The Korea Herald

Argentina cautionary tale as U.S. debates debt limit

Jan 21, 2013

You know all those warnings about how America’s addiction to deficit spending is going to make us look like Greece?Stop worrying. The bigger concern should be that America will look like Argentina.That could happen, theoretically, if the threatened refusal by Republicans in the House to raise the federal debt limit leads to a default on U.S. government bonds. How bad would it be, you ask?Think about this: Because of lawsuits over Argentina’s 2001 default on nearly $100 billion in sovereign debt,
[Joel Brinkley] Food security still a major issue in SE Asia

Jan 21, 2013

LUANG PRABANG, Laos ― Travel through Southeast Asia, and wherever you go you’ll find statues of Buddha ― meditating, cogitating, calling for peace or for rain. The multiple poses are varied, and each one has its own meaning.But only one pose shows the Buddha actually grinning. That’s the Buddha who is fat, sitting in a chair, his belly so big it looks like he’ll be unable to stand up.This might seem odd, given that Buddhism is generally an ascetic faith. To reach enlightenment, you’re supposed t
French action in Mali gives U.S. breathing space

Jan 20, 2013

It took the fear that Mali’s capital would fall to Islamic militants for the U.S. and France to part agreeably on the question of intervention. France has sent troops; the U.S. won’t, though it will help in other ways. That’s an appropriate division of labor, given the different stakes the countries have in Mali. It’s a welcome one, too. The U.S. can’t spearhead every battle against jihadists with global ambitions. If U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen created that impression, the
[Robert Reich] Break up Wall Street giants

Jan 20, 2013

TARP, the infamous Troubled Assets Relief Program that bailed out Wall Street in 2008, is finally over. The Treasury Department recently announced it will soon be completing the sale of the remaining shares it owns of the banks and of General Motors.But it’s not really over. The biggest Wall Street banks are now far bigger than they were four years ago when they were considered too big to fail. The five largest have almost 44 percent of all U.S. bank deposits. That’s up from 37 percent in 2007,
2013 to be a testing year for Asian economies

Jan 20, 2013

The growth rate of emerging Asian economies is expected to increase in 2013. But inflation and gloomy external conditions still pose a challenge for the macroeconomic policies of many of these economies. In the medium term, their growth rate will be higher than other regions but lower than it was before the global financial crisis. This squarely puts the focus on economic reform and restructuring.Though Asia’s economy is likely to bottom out this year, it will find it difficult to overcome the p
The global Indian

Jan 20, 2013

KOCHI, INDIA ― No other country has anything like it ― an annual jamboree of its diaspora, conducted with great fanfare by its government. India has been doing it, with great success, for a decade, timed to recall the return to India of the most famous Indian expatriate of them all, Mahatma Gandhi, who alighted from his South African ship in Bombay on Jan. 9, 1915. As I write, the southern port city of Kochi is overflowing with expatriate Indians celebrating their connection to their motherland.
[Zaki Ladi] Will France have to go it alone on security affairs?

Jan 20, 2013

PARIS ― In less than two years, France has carried out three decisive foreign military interventions. In March 2011, its airstrikes in Libya (alongside those of Great Britain) thwarted Colonel Muammar el-Gadhafi’s troops as they prepared to retake the city of Benghazi. A month later, French forces in Cote d’Ivoire arrested President Laurent Gbagbo, who had refused to recognize his rival’s election victory, putting the country at risk of civil war. Now France has intervened in Mali.The latest int
[David Ignatius] Afghanistan’s changing ways

Jan 18, 2013

NEW DELHI ― For Americans weary of nearly a dozen years of war, Afghanistan often seems like a country where nothing ever changes and the same story of ethnic and tribal struggle repeats itself in an endless loop. But Afghanistan’s demographics have changed in significant ways over the past decade. Rather than being mired in a perpetual feudal twilight, it’s actually becoming a modern country. The statistical evidence of change, gathered from USAID data and other sources, is overwhelming. The ur
Hollande proving himself a wise warrior

Jan 18, 2013

PARIS ― Socialist French President Francois Hollande is in the pilot’s seat in the world’s latest military incursion. We’re not used to seeing the French lead the way into battle, but it’s becoming increasingly frequent.Some 63 percent of the French support Hollande’s decision to take military action in Mali, according to a poll conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion. So why have the French suddenly developed such an itchy trigger finger?Under center-right former President Nicolas S
[Robert Reich] The hoax of ‘entitlement reform’

Jan 17, 2013

It has become accepted economic wisdom that the only way to get control over America’s looming budget deficits is to “reform entitlements.”The accepted wisdom is wrong.Republicans trot out federal budget data showing a 32 percent increase in direct payments to individuals since the start of 2009 ― including food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation and subsidized housing.But these expenditures are temporary. They’ve resulted from the deepest economic downturn since the Great Dep
No room for glitches in college entrance exams

Jan 17, 2013

Officials of the unified college entrance exams and universities that use the test for screening students must not allow a repeat of last year’s confusion. They should double-check whether their preparations are foolproof.About 570,000 applicants will take the test to be held Saturday and Sunday. A record 840 universities and junior colleges ― national, prefectural, municipal and private ― will use the test as part of their screening process.We urge the National Center for University Entrance Ex
Megatrends: Reading the crystal ball of the NIC

Jan 17, 2013

Noted philosopher and aphorist Yogi Berra once said that “making predictions is hard, especially about the future.” The U.S. National Intelligence Council hasn’t been deterred by the inherent difficulty of that endeavor, as it has just produced its sixth report on the state of the world some two decades in the future. It is an exhilarating assessment, although the ultimate outcome remains unknowable ― and it isn’t clear if the ability to see the future would prepare us any better for it. Neverth
Not so smoking gun

Jan 17, 2013

By mid-2014 Indonesia will begin to be a healthier nation ― if we can slide down the utterly unenviable world ranking regarding the number of smokers in this country. A government regulation signed just before Christmas and announced on Wednesday will make selling cigarettes much harder.The regulation restricts the forms and timing of broadcast tobacco advertisements and their billboards will be banned from major roads. The labels of “mild”, “light” or “slim” suggesting safer products will also
[Salman Haidar] In pursuit of peace along the line of control

Jan 17, 2013

The incident on the line of control (LOC) in which Indian soldiers lost their lives and their bodies were mutilated has shocked the country and cast a pall over relations between India and Pakistan. There have been calls for retribution and demands that such actions should not go unpunished. The government has been put under pressure to respond, its strong statements and diplomatic demarches not being sufficient to allay public indignation or to meet the demand for action, not words. The situati
U.S. Congress can resolve the debt-limit crisis

Jan 16, 2013

In the final news conference of his first term, President Barack Obama called the increasingly real specter of a U.S. default “irresponsible” and “absurd.” Yet the absurd has become sadly commonplace in Washington. Consider Obama’s news conference itself: At the same time he was comparing Congress to a bunch of deadbeat diners who refuse to pay their bill, the president was careful to say this was a crisis Congress would have to solve. It is not exactly a confidence-inspiring message. It is true