The Korea Herald

[Kim Myong-sik] Moon’s populist approach to nuclear decisions

South Korea is at a crossroads in both the peaceful and military uses of nuclear power. The Moon Jae-in government shut down the oldest nuclear power plant in the nation and then announced a halt to two reactor construction projects, envisioning a total phasing out of nuclear energy in a few decades. In the area of military use, the new government says it remains committed to the international nonproliferation regime, but public opinion is turning heavily in favor of going nuclear. The governmen

July 5, 2017

[Kim Myong-sik] Moon’s populist approach to nuclear decisions

[David Ignatius] Cooperation with Russia key to peace in Syria

When Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin this Friday in Hamburg, Germany, the two presidents should have in the back of their minds the insignia worn by the Syrian Democratic Forces militia, which is America’s main ally in Syria. The patch shows a map of Syria bisected by the sharp blue line of the Euphrates River.The Euphrates marks the informal “deconfliction” line between the Russian-backed Syrian regime west of the river and the US-backed and Kurdish-led SDF to the east. In the past several we

July 5, 2017

Trump’s tweets prove again, billionaires don’t know best

By now, the rational or at least nonmisogynistic among us have had an opportunity to be appalled by US President Donald Tweet’s recent Trumps (or is that backwards? It’s hard to remember) regarding the hosts of “Morning Joe,” a cable TV talk show about which the president is apparently fixated. The exact language of the comments hardly deserves to be repeated again, but the nastiest (and loudest cry for psychiatric help from within the White House) was directed at Mika Brzesinski and touched on

July 5, 2017

[Ben Carlson] Baby boomers will live long but might not prosper

Investors are constantly reminded that it’s impossible to avoid risk in their portfolio. People are worried about geopolitical risk, interest rate risk, liquidity risk, losing money, volatility, uncertainty and the permanent impairment of capital. The list could go on forever.For the tens of millions of baby boomers who have retired or will be retiring in the years ahead, there is another risk that could prove far more important. The biggest threat to the majority of retirees will be outliving t

July 5, 2017

[Christopher Balding] Chinese companies can stand sunlight

For all their national pride and natural boosterism, Chinese officials don’t seem to think much of their own companies. Regulators have sought to limit everything from high-speed trading to short-selling, arguing Chinese firms can’t yet handle the vagaries of modern financial markets. They’re particularly leery of greater transparency, for fear of what might be exposed. Only last week, the China Banking Regulatory Commission was accused of secretly tipping off key banks to dump bonds of companie

July 4, 2017

[Christopher Balding] Chinese companies can stand sunlight

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Trump and the truth about climate change

Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, the United States took another major step toward establishing itself as a rogue state on June 1, when it withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. For years, Trump has indulged the strange conspiracy theory that, as he put it in 2012, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” But this was not the reason Trump advanced for withdrawing the US from the Paris accord. Rather, the ag

July 4, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] Certain endings and new beginnings

Last week, the LTI Korea Translation Academy held the commencement ceremony for our graduates of 2017. As president of the academy, I was so proud of the students from different nations who wore gorgeous academic gowns and caps, with big smiles on their faces and certificates of graduation in their hands. During my congratulatory remarks, I asked them to always keep three things in mind wherever they go. I told them, “First, I want you to build a cultural and literary bridge connecting the world

July 4, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] Certain endings and new beginnings

[Mac Margolis] Brazil needs to look beyond scandal

It’s hard to catch a breath in Brazil. Just the other day President Michel Temer dodged a brick, surviving potentially job-ending charges in electoral court that he’d won his mandate with dirty campaign money. Political bulls promptly declared Temer a survivor who would not only salvage vital political and economic reforms but also tough out his beleaguered presidency.But in a country where two of the last four democratically elected leaders have been ousted in disgrace, and some of the highest-

July 4, 2017

[Tim McGrath] Remembering James Monroe, last president to die on Independence Day

In the fall of ’16, Americans elected a presidential candidate with a well-deserved reputation for partisanship. Once inaugurated, he surprised his countrymen by seeking to end party politics and usher in a time of unity among Americans rarely seen in our history.Obviously, we’re not talking about 2016.No, this was in 1816 and that president was James Monroe. He and President Trump share little in common. Trump graduated from military school at 18 and compared it to actually being in the militar

July 4, 2017

[Other view] A tax battle for Congress to settle

We all know brick-and-mortar stores are failing left and right, victims largely of the national shift to e-commerce. One big disadvantage of the physical stores, besides having to pay for infrastructure and the staff to run it, is that they have to collect sales tax and their online competitors generally do not.And that means another big loser in the evolving digital world is state government, which is losing lots of tax revenue. States have been having to contend with the 1992 Supreme Court cas

