The Korea Herald

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Anatomy of economic uncertainty

NEWPORT BEACH ― The sense of uncertainty prevailing in the West is palpable, and rightly so. People are worried about their futures, with a record number now fearing that their children may end up worse off than them. Unfortunately, things will become even more unsettling in the months ahead.The United States is having difficulties returning its economy to the path of high growth and vigorous job creation. Thousands of people have taken to the streets of U.S. cities, and thousands of others in E

Nov. 24, 2011

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Anatomy of economic uncertainty

Concerns for information security in South Korea

In today’s information society businesses are becoming globalized and interlinked with each other on the Internet. In addition, companies are handling larger amounts of data and managing confidential information. This obviously increases the potential risks of cyber security and privacy on the Internet for businesses.According to a survey in 2010 from the Korea Internet & Security Agency, Korean businesses seem in grave danger of information security vulnerabilities because of hidden risks. Firs

Nov. 24, 2011

Can the American empire fight back?

The Redcoats are coming! The Redcoats are coming!Remember what your elementary school teacher taught you about the War of Independence? The British wore scarlet coats, which made them easy marks and symbolized institutional pomposity, adherence to status over efficiency and an out-of-touch empire bent on doing things the old way. The rebellious American colonists, on the other hand, wore whatever; they were nimble, unencumbered by institutional baggage and not too proud to employ guerrilla tacti

Nov. 24, 2011

Penn State squandered window to handle crisis

At least six months.That’s the minimum amount of time that Pennsylvania State University officials had to ready their public response before everything hit the fan in the Jerry Sandusky case. While the debate continues as to who within the Penn State community was on notice of Sandusky’s alleged sexual abuse of children over the years, it is undeniable that, since the spring, the university was on notice of a potentially earth-shattering investigation. Still, the ineptitude that appears to have

Nov. 24, 2011

[Brahma Chellaney] Extremists waiting in the wings

NEW DELHI ― Following the death of Libya’s Muammar el-Gadhafi, Libya’s interim government announced the “liberation” of the country. It also declared that a system based on sharia (Islamic law), including polygamy, would replace the secular dictatorship that Gadhafi ran for 42 years. Swapping one form of authoritarianism for another seems a cruel letdown after seven months of NATO airstrikes in the name of democracy.In fact, the Western powers that brought about regime change in Libya have made

Nov. 24, 2011

[Brahma Chellaney] Extremists waiting in the wings

Tide of debate is slowly turning on climate change

The forthcoming Durban conference comes at a major crossroads in international relations, with continuing economic malaise in the West being counterpoised with the increasingly rapid shift of power to emerging economies. Mirroring this structural change is a fundamental shift in the center of gravity of the global climate change debate that few have yet to recognize. While the outlook for Durban is highly uncertain, a critical mass of countries are currently advancing landmark domestic climate c

Nov. 23, 2011

[Benigno S. Aquino] Philippines joins the Asian race

MANILA ― In 1980, my father arrived in the United States to undergo a heart bypass, due to the rigors of his imprisonment by the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. The dictatorship offered him a reprieve, but, true to its nature, one dependent on its whims. Having already been condemned by a kangaroo court to death by musketry, my father refused to hoist a white flag. “The Filipino,” he insisted, “is worth dying for.”Three years later, my father went home, not to die, but to infuse new life into

Nov. 23, 2011

[Benigno S. Aquino] Philippines joins the Asian race

Deutsche Bank could transfer contagion

You’ve probably never heard of Taunus Corp., but according to the Federal Reserve, it’s the U.S.’s eighth-largest bank holding company. Taunus, it turns out, is the North American subsidiary of Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, with assets of just over $380 billion. Deutsche Bank holds a large amount of European government and bank debt; it also has considerable exposure to lingering real estate problems in the U.S. The bank, therefore, could become a conduit for risk between the two economies. But wh

Nov. 23, 2011

Bulging jails are other American exception

One area where the U.S. indisputably leads the world is incarceration. There are 2.3 million people behind bars, almost one in every 100 Americans. The federal prison population has more than doubled over the past 15 years, and one in nine black children has a parent in jail. Proportionally, the U.S. has four times as many prisoners as Israel, six times more than Canada or China, eight times more than Germany and 13 times more than Japan. With just a little more than 4 percent of the world’s pop

Nov. 23, 2011

[Robert Reich] Corporate pledge of allegiance

Despite what the Supreme Court and Mitt Romney say, corporations aren’t people. (I’ll believe they are when Georgia and Texas start executing them.)The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations should be treated no differently than people who have First Amendment rights to spend money on politics. That was the majority’s view in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ― a case that’s opened the floodgates to big money in the upcoming election.Romney agrees corporations are people, and doe

