The Korea Herald

North Korea at a crossroads

Dec 23, 2011

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Saturday, reported by Pyongyang’s special broadcast from noon Monday, could destabilize the isolated communist country as well as all of the Korean Peninsula. Events unfolding in the North Korean leadership must be watched carefully to prepare for possible deterioration of regional stability.Kim, reported to have suffered a stroke in 2008, died of a heart attack on his train due to “great mental and physical strain caused by his uninterrupted field
[William Choong] Provocations over rapprochement?

Dec 23, 2011

Following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the 2004 film Team America, which had portrayed Kim as a lonely and insane dictator, began trending on the Internet. A popular clip being circulated is that of Kim singing, Broadway-style, in the opulent surroundings of his palace. “I’m so ronery (sic),” he sings, saying that the world does not appreciate his “grand prans (sic).”This state of affairs now applies to his heir apparent Kim Jong-un, who is reported to be his late 20s and a newc
U.S. gets new chance to engage North Korea

Dec 22, 2011

Hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death on Saturday, news reports out of Seoul said Pyongyang had agreed to suspend its enriched uranium nuclear weapons program.This was a sign that denuclearization talks, stalled since April 2009 when North Korea pulled out, could resume. It was a key demand of the United States before it would agree to the resumption of talks.The agreement, struck between North Korean and U.S. negotiators in talks in Beijing last Thursday and Friday, included 240,0
[Nouriel Roubini] Fragile and unbalanced in 2012

Dec 22, 2011

NEW YORK ― The outlook for the global economy in 2012 is clear, but it isn’t pretty: recession in Europe, anemic growth at best in the United States, and a sharp slowdown in China and in most emerging-market economies. Asian economies are exposed to China. Latin America is exposed to lower commodity prices (as both China and the advanced economies slow). Central and Eastern Europe are exposed to the eurozone. And turmoil in the Middle East is causing serious economic risks ― both there and elsew
Smart marketing put Dec. 25 on the calendar

Dec 22, 2011

This Christmas, whether you celebrate the arrival of Santa Claus, the birth of Jesus Christ or the chance to eat Chinese food and see any movie you want, spare a thought for Pope Liberius. He’s the man responsible for setting its date as Dec. 25. And his probable reasons for doing so should give pause to the holiday’s most devout champions and its shrillest critics. Ever wonder why some Christian holidays, such as Easter, Ash Wednesday and Ascension Day, are “movable feasts,” changing around the
Kim’s death, Mother Nature colored stormy 2011

Dec 22, 2011

If Asians got together to name a person of the year, someone who brought surprise, intrigue and economic impact to the region, the choice would be obvious: Mother Nature. From earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand to floods in the Philippines and Thailand to Chinese droughts to volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, this was a year overrun by nature’s fury. Food shortages and the effects of climate change challenged governments and inflation rates as rarely before. Other forces of nature, meanwhile, ra
Kim Jong-il, Vaclav Havel: Two leaders a world apart

Dec 22, 2011

According to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times, North Korean strongman Kim Jong-il hired a personal sushi chef from Tokyo and a personal pizza chef from Italy even as his country suffered through a famine that killed as many as 2 million of his people. He kept a library of 20,000 movies for his own entertainment although ordinary citizens could be sent to prison camps for watching South Korean or American movies. He beat back economic reforms and led North Korea’s economy to the brink of col
Endorse the nuclear test ban

Dec 22, 2011

STOCKHOLM/MEXICO CITY ― Indonesia’s parliament has just taken a historic step, one that makes the planet safer from the threat of nuclear weapons. The importance of Indonesia’s decision to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty cannot be overstated. This is a golden opportunity for the remaining eight countries to endorse the CTBT, enabling it to come into legal effect.For the five decades following World War II, a nuclear test shook and irradiated the planet on average every nine days
N. Korea: Absurd, cruel, tragic and dangerous

Dec 21, 2011

As if the world did not face enough uncertainty at the end of 2011, we received the news on Sunday night that North Korea’s Kim Jong-il died. As is common for the sadly surreal nation, the information came wrapped up in confusing and absurd non-details, with reports indicating the 69-year-old died of exhaustion on a train.North Korea, and the newly defunct Kim of the sinister Kim dynasty, have given comedians much to joke about. And they have sparked a great deal of creativity among intelligence
[Robert Reich] The real cost of Wall Street

Dec 21, 2011

Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it’s busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever.The Street’s biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading in food, oil and other commodities.The Street makes bundles from these bets, but they have raised costs
Exploiting Kim’s death for diplomatic goal

Dec 21, 2011

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il drove his country deep into starvation and isolation while stockpiling cognac and fine foods for himself and his friends. He also threatened the world with a growing nuclear arsenal.He won’t be missed.Now Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, a 20-something cipher with no military experience and a four-star general’s rank, steps onto the stage.There’s speculation that the untested Kim will provoke a crisis to prove his chops and rally the military around his fledglin
North Korea isn’t less of an enigma after Kim

Dec 21, 2011

The premature death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il leaves behind a Shakespearean cast of characters who may not play the roles the late dictator had assigned to them.Kim may have had a stroke in 2008, but his health more recently seemed stable. Observers felt his third son, Kim Jong-un, designated 15 months ago as the heir-apparent, would likely have several years to grow into the role.Instead, the elder Kim’s death at age 69, reportedly from a heart attack, now means the rest of the world,
[Meghan Daum] The ‘hot mess’ of politics

Dec 21, 2011

A delightfully useful and versatile term has been floating around a lot lately: “hot mess.” Usually it refers to a person, often (but not always) a woman, whose behavior is exceedingly self-destructive but who remains exceedingly compelling nonetheless. (Type “hot mess” into Google and names such as Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen make a strong showing.)On the surface, hot mess is derogatory, not to mention a nifty way of shaming and objectifying someone at the same time. But the
[Peter Singer] Death of one’s own as a decision made at the end of life

Dec 21, 2011

PRINCETON ― Dudley Clendinen, a writer and journalist, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal degenerative illness. In the New York Times earlier this year, he wrote movingly both of his current enjoyment of his life, and of his plan to end it when, as he put it, “the music stops ― when I can’t tie my bow tie, tell a funny story, walk my dog, talk with Whitney, kiss someone special, or tap out lines like this.”A friend told Clendinen that he needed to buy a gun. In the United States
[Daniel Fiedler] Slander and coffee shop gossip

Dec 20, 2011

Korean slander law is surprisingly different from that of the United States, and surprisingly easy to violate. In both countries the underlying rationale is to prevent defamatory statements about an individual being made to a third party. However, that is where the similarity ends and the differences begin. While in the United States the elements of slander will vary depending on the public nature of the individual and the information, the offense is, at its simplest, the oral communication of a