The Korea Herald

[Leonid Bershidsky] Moving Franco’s grave doesn’t make him any less of monster

Oct 28, 2019

The Spanish government on Thursday exhumed the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco, who died in 1975, from a mausoleum in the Valley of the Fallen near Madrid and took them to a city cemetery where Franco’s wife is buried. It may give Spain’s caretaker Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who is fighting for re-election, a boost in the polls, but it won’t really put anything right.Franco’s old resting place was probably the most ostentatious of any 20th century tyrant&rsquo
[Letter to the Editor] A constructive Korea-Japan relation

Oct 28, 2019

Line is a messenger application that nearly all Japanese smartphone users have. The application originally started as a disaster response messenger system after 2011 earthquake. Soon, Line became the most popular application in Japan. One thing about Line that many Japanese probably don’t realize is that Line Corporation is a subsidiary of Naver, the Google of South Korea. Line shows that the relationship between South Korea and Japan is not always a competitive one -- and can be a constru
[Jeffrey Frankel] a weaponized dollar could backfire

Oct 27, 2019

The language of international monetary policy has turned militaristic. The phrase “currency war” has now been popular for a decade, and the United States government’s more recent “weaponization” of the dollar is generating controversy. But ironically, a martial approach could end up threatening the US currency’s global dominance.This is a good time to gauge the relative strengths of the dollar and rival international currencies (meaning currencies that are use
[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Why rich cities rebel

Oct 24, 2019

Three of the world’s more affluent cities have erupted in protests and unrest this year. Paris has faced waves of protests and rioting since November 2018, soon after French President Emmanuel Macron raised fuel taxes. Hong Kong has been in upheaval since March, after Chief Executive Carrie Lam proposed a law to allow extradition to the Chinese mainland. And Santiago exploded in rioting this month after President Sebastian Pinera ordered an increase in metro prices. Each protest has its di
[Kim Myong-sik] Growing concern over faltering Korea-US alliance

Oct 23, 2019

Concerns are growing here over the future of the seven-decade-old military alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States that is apparently weakening. Signs causing such concerns are abundant.Annual joint exercises of the allied forces, some involving trans-Pacific deployment of troops from the continental US to any part of the Korean Peninsula, have been reduced in scale and duration or outright cancelled. US President Trump called them “provocative” and “waste
[Arvind Subramanian] The battle of fading hegemons

Oct 23, 2019

Almost a decade ago, China bulls like Martin Jacques and I predicted the rise of the People’s Republic at the expense of a declining United States. Today, with the two superpowers unabashedly jostling for hegemony -- their trade war being just one sign of this -- it is time for a fresh assessment.　It is tempting to view the US-China rivalry as just another superpower transition in a long line going back to the classical shift of power from Athens to Sparta. But this case is different.Tradi
[Robert J. Fouser] After the Cho Kuk show

Oct 22, 2019

The Cho Kuk show took an unexpected turn after he resigned as Minister of Justice on Oct. 14. During Cho’s 35 days in office, mass demonstrations in favor and against him become common. Supporters gathered in front of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul’s Seocho-dong and opponents gathered across the city in Gwanghwamun. Supporters demanded reforms in how the prosecution does business, whereas opponents demanded his resignation and called for the impeachment of President M
[Kim Seong-kon] Watching ‘Battleship’ in 2019

Oct 22, 2019

Recently, I watched the 2012 Hollywood science fiction action film “Battleship,” which was about an alien invasion and the US Navy’s desperate attempts to stop it. While watching the film, two things caught my attention: The movie was set in Honolulu and it depicted friendship between the US and Japan. Then, it occurred to me that perhaps “Battleship” could be a metaphoric reenactment of the Pearl Harbor surprise attack by Japan in 1941, which ignited the Pacific Wa
[Kundhavi Kadiresan] Are you malnourished? Quite possibly

Oct 22, 2019

The word “malnutrition” tends to invoke images of starving children in refugee camps, fleeing conflict or drought in lands far away. While that image does reflect a reality of hunger, it does not solely define malnutrition nor those who suffer from it. Certainly with more than 820 million hungry people in the world, most of them living in our Asia-Pacific region, undernourishment is definitely a huge problem and one that has stubbornly vexed attempts to crack. But there are other mal
[Therese Raphael] Johnson has campaign slogan ready

Oct 21, 2019

There was very nearly a bedtime Brexit tale that went something like this: And so, finally, the porridge was just right, Parliament ate up Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal and then, satisfied, went to bed. The end.Of course, lawmakers didn’t eat up and this interminable story isn’t over. Saturday’s parliamentary session instead served up another helping of thin gruel to those British voters who just want the whole thing resolved. Rather than the prime minister getting a vote o
[Elizabeth Drew] Will Trump be removed from office?

Oct 21, 2019

For the first time, reasonable people in the United States have begun to speculate that President Donald Trump could be convicted by the Senate and thus removed from office. The likelihood is still low, but Trump’s position is weakening, and opinion polls are steadily moving against him. It is widely assumed that the House of Representatives will vote to impeach him, sending the question of his presidency to the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is needed and Republicans hold a majority.Trum
[Justin Fendos] Cooking may be bad for you

Oct 21, 2019

As enjoyable as it is to cook a stir-fry, there is good reason to believe it might be exposing you to a cancer risk. In fact, a slow but steady stream of research now suggests inhaling cooking fumes, especially oily ones, may be hazardous. Homemakers, wok-tossers and barbecue enthusiasts, read on.The first studies supporting a link between cooking fumes and lung cancer were published in 2000 by separate research groups in Taiwan and Singapore. The Taiwanese work, published in the American Journa
[Shang-Jin Wei] Anti-globalization bias and public policy

Oct 20, 2019

Opponents of globalization constantly point to the uneven impact of open trade. Although trade liberalization can make the overall economic pie bigger, not everyone gets a larger slice, and many may receive a much smaller piece than before because of competition from foreign-made products. Such concerns help to explain why many blue-collar American workers voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election, and why French farmers and workers often take part in anti-globalization demonst
[Min Gab-ryong] Korean police lead in world peace, security through ‘K-Cop Wave’

Oct 17, 2019

The Korean National Police Agency hosts the International Police Summit Seoul, 2019 with police chiefs from 30 countries around the world on the margins of the 74th celebration of Police Day. The summit will discuss “Global Partnership for Smart Policing” on the advent of the “fourth industrial revolution.” The event is possible owing to Korean police efforts to contribute to international policing cooperation.The Korean police have been actively pursuing the “K-Cop
[Noah Smith] Economics Nobel for three pragmatic poverty-fighters

Oct 16, 2019

This year’s economics Nobel prize went to three worthy economists: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Kremer of Harvard University. The prize, awarded “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty,” shows several important ways that the economics discipline is changing. A popular conception of economists is that they’re the high priests of the free market, downplaying the role of government and givin