The Korea Herald

[Robert Reich] Why 2012 will be Obama-Clinton vs. Romney-Rubio

Jan 12, 2012

My political prediction for 2012: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton versus Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio.Joe Biden has been a good and energetic vice president, but Obama will need to stir the passions of the Democratic base and Biden won’t suffice. (Biden will swap places with Clinton, becoming secretary of state ― a position he’s apparently coveted for years.)A highly disciplined and unified Republican opposition has taken a toll. While the president delivered health care, it’s not as bold as man
No heroes in the fight over a consumer czar

Jan 11, 2012

President Barack Obama has established that he’s done with Congress for the rest of his term. Feeling chumped after Republicans wouldn’t reach agreement with him on a broad deficit-reduction agreement, Obama has decided it’s time to campaign against GOP leadership of the House and Senate.Thus the dubious move to ignore the law and appoint a head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without the consent of the Senate.We can’t really blame Obama. Republicans have been playing gotcha with
[Lee Byong-chul] South Korea’s political springtime

Jan 11, 2012

SEOUL ― The ascension to power of the pudgy 29-year-old Kim Jong-un in North Korea has grabbed headlines around the world, but the most important story involving Korean young people and politics is taking place in the South. There, young voters are becoming angrier, more politically active, and increasingly hostile to the old established parties. This demographic challenge to South Korea’s status quo suggests a “liberal” awakening that could completely alter the country’s political landscape.The
Obama’s modest proposal on defense budget

Jan 11, 2012

As he unveiled his administration’s new blueprint for U.S. defense strategy last week, President Obama sought to vaccinate himself against charges that he was gutting the nation’s military.Even after the strategy is fully implemented, he said, “the defense budget will still be larger than it was at the end of the Bush administration.”So it seemed a little odd when, an hour later, the second-ranking official in Obama’s Pentagon presented what sounded like a rebuttal.“You have, over the next four
Putin stymies protesters with subversion strategies

Jan 11, 2012

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s reaction to Moscow protesters perfectly illustrates how the former Soviet spy chief can masterfully leverage classic subversion strategies typically found in espionage to undermine the opposition and even ridicule the concept of democracy.In the wake of the Russian parliamentary vote in early December, a Russian opposition leader far more radically communist than Putin was jailed, and protesters hit the streets to protest what they considered electoral fra
The Turkish-Iranian partition of the Middle East

Jan 11, 2012

During the last decade many right-wing American and Israeli analysts have described the geo-strategic struggles unfolding in the Middle East as a new “Cold War” pitting the United States against Shiite Iran. They have warned of an Arab “Shiite Crescent” ― stretching from Lebanon to Iraq ― connected to Iran via ties of religion, commerce and geostrategy.The new year has started with an attempted Shiite power play by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to dominate the Iraqi government, and an Iranian d
How Wall Street turned a crisis into a cartel

Jan 10, 2012

Almost 65 years ago, in 1947, the U.S. government sued 17 leading Wall Street investment banks, charging them with effectively colluding in violation of antitrust laws. In its complaint ― which was front-page news at the time ― the Justice Department alleged that these firms had created “an integrated, overall conspiracy and combination” starting in 1915 “and in continuous operation thereafter, by which” they developed a system “to eliminate competition and monopolize ‘the cream of the business’
[Lee Jae-min] Bleak job prospects for law grads

Jan 10, 2012

Last week must have been a torturous one for 1,698 students graduating from the new law schools in February. These students are the first batch of graduates from the 25 law schools nationwide, and they took the first bar exam over a five-day period last week. The students and their law schools spent all of 2011 preparing for the exam. As the passing rate is set at 75 percent of the total graduates, most of them will get the bar license they have pursued for the past three years at law school.A m
My name is Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop

Jan 10, 2012

Mr. Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, a 30-year-old American national from Wisconsin, was recently arrested for drug and firearms offences (The Daily Mail, Jan. 7, 2012). Prior to October 2011 this individual was known as Jeffrey Drew Wilschke; however he legally changed his name as he is fully entitled to do. Not only is he entitled to change his name, he is not in fact required by law to tell the authorities about it unless he is subject to certain control orders, a point usually ignored by c
Name-calling on Internet is a serious business

Jan 10, 2012

More than 5 billion additional people will connect to the Internet in the next 20 years, and most of the newcomers will not speak English. This next generation will use the Internet in ways we cannot imagine, and its innovations will change the world. But if the debate in Washington over the creation of new domain names goes the wrong way, Internet policy won’t help the free flow of speech online. The U.S. can help by having the courage to stay the course. At issue is the Internet’s crabbed nami
[Kim Seong-kon] Looking again at ‘The Heartless’

Jan 10, 2012

Yi Kwang-su is undisputedly known as the father of modern Korean literature. Before Yi, a new mode of Korean literature called New Fiction (sinsoseol) briefly emerged in the early 20th century and yet remained largely sentimental and old-fashioned in style, not completely free from the classical theme of “promoting virtue and reprising vice.” It was Yi Kwang-su who boldly adopted colloquial expressions and a modern narrative technique suitable for depicting and wrestling with the complex issues
[Shimon Peres] A future without precedent

Jan 9, 2012

JERUSALEM ― In my nearly nine decades of life, I cannot recall a time in which the past was so irrelevant to policymaking. All of today’s significant developments went unpredicted by anyone. Experts studied the past, but, constrained by old paradigms, they could not discern the future.Today’s dynamic complexity, in which a science-based, fast-changing global economy makes so many more phenomena interdependent, prevents us from foreseeing the future through linear extrapolations of the past. The
[Shlomo Ben Ami] U.S. faces time of reckoning after decade of war

Jan 9, 2012

MADRID ― The folding of the American flag in Iraq amid a collapse of public security and a severe crisis in the country’s fragile political order seals a tragic chapter in the history of the United States. It marked the denouement of one of the clearest cases ever of the imperial overreach that former U.S. Senator William Fulbright called the “arrogance of power.”Violently torn by religious and ethnic rivalries, Iraq is in no condition to play its part in America’s vision of an Arab wall of cont
Rise of Salafis poses challenge to Egypt’s future

Jan 9, 2012

CAIRO ― “We want democracy, but one constrained by God’s laws. Ruling without God’s laws is infidelity,” Yasser Burhami, the second leading figure in the Salafi Call Society (SCS) and its most charismatic leader, recently said. The unexpected rise of the Salafis in Egypt’s parliamentary election has fueled concern that the most populous Sunni Arab country could be on its way to becoming a fundamentalist theocracy akin to Shia Iran. Known for its social ultra-conservatism, literal and strict inte
Radical Muslim power grabs in Arab nations huge setback for U.S.

Jan 9, 2012

WASHINGTON ― At its best, U.S. policy toward the Middle East consists of a deft combination of short-term pragmatism and long-term idealism.In the short term, Washington works to protect Israel and other U.S. allies, combat terrorism, rebuff Iran’s hegemonic ambitions, and support regional stability, all of which ensures the continued flow of oil to power Western economies.In the long run, Washington promotes the advance of freedom and democracy in the region and elsewhere to expand the circle o