mandate’ that Sha
Thailand should learn from the success of Singapore

May 23, 2013

The tiny city-state has outperformed its neighbors because it has vision and discipline, precisely the things we lack in fractious, divided Thailand.Singapore is a city-state the size of Phuket. It has no natural resources, but since it gained independence from Malaysia in 1965, Singapore has become a leader on the global economic stage, thanks mainly to vision and adherence to policy. Singapore’s development philosophy is manifested in three giant investment projects that have taken shape over
Can Iijima’s N.K. visit help resolve abduction issue?

May 23, 2013

Is there any chance of finding a toehold to break the long-standing impasse on the problem of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents? The effectiveness of the diplomatic strategy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration is now being tested over the issue.Isao Iijima, special adviser to the Cabinet secretariat, who visited North Korea from Tuesday to Friday, briefed Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga after he returned on Saturday about his trip to Pyongyang. Iijima told the chief gover
Jingoistic press not helping Ma during Philippine row

May 23, 2013

Remember the Maine Incident of 1898? The USS Maine sank off Havana after an explosion and two crew members were killed. An anti-Spanish press enflamed American public opinion to a war-fevered pitch. Congress clamored for action. President William McKinley reluctantly succumbed and asked Congress to declare war. Congress did, of course. The Spanish-American War was brief, and the US acquired the Philippines as a colony, which it called a territory. Is there a parallel to Taiwan now?A Taiwan fishi
Did you graduate in four years? Congratulations

May 22, 2013

For the U.S. college students who will be paying for a four-year bachelor’s degree long after graduation day, here’s some consolation: At least it didn’t take you six or eight years. College is expensive, yet unpredictably so. Some students pay little for degrees from elite private institutions, after tuition discounts and financial aid. Many of their peers, however, will pay far more than they expected for lower-cost universities. A big reason for this is the increasing number of years it takes
[Dominique Moisi] America by drones and allies?

May 22, 2013

PARIS ― The demise of the Roman Empire resulted from a combination of strategic overreach and excessive delegation of security responsibilities to newcomers. Without making undue comparisons, the question for the United States today is whether it can remain the world’s leading power while delegating to others or to technological tools the task of protecting its global influence.Drones and allies ― non-human weapons and non-American soldiers ― have become central to America’s military doctrine. L
3-D printing: Ultimate intellectual-property threat?

May 22, 2013

Spend a few minutes on Shapeways.com, an online marketplace, and you get a glimpse of a very odd future. You can buy mustache cuff links, a pencil topper shaped like a Roman halberd, a pixelated bust of a glowering Steve Jobs, or a set of dice modeled on the Deathly Hallows of “Harry Potter” fame. All the items are designed by the site’s users and can be manufactured by Shapeways using 3-D printing technology. And they’re all for sale. The Internet is now alive with creative physical objects lik
Apple’s taxes expose the rotten U.S. code

May 22, 2013

When Apple Inc.’s chief executive officer, Tim Cook, bragged to a U.S. Senate subcommittee this week about his company’s culture of innovation, he probably hoped people would think of Apple’s gadgets, not its tax strategies. That seems unlikely, at least for now. Apple has opened a new front in the battle between corporations that aggressively avoid U.S. taxes and lawmakers who want to collect more of them. In so doing, Apple has made the case for why Congress must update the tax code. The compa
[Park Sang-seek] President Park’s approach to North Korea

May 22, 2013

In her address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on May 9, President Park Geun-hye outlined her North Korea policy. Dubbed trustpolitik, the policy consists of a trust-building process on the Korean peninsula, a trust-building process in Northeast Asia, and an international peace park in the Demilitarized Zone.There can be two contrasting views of her plan. Some might think that her plan is the rehash of the old strategies that her predecessors have already tried but to no avail. Others mi
[Daniel Fiedler] Keeping adultery criminal

May 21, 2013

For the sixth time in the last 25 years a lower court in South Korea has requested that the Constitutional Court review the constitutionality of the adultery law. Adultery is still a criminal offense in South Korea, and has been so for over 60 years. However, it is only in the last couple of decades that the criminality of what many see as a private matter has been questioned in the context of a modern democracy. The most public debate occurred five years ago when a famous actress challenged the
Japan Inc. should take a look in the mirror

May 21, 2013

Sony Corp.’s curt dismissal of a foreigner’s advice last week didn’t shock Michael Woodford, the former chief executive officer of Olympus Corp. “The club, meaning corporate Japan, will do everything it can to mask and hide what’s wrong. That’s what’s most important,” said Woodford, a Briton who was fired in late 2011 after he exposed a $1.7 billion accounting fraud in his own company. Woodford’s tale is worth revisiting as Sony rebuffs a proposal from hedge-fund investor Daniel Loeb for the com
The flawed origins of expansionary austerity

May 21, 2013

CAMBRIDGE ― Several of my Harvard University colleagues have recently been casualties in the crossfire between fiscal “austerians” and fiscal stimulators. The economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have received an astounding amount of press attention since it was discovered that they made a spreadsheet error in a 2010 paper that examined the statistical relationship between debt and growth. They quickly conceded their error.Soon after, the historian Niall Ferguson ― also at Harvard ― rec