The Korea Herald

First World problems

Mar 27, 2012

After being bombarded with news of Third World problems for so long, I figured it was time to give a bit of equal time to First World suffering. Every so often I reach a boiling point with modern Western culture and feel the need to rant ― so I’m going to bleed it out through my fingertips, as Ernest Hemingway used to say of writing, before my brain explodes from the pressure.― After years of not owning a television, I finally broke down and bought one in November, thinking that maybe it was tim
[Kim Seong-kon] The role of an intellectual in a time of national crisis

Mar 27, 2012

Once again, the Korean Peninsula is swept up in a crisis. North Korea has childishly provoked the world by announcing a satellite launch, possibly a cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile test. Its provocations came at a time when Seoul was hosting the Nuclear Security Summit and leaders from all over the world are gathering to prevent nuclear terrorism. While North Korea is anxious to strengthen the Kim Jong-un regime through extreme measures, South Korea is boiling over too, with fier
Which way is China’s red Ferrari headed?

Mar 26, 2012

Seek truth from facts,” goes an old Chinese saying favored by Deng Xiaoping. That injunction should also apply to the story of Bo Xilai, the recently ousted party chief of Chongqing whose fall has become something of a morality tale. To hear some tea-leaf readers tell it, the high-flying Bo was the creator of the “Chongqing model,” a program that melded support for state-owned enterprises and measures to help the poor with a relentless campaign against crime and corruption and a rekindling of re
[Mohamed A. El-Erian] The U.S. recovery gaining traction

Mar 26, 2012

NEWPORT BEACH ― The United States has gone through an arduous period of intervention and rehabilitation since the global financial crisis in 2008 sent it to the economic equivalent of the emergency room. It moved from the intensive-care unit to the recovery room and, just recently, was discharged from the hospital. The question now is whether the U.S. economy is ready not just to walk, but also to run and sprint. The answer will powerfully influence global economic prospects.It is easy to forget
Sanctions noose on Iran should be further tightened

Mar 26, 2012

Barely two weeks ago, the drumbeat of war against Iran pounded like a throbbing headache. Israel’s prime minister made the rounds in Washington threatening to launch a preemptive attack, while President Barack Obama argued his best case for letting economic sanctions run their course.After the prime minister’s departure, the international banking system came together like never before. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, broke a longstanding neutrality poli
Korea’s effective way to combat student bullying

Mar 26, 2012

Students all over Korea are hard at work posting comments on the Internet, positive comments! With more than 2.5 million positive comments posted to date, our Sunfull Movement, which I started five years ago, is proving an effective way to reduce students’ posting of malicious comments. Now we are looking to expand our idea to other countries.The harassment of children and teenagers via the Internet and cellphones is becoming common in countries around the world. Every month, there are more stor
A proposal to make democracy compatible with thriving economy

Mar 26, 2012

In any country in the world, most citizens tend to want more social/welfare programs from their governments. When politicians are running in local or national elections, they become particularly sensitive to the pressure from groups advocating their pet social/welfare programs. It is quite natural for politicians in any democracy to cater to the citizens’ wishes, hoping to ingratiate themselves to the voters. All is good except for the problem of paying for the programs, or more specifically, wh
[Meghan Daum] When truth is trumped by theatrics

Mar 26, 2012

Even if you don’t have a cupboard full of pledge-drive coffee mugs, you’ve probably heard about the latest dust-up in public radio. A stage performer named Mike Daisey chronicled a trip he made in 2010 to China to check out conditions at a factory run by Foxconn, the chief manufacturer of iPads and iPhones. Even before Daisey told his tale, news reports of suicides and harsh working conditions there had introduced at least a dose of guilt into the previously sunshiny experience of owning an Appl
Don’t punish Kim Jong-un’s people for missile madness

Mar 25, 2012

U.S. policy toward North Korea is crazy ― that is, if you believe the old chestnut that insanity means repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results. Each time the U.S. thinks North Korea has agreed to curtail its nuclear or missile programs, usually in return for some concession, the North either breaches or skips away from its obligations. Brinksmanship and rupture ensue, followed by a laborious and tentative rapprochement ― and then the cycle commences anew. It’s like watchi
Libya looks like Iraq in 2003

Mar 25, 2012

GENEVA ― As post-revolution Libya looks ahead, Iraq looms as a perilous example. After 42 years of dictatorship, Libya, like Iraq in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein, needs more than wishful thinking to become a vibrant democracy. It needs organized state-building in Tripoli ― and realistic policymaking in Western capitals.Successful transitions depend from the start on factors that are still crucially missing in Libya ― a relatively cohesive leadership, an active civil society, and nationa
Green is not enough

Mar 25, 2012

Clean water is increasingly scarce. About a third of the world’s fisheries have collapsed and desertification now threatens the livelihoods of a third of the world’s people. Parts of our planet are in peril. For a comprehensive solution, green is not enough.To protect our home, we must empower people. The Arab Spring and the Occupy movement are clear calls for equality. We must heed them. Only by working to ensure the next generation has jobs, basic services and opportunity, as well as a protect
Verizon to the cable industry: Let’s be friends

Mar 25, 2012

Three months ago, Verizon Communications Inc. and three major cable companies announced a $3.6 billion joint marketing deal. Today, Congress is getting around to the question of whether it’s a good idea. The Subcommittee for Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing titled, “The Verizon/Cable Deals: Harmless Collaboration or a Threat to Competition and Consumers?” A better question might be: Why isn’t the American public paying closer
Lessons for Tokyo

Mar 25, 2012

Within 10 minutes of landing in Tokyo Narita International Airport, I encountered my very first earthquake, and it was a brutal one. More than 15,000 people were confirmed dead and more than 3,000 are still missing. While Japan marks its first year since the quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, I contemplate the incident. There’s one lesson for Tokyo: Do not hide a problem under the rug and pray that it will simply go away.Tokyo was quick to silence dissent when a spokesman for the Nuclear and I
[Brigitte Granville] The French establishment going down a cul de sac

Mar 25, 2012

PARIS ― As France’s presidential election looms, the country is approaching a breaking point. For three decades, under both the right and the left, the country has pursued the same incompatible, if not contradictory, goals. With the sovereign-debt crisis pushing French banks ― and thus the French economy ― to the wall, something will have to give, and soon.When the crunch comes ― almost certainly in the year or two following the election ― it will cause radical, wrenching change, perhaps even mo
Israelis grow confident strike on Iran can work

Mar 23, 2012

In 2005, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then Israel’s finance minister, made an official visit to Uganda. For Netanyahu, visits to Uganda are weighted with sadness. It was at the airport in Entebbe that his older brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, was shot dead by a Ugandan soldier. Yonatan was the leader of an Israeli commando team dispatched by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in July 1976 to rescue Jewish hostages held by pro-Palestinian terrorists. The terrorists had diverted an Air France flight to Ugand