The Korea Herald

안녕하세요 Yu Kun-ha 기자입니다.

Articles by Yu Kun-ha

[Editorial] Footing the welfare bill

EditorialDec 26, 2012

Expanding welfare spending without impairing fiscal soundness is a feat the ruling Saenuri Party is required to perform to carry out the election pledges of President-elect Park Geun-hye.The easiest way to achieve the feat is to increase tax revenue by raising tax rates or creating new taxes. But Park has ruled out this facile option. During the campaign period, Park said she would not tinker with tax rates.Instead, she said she would cover 60 percent of her welfare bill by adjusting the governm
[Lee Jae-min] From labyrinth to floor plan

ViewpointsDec 25, 2012

“Things should be carried out perfectly” appearing in the last line of the document issued by an economic ministry was the sentence that basically determined the outcome of a dispute between Korea and another country about seven years ago. This wording was the translation of the Korean original (reading “Man-jeon-eul-gi-ha-da”). The translation was prepared by the other side and Korea challenged its accuracy. Was the translation correct? Yes and no. Yes, because it is arguably a literal translat
[Kongdan Oh] Outlook for nation’s first female leader

ViewpointsDec 25, 2012

With the election of Ms. Park Geun-hye as president of South Korea, Korea has its first woman leader in over a thousand years. The last woman to govern Korea was Queen Jinsong, who ruled in the ninth century. Ms. Park comes from a famous political family. Her father, President Park Chung-hee, was the architect of Korea’s economic miracle. Something of a dictator, he was assassinated in 1979 by his own intelligence chief in a dispute over how long his 16-year-rule should continue. Ms. Park’s moth
[Kim Seong-kon] Korea lucky to have a woman president

ViewpointsDec 25, 2012

In February 2013, we will have a female president for the first time in our history. Since electing a woman is something that even the United States has not been able to do yet, Koreans are very proud. Only a few years ago, women were reluctant to vote for a female president, thinking that a male president would perform much better in the hostile political arena. In the last presidential election, however, many Korean women reportedly voted for Park Geun-hye and many men did as well. Korean poli
The price of war with Iran

ViewpointsDec 24, 2012

WASHINGTON, DC ― One of the greatest challenges that U.S. President Barack Obama will face in his second term is Iran’s pursuit of advanced nuclear technologies. While a nuclear Iran would damage America’s strategic position in the Middle East, action aimed at forestalling Iran’s nuclear progress also carries serious strategic and economic consequences.Armed with nuclear weapons, Iran would be better able to project influence, intimidate its neighbors, and protect itself. As a result, the United
[Jeffrey Frankel] Time to establish nominal GDP growth targets

ViewpointsDec 24, 2012

ZANZIBAR ― It is time for the world’s major central banks to reconsider how they conduct monetary policy. The U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are grappling with sustained economic weakness, despite years of low interest rates. In Japan, Shinzo Abe, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party’s candidate for prime minister, campaigned for a more expansionary monetary policy ahead of the general election on Dec. 16. And central banks in both the United Kingdom and China are coming u
[David Ignatius] Right fit for the Pentagon?

ViewpointsDec 23, 2012

WASHINGTON ― The debate over whether Chuck Hagel should be appointed secretary of defense has centered on his sometimes critical views of Israel. But that’s the wrong issue. The question is whether Hagel is the right person to run the Pentagon at a delicate moment of transition in defense policy and spending. Hagel has been unusually blunt in resisting political pressure from pro-Israel groups, which led Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, to charge that his past comments “border
[Eli Park Sorensen] The gigantic, confusing library of the universe

ViewpointsDec 23, 2012

In the story “The Library of Babel” (1941), the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges imagines the universe as a gigantic library, consisting of an indefinite number of hexagonal rooms, each filled with rows of books. “Each book,” writes Borges, “is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line, of some eighty letters which are in black color.” Most of the text inside the books, however, consists of sequences of letters utterly incomprehensible and unreadable to the people inh
Put prospective gun owners under microscope

ViewpointsDec 21, 2012

PARIS ― Anyone who can’t withstand a rational debate on the subject of gun control ― particularly in light of last week’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut ― should be automatically prohibited from ever owning a firearm. In fact, this should be the number-one requirement of gun ownership: Can someone applying for ownership of a deadly weapon withstand an hour-long debate against someone in favor of gun control without resorting to physical or verbal assault?Is it too much to a
[Robert Reich] Take care of the children

ViewpointsDec 21, 2012

America’s children seem to be shortchanged on almost every issue we face as a society.Not only are we failing to protect our children from deranged people wielding semi-automatic guns, we’re not protecting them from poverty. The rate of child poverty keeps rising - even faster than the rate of adult poverty. We now have the highest rate of child poverty in the developed world.And we’re not protecting their health. Rates of child diabetes and asthma continue to climb. America has the third-worst
[Editorial] Making a new Korea

EditorialDec 20, 2012

South Korea has ushered in a new era by electing its first female president. The victory of Park Geun-hye, the candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party, in the hard-fought election on Wednesday is in itself significant political progress in light of the deeply entrenched male dominance in Korean society.Yet she was chosen not because she was a woman but because the electorate saw traits of a good president in her and trusted her track record as a leader who has weathered many crises. Throughout the
[Editorial] Risks from ‘Abenomics’

EditorialDec 20, 2012

Korean exporters will have to brace for stronger competition from their Japanese rivals down the road as Japan’s incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is determined to devalue the yen to reignite the economy.Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party swept to victory in elections for the lower house held on Sunday by selling a set of economic policies dubbed “Abenomics.”The new prime minister is pressing the Bank of Japan to print more money to further ease its already loose monetary policy and raise its infla
[David Ignatius] A defector’s chilling report

ViewpointsDec 20, 2012

WASHINGTON ― Reports from inside two Syrian chemical weapons facilities offer some chilling new evidence that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime developed special vehicles last year for moving and mixing the weapons ― and an unconfirmed allegation that Lebanese allies of the regime, presumably in Hezbollah, may have been trained 11 months ago in the weapons’ use. A Syrian source provided a detailed account in a telephone conversation over the weekend, drawing on intelligence provided to him by a
Hypocrisy over infrastructure spending

ViewpointsDec 20, 2012

If you want to see where rank hypocrisy sits in full flower, you have only to observe Republicans at their desks in the House and Senate. There, they are openly ridiculing President Obama’s proposed $50 billion stimulus bill for desperately needed infrastructure work.When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell heard of the president’s plan, he derisively laughed out loud, as if he’d been handed a piece of road kill. At about the same time, Bill Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican who is incoming
Gun control after Newtown

ViewpointsDec 19, 2012

NEW YORK ― The brutal murder of 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, Connecticut, shakes us to the core as individuals and requires a response as citizens. The United States seems to reel from one mass gun killing to another ― roughly one a month this year alone. Easy access to guns in the U.S. leads to horrific murder rates relative to other highly educated and wealthy societies. America needs to find a better way.Other countries have done so. Between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s, Austra