Nov. 23, 2011

[Robert Reich] Corporate pledge of allegiance

Germany should take wisdom from Keynes

Germany, with the help of the European Central Bank, has achieved a level of dominance in Europe it hasn’t enjoyed since World War II. It is to that period, and a bit earlier, that it might look for lessons on how to save a troubled European project. The rapid fall of euro-area governments in recent days demonstrates the enormous influence Germany and the ECB have gained over sovereign nations. By withholding the money needed to restore confidence in struggling countries’ finances, they have hel

Nov. 22, 2011

[Daniel Fiedler] Why the ISD clause is necessary

These days the Democratic Party of South Korea is again engaged in obstructing the halls, conference rooms and podiums of the National Assembly. These politicians and their Internet bloggers are whipping the Korean public into a frenzy against the KORUS Free Trade Agreement. This time the issues revolve around the impact of the investor-state dispute (ISD) settlement clause. And again politicians and the Internet demagogues are spreading fear and panic, hyping the alleged imminent takeover of So

Nov. 22, 2011

[Daniel Fiedler] Why the ISD clause is necessary

Stem cell question

Jamie has felt terrible pain in his stomach for a few weeks. So he squeezes some time out of his hectic schedule and knocks on the door of the regular clinic near his place. After undergoing 20 minute-long endoscopy, he staggers to a seat opposite the doc, and find himself hearing the words, the very words breaking his dizzy body into tiny splinters ... “You have gastric cancer, I’m sorry, it’s terminal...”After that, Jamie’s battle for life begins, leaving no stone unturned to catch even the la

Nov. 22, 2011

We need to tackle college student debt

Soaring student debt is a problem that only Congress can answer. Until it acts, students and their families will keep falling deeper into debt.For years, state support of higher education has dropped drastically, pushing tuitions up. At the same time, most American families have seen their incomes shrink, forcing them to borrow more and more if they want to send their kids to college. It’s no wonder the total amount of money Americans owe for higher education is now more than what we owe on cred

Nov. 22, 2011

Solyndra scandal and the Nov. 3 layoffs

The White House decision to back a California-based maker of advanced solar panels with a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009 looks seedier by the day. By all appearances, this deal and subsequent debacle had more to do with campaign cash and hoodwinking voters than it did with green energy.Solyndra Inc. burned through its loans in just two years, filed for bankruptcy and threw its employees on the street.If the story stopped there, it would be bad enough. But a trail of emails trickling out ove

Nov. 22, 2011

[Kim Seong-kon] No such thing as a free lunch

English-speaking people often say, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” It is a well-known adage that implies “you cannot get something for nothing.” Some Koreans may take the phrase to simply mean: “If somebody invites you to lunch, he has a favor to ask and you are obliged to help him.” Such an interpretation is not completely wrong, but the maxim means more than that. The saying can also mean: “If you want something, you need to give up something else,” or “If you get something at no cos

Nov. 22, 2011

[Kim Seong-kon] No such thing as a free lunch

U.S. hesitant to ‘reckon with evil’ in Syria

Samantha Power used to be best known for her tour-de-force book, “A Problem From Hell,” in which she correctly accused the United States of willfully ignoring genocide in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia and elsewhere.“Despite graphic media coverage,” she wrote, “American policymakers” are “extremely slow to muster the imagination to reckon with evil.”Now Power sits in the Obama White House, a senior staffer on the National Security Council. She’s watching along with everyone else in Washington as Syria

Nov. 21, 2011

[David Ignatius] Saudi Arabia’s role in Mideast

RIYADH ― Over this past year of Arab Spring revolt, Saudi Arabia has increasingly replaced the United States as the key status-quo power in the Middle East ― a role that seems likely to expand even more in coming years as the Saudis boost their military and economic spending. Saudis describe the kingdom’s growing role as a reaction, in part, to the diminished clout of the United States. They still regard the U.S.-Saudi relationship as valuable, but it’s no longer seen as a guarantor of their sec

Nov. 21, 2011

[David Ignatius] Saudi Arabia’s role in Mideast

Islam offers a third way in Pakistan, Tunisia

During the worldwide depression of the mid-1930s, the poet and Islamic modernist Muhammad Iqbal, often called Pakistan’s spiritual founder, wrote a poem dramatizing the inadequacies of Western political and economic systems. Democracy and capitalism had empowered a privileged elite in the name of the people, Iqbal felt. But he was not much fonder of Marxism, which was then coming into vogue among anti-colonial activists across South Asia and the Middle East: But what’s the answer to the mischief

Nov. 21, 2011

Turn underwater homes into college diplomas

Both in the real world and in the corridors of power, the consensus is that the congressional supercommittee will fail to compromise this week on how to close the country’s multi-trillion-dollar federal budget deficit and, as a result, a series of cuts, totaling $1.2 trillion, will automatically kick in. Many people believe this failure to act will short-circuit what little hope exists for an economic recovery. And it will be yet another demonstration of the inability of our political parties to

Nov. 21, 2011