The Korea Herald

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Investing in children’s well-being

Apr 24, 2013

NEW YORK ― Children are every country’s most vital resource. This is true not just morally, but also economically. Investing in the health, education, and skills of children offers the highest economic returns to a country. A new study by the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows which high-income countries are doing well when it comes to making these investments ― and which are doing poorly.The report, “Child Well-Being in Rich Countries,” takes a holistic view of the conditions of children in th
Poland still struggling to cope with dark past

Apr 24, 2013

WARSAW, Poland ― Simcha Rotem was stooped, his head bowed showing tiny wisps of white hair as he stood at a podium between two black menorahs spewing towering gas flames.Behind him a new, 40-foot-tall black stone frieze showed armed guerilla fighters, their faces locked in determined grimaces. And before him two dozen TV cameras recorded his every word as Rotem declared: “We knew we had no chance. Should we start the uprising? Those are the doubts I live with every day.”Rotem was a featured spea
Malaysia needs to get off the road to mediocrity

Apr 24, 2013

In his bid for re-election, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has dispensed with all shame. Vote for me, he has essentially declared, or Malaysia will suffer “catastrophic ruin” and an “Arab Winter” of the kind that has undone economies from Egypt to Libya. Both warnings are ludicrous ― signs of how worried Najib’s National Front coalition is of losing power for the first time since 1957. They speak to the desperation of a government that has come to serve itself, not Malaysia’s 29 million pe
[Park Sang-seek] Solving the North Korean nuclear conundrum

Apr 24, 2013

After the United Nations imposed stronger sanctions on North Korea last month, Pyongyang began all kinds of provocations against the U.S. and South Korea. The style and contents of North Korea’s invectives and provocations are more vicious but very familiar to us.If we examine the demands North Korea has been making since negotiations on denuclearization began in 1993, we can find a peaceful solution to the problem. During the six-party talks, the North Korean delegation said that it would rathe
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s rights, and the public’s

Apr 23, 2013

Even if no one ever tells him so, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has the right to remain silent. And even if he never utters another word, there is probably more than enough evidence to convict him. So all the concern about whether authorities gave him a Miranda warning, informing him of his right to remain silent and to have a lawyer, is sort of beside the point. Sort of ― but not entirely. Tsarnaev is a suspected criminal, not an enemy combatant, as the Justice Department properly acknowledged by charging
[Daniel Fiedler] A ‘pre-bar’ is not the solution

Apr 23, 2013

Three and a half years ago the new South Korean graduate law schools opened for business. These new schools dramatically changed how one became a lawyer in South Korea. Before this new system, any individual could take the bar exam. Successful applicants were then trained in one institute, the Judicial Research and Training Center, for two years. This system created many problems, chief among them the strong connections between lawyers, judges and prosecutors that came from attending one institu
We can’t even agree on what to call them

Apr 23, 2013

The debate over immigration reform has raised a question that’s almost as challenging: What should we call the approximately 11 million people who are in the United States illegally?The term illegal immigrants has been used routinely and often considered neutral. News organizations, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, have used it for years to describe people by their actions. But there is a case to be made that it dehumanizes a class of people by suggesting that they themselves are somehow aga
Why people stay scared after tragedies

Apr 23, 2013

The great psychologist William James was Gertrude Stein’s teacher and mentor. As legend tells it, James once posed a single question on a final examination: “What is risk?” Stein wrote, “This is,” walked out of the examination room, and went about her business. Supposedly James gave Stein an A. After a tragedy such as the one last week in Boston, people have a heightened sense of risk. If a flood, an earthquake, a violent crime or a terrorist attack has occurred in the recent past, people tend t
Venezuela’s Maduro off to an unruly start

Apr 23, 2013

While media coverage of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s inauguration on Friday centered on the contested April 14 election results, a dramatic escalation of government human rights violations since the election has gone virtually unnoticed.International human rights groups and Venezuelan opposition leaders say that in recent days the Maduro government has carried out a de facto takeover of Congress and is suppressing freedom of speech and assembly throughout the nation.“The dispute over th
[Kim Seong-kon] The books that shaped Korea

Apr 23, 2013

Recently, I was asked to write a blurb for the Korean translation of Thomas C. Foster’s book, “Twenty-five Books That Shaped America,” published by Random House Korea. As a professor of American literature, I immensely enjoyed reading the book originally published by Harper Collins in 2011. And I was equally impressed by the author’s profound insight into and powerful criticism of American culture and society, not to mention his erudite knowledge of American literature. In this impressive book,
[William Pesek] Learning lessons from Korea

Apr 22, 2013

Five years after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, developing nations confront a nasty pair of threats: an excruciatingly slow global recovery, and the tsunami of easy money that rich-world central bankers have unleashed as they try to revive their own economies. The problems are interrelated and no one should fear them more ― or be more open to suggested remedies ― than Xi Jinping. China’s new president knows he needs better than 8 percent growth to maintain social stability
Surreal crowdsourced manhunt in Boston

Apr 22, 2013

For several hours each year on the third Monday of April, the 600 block of Boylston Street in Boston is the most surveilled place on Earth. Television crews, news and commercial photographers, Web videographers, friends, family, tourists ― and, not incidentally, law enforcement ― all have their electronic eyes trained on the finish line of the Boston Marathon. This partly explains the whiplash speed of the investigation into this week’s bombings. With so much information, a break in the case was
Boston’s terror and the children of the fault lines

Apr 22, 2013

The world, in all its tangled webs, will be read into the Boston bombing suspects. For some, the Tsarnaev brothers are Chechen avengers, young men seared by the long war in Russia’s “southern backyard.” For Vladimir Putin and his regime, this deed of terror in an American city is, doubtless, a vindication of the iron fist with which the Russians fought their long war against Chechnya, proof of the malignancy of the Islamist menace. Foes of immigration can be expected to offer the Tsarnaev brothe
Thatcher’s legacy in the global financial sector

Apr 22, 2013

LONDON ― In the United States, for people of a certain age, Margaret Thatcher was a superstar, and Americans have been surprised at the sharply divided views on display in the Britain that she governed for 11 years. But Britons were not astonished. Like Tony Blair, Thatcher has long been a British product with more appeal in export markets than at home.All aspects of her legacy are earnestly disputed. Was she prescient about the problems of European monetary union, or did she leave Britain isola
$[Jeffrey Frankel] The unpersuasive reasons for opposing fracking$

[Jeffrey Frankel] The unpersuasive reasons for opposing fracking

Apr 22, 2013

CAMBRIDGE ― Against all expectations, U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, since peaking in 2007, have fallen by 12 percent as of 2012, back to 1995 levels. The primary reason, in a word, is “fracking.” Or, in 11 words: horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to recover deposits of shale gas.No other factor comes close to providing a plausible explanation. Unlike the European Union, the U.S. never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, in which participating countries committed to cu