The Korea Herald

How the U.S.-Iran standoff looks from Israel

Feb 20, 2012

The upheaval in the Arab world has damaged Israel’s strategic environment. Its peace treaty with Egypt, a pillar of national security for more than three decades, is in question. More important, the events in the Arab world have deflected attention from Israel’s most feared scenario, a nuclear Iran, playing into the Iranian strategy to buy time in order to present the world with a nuclear fait accompli. Israel’s leaders fear that the international response is now unlikely to impact Iranian polic
[Andrew Sheng] Alternatives to conventional economic thinking

Feb 20, 2012

At a time when there is great awareness that mainstream economic theory is seriously flawed, many of us are looking for alternative models of economic thinking. I have in my collection a book by an English economist EF Schumacher called “Small is Beautiful,” first published in 1973, but never read it. Last month, I finally read it and was overwhelmed by its brilliant and unconventional approach to economic thinking. The book became almost cult reading when it came out 40 years ago, in the afterm
Santorum’s surge raises cheers from Camp Obama

Feb 20, 2012

“The one who can beat Obama: Rick Santorum,” the television commercial proclaims. That boast brings cheers from two quarters: the faithful followers of the conservative Republican presidential candidate, and the Democratic president’s political strategists. The former Pennsylvania senator is on fire in the Republican contest, threatening the front-runner, Mitt Romney, in the critical Michigan primary next week and nationally. Still, President Barack Obama’s campaign, the super-PACs supporting it
[David Ignatius] Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood gamble

Feb 19, 2012

WASHINGTON ― President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood began three years ago in his famous June 2009 speech in Cairo. Ten members of the Brotherhood were invited to listen to the address, and they heard a passage crafted especially for them: “America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments ― provided they govern with respect for all their people.” Egypti
Simple, realistic solution to fixing the U.S. economy

Feb 19, 2012

Few would deny that the U.S. economy is badly damaged or that the party with the more plausible plan for fixing it is likely to win the coming election. Yet neither has proposed a plan that realists can believe in. While Republicans advocate yet more tax cuts and deregulation, Democrats propose further stimulus and deficit spending. Both are futile.Tax cuts will fail because they reduce government revenue, thereby necessitating additional layoffs at the state and local levels among police, firef
The case for publicly owned Internet service

Feb 19, 2012

In cities and towns across the U.S., a familiar story is replaying itself: Powerful companies are preventing local governments from providing an essential service to their citizens. More than 100 years ago, it was electricity. Today, it is the public provision of communications services. The Georgia legislature is currently considering a bill that would effectively make it impossible for any city in the state to provide for high-speed Internet access networks ― even in areas in which the private
[Meghan Daum] After the ‘Tiger Mother,’ is America ready for the French version?

Feb 19, 2012

A little more than a year has passed since the publication of Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” ― the paroxysm-inducing guide to raising better children through belittlement, intimidation and tyrannical music practice ― and already we have version 2.0. Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bebe” alleges that it’s the French who could teach indulgent, over-scheduling, helicoptering American parents a thing or two about rearing les enfants.Druckerman, a Paris-based American mom of three, obs
[Joel Brinkley] Robert Mugabe ― world’s most destructive leader

Feb 19, 2012

When Catherine Bragg, a senior U.N. official, ended a three-day visit to Zimbabwe last week, she warned that the humanitarian situation there remains extremely fragile.There’s a bit of diplomatic understatement if I’ve ever heard one.Trying to determine who is the world’s most destructive national leader might seem like a daunting assignment. There seem to be so many to choose from. But look at the facts, and you’ll find only one perfectly obvious choice: Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, wh
How should a ‘hate crime’ be defined?

Feb 17, 2012

Further investigation of a recent attack in Philadelphia might justify the filing of hate-crime charges against teenagers who sparked the melee.On a Saturday night two weekends ago, a Penn senior named David Goldman was in the back of a cab, en route to a date. The problem came when the car approached 15th Street.“I was in the backseat, looking out of my window, which was rolled down, and then ― bam! A strong punch came barreling through the window and hit me squarely in the jaw,” he wrote in th
[Robert Reich] Sad spectacle of Obama’s super PAC

Feb 17, 2012

How many billionaires does it take to buy a presidential election? We’re about to find out. The 2012 campaign is likely to be a battle between one group of millionaires and billionaires supporting President Obama and another group supporting his GOP rival.Perhaps this was the inevitable result of the Supreme Court’s grotesque decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, which opened the floodgates to unrestricted campaign money through so-called “super PACs.” But I’m not s
Sex education and the age-old issue of teen pregnancy

Feb 17, 2012

Valentine’s Day should be an occasion to celebrate love and compassion. But in Thailand, this occasion is considered by some adults as a dreadful time when many young and underage girls become pregnant. The Police Department, for instance, has enforced a 10 p.m. curfew for people aged below 18 on Valentine’s Day. At the same time, the Public Health Ministry has spent 60 million baht to buy 60 million condoms for young lovers this week.These actions, the agencies claim, are meant to protect our t
Makiyo case gives no right to waiver in xenophobia fight

Feb 17, 2012

Last week featured almost hourly television news updates on a case involving a semi-celebrity and her friend who have now been charged by prosecutors for the brutal beating of a taxi driver on Feb. 2. The media can’t seem to help itself and ― like a binge eater ― is now in the process of purging with more than one newspaper or media commentator coming out to denounce the sensationalist coverage and call for restraint. The swarm of media piranhas is somewhat understandable; after all, this case h
[Michael Krepon] Treaty and Pakistan’s nuke arsenal

Feb 17, 2012

Pakistan is blocking the start of negotiations of a global halt to the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.The Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) can’t begin, Pakistani diplomats say, because existing stockpiles won’t be covered. But Pakistan would be loath to reveal its existing stocks, and no one in any position of authority would permit foreign inspectors to verify their locations and extent.And if, by some miraculous event, existing stocks were covered in the treaty, an abs
Use mayoral poll outcome to advance Futenma issue

Feb 17, 2012

The outcome of Sunday’s mayoral election in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, must serve as a springboard to ensure the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station is relocated to the Henoko district of Nago in the prefecture.Atsushi Sakima, a conservative candidate and a former Liberal Democratic Party member of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, was elected to his first term as mayor of Ginowan when he defeated Yoichi Iha, a former mayor and a progressive candidate.During the campaign, Sakima insisted th
[Ana Palacio] Opening Mediterranean window

Feb 16, 2012

MADRID ― One year after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, with popular upheavals continuing to roil the Arab world, it is increasingly clear that Europe can no longer sit still and do nothing. The ongoing protests have exposed an urgent need for renewed engagement by the European Union with the region in general ― and, in particular, with the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean that are the union’s neighbors.Until now, the European Neighborhood Policy, born as an afterthought of the EU’