The Korea Herald

[Robin Abcarian] Banning abortion is the first step. Brace yourselves for the end of many hard-fought rights

Jun 30, 2022

Goodbye, legal right to abortion. Goodbye, separation of church and state. Goodbye, commonsense gun laws. Goodbye, Miranda rights. And that’s just the beginning. With a fundamentalist, conservative Supreme Court majority in charge, brace yourselves for the possibility of the end of so many civil rights we take for granted: privacy, contraception, in vitro fertilization, gay marriage, interracial marriage. This is not hyperbole. On Friday, the court released its devastating ruling
[Mahfuz Anam] The new power play in South Asiac

Mar 26, 2017

Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to India from April 7-10 is turning out to be perhaps her most important bilateral visit to a country that surrounds Bangladesh from three sides, making it the only neighbor in all but physical sense. It is now known that the Bangladeshi leader turned down the Indian request for a 25-year defense treaty. In its place there will likely be a memorandum of understanding on several related issues including purchase of equipment and weapons needed for UN peacekeeping, d
[Christopher Balding] China’s worst trade abuses are hidden

Mar 26, 2017

China is nothing if not creative in protecting its local industries. Although it has liberalized its economy in recent years, it has also erected a sophisticated set of barriers to safeguard companies it views as national champions. Increasingly, this is a counterproductive approach.　The usual method of assessing protectionism is to look at metrics such as tariff rates. And by that measure, China remains one of the least open major economies: according to the World Trade Organization, it maintai
[Leonid Bershidsky] Why nationalists need overseas bond

Mar 24, 2017

There’s something disturbing about recent stories about the ideological kinship between Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, and Marine Le Pen, the nationalist candidate running for French president. Isn’t nationalism supposed to travel badly across borders? Isn’t international solidarity the exclusive province of leftists crying “Workers of the world, unite!”? And aren’t anti-elite nationalist populists fighting a rootless, globalist elite that has grown fat on the border
[Other View] A new attack on women’s right to choose

Jan 10, 2017

So far the new Republican Congress has proved better at identifying things it doesn’t like -- Obamacare, for example, or an independent ethics office -- than actually getting rid of them. On one issue, however, Congress may yet get its way: abortion.　Last week a House panel issued a report recommending that the federal government restrict or end medical science performed with human fetal tissue. With a Republican majority in Congress and a staunch abortion opponent about to take over the Departm
[Other view] What the US lost in Syria

Jan 8, 2017

The duration of the latest Syrian cease-fire may matter less than its genesis. Russia, Turkey and Iran brokered the agreement without US involvement -- a worrying sign of the waning regional influence of the world’s only superpower.Whether this decline is temporary or permanent remains to be seen. What is abundantly clear is that, having decided not to intervene to stop the worst humanitarian catastrophe since World War II, US President Barack Obama lacked both the leverage and the standing to b
Remembering Godang Cho Man-sik (1883-1950)

Oct 19, 2016

Robert Park is a founding member of the nonpartisan Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, minister, musician and former prisoner of conscience. --Ed.In a 1991 interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, North Korea‘s former ambassador to East Germany -- who defected in 1959 -- clarified the circumstances of Godang Cho Man-sik’s assassination: “After retreating to Kanggye, North Pyeongan Province, I heard from the leadership that on the night of Oct. 18 while the People‘s Army fled from Pyon
Preventing crimes and suffering through justice

Jul 17, 2016

Inside the courtrooms of the International Criminal Court and in local communities, we are hearing the voices of those who have survived some of the world’s most heinous crimes. Stories of tremendous loss. Stories of human suffering that could have – and should have – been prevented. “I lost my entire family.” “I have lost my dignity.” “The only hope I have left is for justice.” New ICC President Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi (Argentina) ©ICC-CPI　In our own lifetimes, in conflicts unfoldin
Flowers, trees and crops

Oct 26, 2015

My wife and I are a pair of city slickers who have returned to our roots. We have one foot in an urban life and the other in a rural one — although as we get older, we tend to stay more at our farmhouse in our hometown, Dangjin. People say that we are a typical example of trend reversal because the older one gets, the more one tries to lead a comfortable urban life. 　We had left our hometown almost half a century ago before we came back about 10 years ago after I retired as a high school princip
Russian response to Ukraine exhibit article

Jan 5, 2015

The Russian Embassy in Seoul was upset by the publication of the article “Ukrainian Exhibition Marks ‘Revolution of Dignity’” (The Korea Herald, Dec. 29, 2014), which incriminates Russia with violating Ukrainian sovereignty. I would like to set forth our position on this issue.First of all, we were disappointed that groundless accusations of some “Russian aggression” in the eastern part of Ukraine were pulled out of the Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Marmazov’s speech and quoted. I want to remind, t
[Voice] Is HIV testing of foreign teachers here to stay?

Nov 25, 2013

As a U.N. committee assesses the policy ...
[Voice] Is the asylum process working?

Nov 11, 2013

Namir says that returning to his home country of Sudan would mean a certain death sentence. His only crimes, he claims, were converting to Christianity from Islam and criticizing his government in writings on the Internet. He is just one of the more than 5,300 asylum seekers that have entered Korea since 1994, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice published in the Hankyoreh newspaper. “I was arrested and tortured many times, and based on Sharia laws that govern my country I wa
[Voice] Should agriculture be subsidized?

Oct 28, 2013

Like the country itself, Korea’s farming sector transformed completely in a matter of decades. But unlike so many other industries, agriculture’s trajectory in the face of industrialization has been characterized by decline. From contributing 27 percent of gross domestic product in 1970, agriculture was responsible for less than 3 percent of economic activity in 2010. The farming population similarly plummeted from about 14 million people to fewer than 3 million over the same period.As in other
[Voice] Is private life relevant to public life?

Oct 14, 2013

With extramarital affairs capable of ending high-profile careers...
[Voice] How safe is Korea’s rail?

Sept 30, 2013

The firmly grounded train is rarely associated with the fear felt by nervous air travelers. But a string of minor accidents in recent years, including last month’s most recent three-way train collision in Daegu, has caused the public to question the safety of one of the country’s most popular modes of travel. In 2011, there were 130 incidents involving the high-speed KTX alone, according to the Board of Audit and Inspection. The BAI laid much of the blame for these incidents on rail operator KOR