July 4, 2017

[Virginia Postrel] Remote work not about avoiding the commute

When I peered in the window at 140 Hawthorne Street in San Francisco, the place looked deserted. Maybe Automattic, the company that owns WordPress, had already abandoned the 1,300-square-meter former warehouse it renovated just four years ago. The long work tables were still there, the Aeron chairs still awaiting laptop-porting employees, a big screen still ready for someone’s presentation, a few computers still lining a back table. But no one seemed to be around.Then, way in the back of the cav

July 3, 2017

[Virginia Postrel] Remote work not about avoiding the commute

[Daniel L. Dreisbach] The Declaration, the constitution, the Bible

The Fourth of July is an opportune occasion to reflect on the memorable phrases of the struggle for independence such as “Give me liberty or give me death,” “No taxation without representation” and “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” These words were on the lips of Americans as their representatives huddled in Philadelphia, agitating for their rights and eventually declaring independence from Great Britain.What were the sources of the ideas encapsulated in the great documents of the nati

July 3, 2017

[Daniel L. Dreisbach] The Declaration, the constitution, the Bible

[Andres Oppenheimer] Latin America has surplus of talent, shortage of innovation

Amid the bloodshed in Venezuela, the corruption scandal in Brazil and the stream of bizarre tweets coming from President Trump, a very important news item has gone almost unnoticed in Latin America: A new study says the region is failing miserably in innovation.The Global Innovation Index 2017, a ranking of 130 countries around the world, says that African, Eastern European and Southeast Asian countries are doing much better than Latin America when it comes to modernizing their economies and pro

July 3, 2017

[Francis Wilkinson] A law to deter violence that won’t

Legislation is often reactive. Crime rises and in response legislatures fund cops, prosecutors, prisons. A high-rise burns and a new law requiring fire-retardant construction materials is readied.Kate’s Law is both reactive and proactive. Named for Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old American who was shot dead in July 2015 in San Francisco, the House of Representatives passed the legislation Thursday. The bill would raise maximum sentences for immigrants caught entering the US illegally, with the penalt

July 3, 2017

[Other view] Supreme Court’s travel ban decision creates new confusion

Monday’s US Supreme Court decision to allow a limited version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban to proceed until the court rules on the full case this fall was not a “clear victory for our national security,” as the president claimed in a triumphant tweet.Instead, it amplified a damaging message in the US and abroad, undercutting efforts to counter violent extremism. The ban targets six mostly Muslim nations -- Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. That fact betrays American values

July 3, 2017

[Joo Joong-chul] Has cultural diplomacy been forgotten?

Due to the allergic reaction to the “culture prosperity policy” of the former government, the word “culture” can hardly be found in the recent diplomacy of the new government. As the case may be, it is natural for cultural diplomacy to be left behind because of present diplomatic issues. Nonetheless, our government’s cultural diplomacy, represented by public diplomacy, has been making steady progress. We have pursued a “public diplomacy with the people” in earnest by building a collaborative sys

July 3, 2017

[Joo Joong-chul] Has cultural diplomacy been forgotten?

[Adam Minter] China won’t save blockbusters

It certainly looked like a bomb. “Transformers: The Last Knight,” which cost Paramount Pictures over $350 million to make and market, earned a lame $69 million during its first five days in US theaters in mid-June. Paramount executives could overlook that performance because in China, where the “Transformers” series has enjoyed a decade of wild popularity, the film earned over $123 million during the same period. But the time when Hollywood filmmakers could count on Chinese viewers to rescue the

July 2, 2017

[Adam Minter] China won’t save blockbusters

[Sin-ming Shaw] Hong Kong’s handover hangover

Last month, an estimated 100,000 Hong Kong residents gathered in Victoria Park to mark the 28th anniversary of China violent repression of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. As the South China Morning Post noted, the event in Hong Kong was the only large-scale public commemoration of June 4, 1989, permitted on Chinese soil. And, to the attendees, the Hong Kong demonstration reflected growing frustration, not only with China’s leaders, but also with their own.On the surface,

July 2, 2017

[Sin-ming Shaw] Hong Kong’s handover hangover

[Leonid Bershidsky] Sweden’s smart idea for reducing global killing

Sweden is about to take a bold step: Its government wants to be the first in the world to impose legislative curbs on selling weapons to undemocratic regimes. If other big arms exporters did the same, fewer people would die in senseless wars.Sweden is the 12th biggest arms exporter in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, with 2016 exports worth $1.2 billion. Many in the country’s powerful civil society have long protested against sales to repressive regim

July 2, 2017

[Sebastian Johnson] Case for universal basic income

By now you will have heard rumblings of the policy idea known as “universal basic income.” This is the notion that the government should give every citizen enough no-strings-attached money to cover basic living expenses.In the last year alone, Mark Zuckerberg called on Harvard’s graduating class to “explore ideas like universal basic income,” Elon Musk told a gathering of world leaders in Dubai that “some kind of universal basic income is going to be necessary” and President Obama remarked that

July 2, 2017