Ironically, even though we can hardly miss the acronym “AEC” when browsing through the newspaper each day, some Thai businessmen confessed to a survey recently that they don’t have a true understanding of how to prepare for the regional integration which is due to come into existence in 2015.In spite of the campaign to promote understanding of the AEC ― ASEAN Economic Community ― both in the public and private sectors, some Thai companies are not sure if they have a proper grasp of what this wil

Four years ago, on a bright, cold Jan. 20, Barack Obama took his first oath of office as president and proclaimed a new post-partisan era. “The stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply,” the Obama of 2009 said.The second four years of a two-term president’s tenure are always different from the first, but it’s hard to overstate how different Obama’s second term feels, even before his inauguration. He has most of the same goals and many of the same aides, but in

Having worked and lived in Korea for 12 years now, I have observed many traditions and ethics ― mostly good, some less good.I’ve seen some Korean bus drivers literally greet every person who enters or disembarks his bus. It is extremely courteous, and one can only imagine how much such a person has invested on the “bank of good ethics” at the end of his life. I was wondering, though, whether he could keep it up. Some express-bus drivers courteously stand at the exit of the bus to greet all the p

Food waste collection facilities in many of Seoul’s 25 wards stink to high heaven as private food waste disposal companies have stopped processing the food waste collected there amid disputes over fee hikes. Residents near these facilities will have to endure the odor of rotting food waste as ward offices and waste disposal companies are unlikely to reach a deal any time soon. The disputes were triggered by the government’s ban on dumping the liquid that leaches out of food waste into the sea, w

If the shape of the new Blue House organization unveiled by the presidential transition team on Monday suggests anything, it is that President-elect Park Geun-hye will likely show a governing style far different from those of her predecessors. Critical of the tradition of “imperial presidencies,” Park said she would scale back the power of the president and presidential staff while increasing the authority and responsibility of the prime minister and Cabinet ministers. Park’s intention to break

The growth rate of emerging Asian economies is expected to increase in 2013. But inflation and gloomy external conditions still pose a challenge for the macroeconomic policies of many of these economies. In the medium term, their growth rate will be higher than other regions but lower than it was before the global financial crisis. This squarely puts the focus on economic reform and restructuring.Though Asia’s economy is likely to bottom out this year, it will find it difficult to overcome the p

KOCHI, INDIA ― No other country has anything like it ― an annual jamboree of its diaspora, conducted with great fanfare by its government. India has been doing it, with great success, for a decade, timed to recall the return to India of the most famous Indian expatriate of them all, Mahatma Gandhi, who alighted from his South African ship in Bombay on Jan. 9, 1915. As I write, the southern port city of Kochi is overflowing with expatriate Indians celebrating their connection to their motherland.