The Korea Herald

[Eli Park Sorensen] Yearning for conspiracy theories

Aug 2, 2012

“Everyone loves a conspiracy,” says symbology professor Robert Langdon, the main character in Dan Brown’s mega-bestseller “The Da Vinci Code” (2003). The novel develops a wild conspiracy theory about what is allegedly the “greatest cover-up in history”; that Jesus married a woman named Mary Magdalene who subsequently escaped to southern France carrying his child. The Catholic Church decided to repress this story for political reasons, thus denying Mary Magdalene ― the embodiment of the “sacred f
A Berlusconi comeback is last thing Italy needs

Aug 1, 2012

Until recently, it was hard to imagine that Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s scandal-prone former prime minister, might attempt another comeback. Now, sadly for Italy and Europe, he might. Italy’s prospects are troubled enough without the turmoil that a resurgence of the billionaire media mogul would stir. Berlusconi, 75, was out of favor when he left office in November, and his career in politics looked over. A busy retirement ― including defending himself on a charge of paying a minor for sex, which
[Yuriko Koike] South Korea’s budding ‘femocracy’

Aug 1, 2012

TOKYO ― This is a year of presidential elections worldwide, and the last to take place ― on Dec. 19 ― will be in South Korea. That ballot, however, is already having an international impact, in part because South Korea’s failure to ratify an important new intelligence-sharing treaty with Japan is widely seen as a result of campaign politics. But the election may well have a more positive impact on the region as a whole.On July 10, the frontrunner, Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri (New Frontie
The great game has started in Asia-Pacific

Aug 1, 2012

While Mao Zedong was the founder of communist China, Deng Xiaoping was the architect of its economic miracle and great power resurgence. Even as China was going through spectacular economic growth during the 1980s and 1990s, Deng cautioned the country’s leaders to “bide your time and hide your capabilities.” The first part of his advice was spot on as China was navigating the difficult task of building and modernizing in an international environment not entirely favorable to the country. By conc
Extreme weather events reflect climate change

Aug 1, 2012

NEW YORK ― For years, climate scientists have been warning the world that the heavy use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) threatens the world with human-induced climate change. The rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, would warm the planet and change rainfall and storm patterns and raise sea levels. Now those changes are hitting in every direction, even as powerful corporate lobbies and media propagandists like Rupert Murdoch try to
[Andrew Sheng] The long hot summer and markets’ ability to adapt

Aug 1, 2012

The summer heat wave in the U.S. Corn Belt is going to hit grain production and has already raised food prices. So far, such price increases have yet not translated into global inflation, thanks to better food crop production in other parts of the world. Commodity traders today use satellite maps to track global crop production and weather conditions in order to predict commodity prices. In 1878, English economist William Stanley Jevons (1835-82) even suggested that economic cycles are related t
Lack of ideas in Congress worse than in farm belt

Jul 31, 2012

The worst drought in more than a half-century is gripping most of the U.S. Midwest and South, damaging crops and presaging higher food prices. Congress is deadlocked as it tries to pass a new farm bill, as it does every five years, amid demands for broad emergency assistance for the hardest hit areas. This impasse may be the best thing that one could hope for, considering the flaws in the proposed legislation. Instead of trying to adopt a new bill before its August recess, Congress should approv
[Daniel Fiedler] A rational AIDS policy for Korea

Jul 31, 2012

The recent acceptance by the U.N. human rights commission of a claim against South Korea for its mandatory HIV testing of native speaking English teachers is focusing international attention once again on the AIDS policy here. This attention comes as a consequence of current myopic policies that contrast starkly with the quick and rational reaction of the government in 1985 when the first cases of HIV infections were detected in prostitutes patronized by U.S. soldiers. At that time the governmen
Is medical marijuana making people sick?

Jul 31, 2012

The Los Angeles City Council voted last week to ban medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, the culmination of years of controversy over the sale of pot here. Meanwhile, in Oakland, a federal crackdown closed the nation’s largest dispensary amid protests and demonstrations. But authorities rarely seem to address the real issue about marijuana in California: Is it good medicine?Some proponents of medical marijuana argue that pot is “natural” and therefore better, or at least no worse, than le
Breaking up the megabanks

Jul 31, 2012

Former Citigroup honcho Sanford I. Weill is widely seen as the man most responsible for the rise of “too big to fail” banks and, by extension, for the enormous federal bailouts they received in 2008 and 2009. Last week, however, Weill shocked the financial industry when he said that megabanks should be broken into smaller pieces, separating the arms that take federally insured deposits from the ones making bets on Wall Street. Lawmakers resisted such a straightforward approach when they enacted
Wall Street’s kangaroo court gets a black eye

Jul 31, 2012

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” the future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote in a 1913 article for Harpers’ Weekly, and now, almost 100 years later, there is evidence that Brandeis was right. On July 9, I wrote a column describing how the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s self-policing organization, seemingly out of nowhere fired three arbitrators in the months after a May 2011 case in which they awarded $520,000 to the estate of th
[Kim Seong-kon] No more cultural misunderstandings

Jul 31, 2012

Misunderstandings between two countries often arise due to a lack of cultural understanding. These international conflicts, however, can be prevented if one country seeks to gain a deeper knowledge of the social customs, psychology or judicial systems of the other country. Just recently, for example, a preventable mishap occurred between two parties due in part to cultural ignorance.Reports revealed that two U.S. military police officers publicly arrested a Korean man for a seemingly insignifica
Cronyism the real cause of Olympic security mess

Jul 30, 2012

It’s hip these days for everyone from world leaders to the Occupy Wall Street crowd to attack free-market, limited-government capitalism as wild and in need of control because it’s supposedly the cause of the world economic collapse. This is a myth. It’s too much government-facilitated cronyism that’s causing the mayhem wrongfully attributed to capitalism. This trend now continues in the context of the London Olympics and its private security outsourcing.Security firm G4S fell drastically short
[Robert B. Reich] Outsourcing isn’t the problem

Jul 30, 2012

President Obama is slamming Republican challenger Mitt Romney for heading companies that were “pioneers in outsourcing U.S. jobs,” while Romney is accusing Obama of being “the real outsourcer in chief.”These are the dog days of summer, and this is the silly season of presidential campaigns. But can we get real, please?The American economy has moved way beyond outsourcing abroad or even “in-sourcing.” Most big companies headquartered in America don’t send jobs overseas and don’t bring jobs here f
Don’t like Asian state capitalism? Blame the West

Jul 30, 2012

State capitalism, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, is a serious rival to U.S. and European businesses, which face being excluded from some markets. “Instead of trying to prevent ― or worse, dismiss altogether ― the rise of state-capitalist systems,” the magazine argues, “U.S. and European companies and governments would do better to learn from them.” A similar case was made in the 1980s, when Japan’s state-supported conglomerates briefly threatened to take over the world. For a moment ― as I