The Korea Herald

One exam shouldn’t decide your future

Kim Seong-kon in “One exam decides your future” wrote an interesting piece in this paper last Wednesday (Dec. 21). Whilst sympathetic to the view of the writer, there was a hint that creative education was somehow linked to the “foreign” issue and that, yet again, Koreans are having to adapt to the external whims of foreigners. I would like to add a few reflections. On meeting President Obama earlier last month, President Lee in classic Korean style “complained” that the problem with Koreans is

Dec. 27, 2011

How the insurance industry tried to ban Christmas

In December 1908, the insurance industry declared war on Christmas. The New York Board of Underwriters issued an announcement to every client of every fire-insurance firm in the city.It read:Your attention is hereby respectfully called to the fact that the introduction about the premises of Christmas green, harvest specimens and other inflammable materials, such as cotton, to represent snow, and the like, and the use of moving picture machines, introduces additional hazard not contemplated by th

Dec. 27, 2011

[Kim Seong-kon] No return of vanishing dictators

In 2011, we witnessed the fall or death of dictators in various countries. For example, Mubarak in Egypt had to dishonorably resign from his post after 30 years of ruthless rule, forced out by mass protests by the Egyptian people. In October, Gaddafi of Libya was killed by angry rebels after 42 years of iron-fisted rule. Who in the world would have expected that the mighty Gaddafi, who had wielded absolute power as the “King of Kings” in North Africa, and had antagonized the West with various te

Dec. 27, 2011

[Kim Seong-kon] No return of vanishing dictators

Political predictions for a fast-moving 2012

The pressure is on. Four years ago, I picked Barack Obama to win 353 electoral votes and, twice, I correctly tabbed George W. Bush as a winner, including a 2000 forecast he’d beat Al Gore by four electoral votes. Here is a preview of the road to Nov. 6:January: Texas Rep. Ron Paul edges Mitt Romney in Iowa caucuses, and fast-closing Texas Gov. Rick Perry nips Newt Gingrich for third. Romney rebounds to beat Paul in New Hampshire, but Perry edges former Massachusetts governor in South Carolina, d

Dec. 26, 2011

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] New global economic disorder

NEWPORT BEACH ― A new economic order is taking shape before our eyes, and it is one that includes accelerated convergence between the old Western powers and the emerging world’s major new players. But the forces driving this convergence have little to do with what generations of economists envisaged when they pointed out the inadequacy of the old order; and these forces’ implications may be equally unsettling.For decades, many people lamented the extent to which the West dominated the global eco

Dec. 26, 2011

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] New global economic disorder

Republicans may be dealing Obama a winning hand

Barack Obama probably will have to pull out a familiar card next year: the luck of the draw. In winning the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, the president defeated political heavyweights, starting with Hillary Clinton. His other triumphs were facilitated by lots of luck. In his 2004 race for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, the candidacies of both his chief primary opponent and initial Republican rival collapsed when divorce papers were disclosed during the campaign; one was accused of vi

Dec. 26, 2011

Quiet Iraq exit won’t have Afghanistan replay

Rarely in U.S. history has the end of a war been marked with less fanfare than the withdrawal of the last troops from Iraq in time for Christmas. Indeed, you could almost be forgiven for failing to notice it at all, so arbitrary does the timing seem. U.S. interests in Iraq will be no different in the first week of 2012 than they are now. Iraq’s government remains shaky, and the dangers of instability and civil war remain. About 16,000 Americans are still there, too, including an unspecified numb

Dec. 26, 2011

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Havel demonstrates the power of living in truth

NEW YORK ― The world’s greatest shortage is not of oil, clean water, or food, but of moral leadership. With a commitment to truth ― scientific, ethical, and personal ― a society can overcome the many crises of poverty, disease, hunger, and instability that confront us. Yet power abhors truth, and battles it relentlessly. So let us pause to express gratitude to Vaclav Havel, who died this month, for enabling a generation to gain the chance to live in truth.Havel was a pivotal leader of the revolu

Dec. 26, 2011

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Havel demonstrates the power of living in truth

‘Bad wind’ blowing through Israel

If Christian pilgrims traveling to Bethlehem for Christmas this week happened to witness violence, for the first time militant Jews, not Palestinians, were most likely to be the perpetrators.Now that a far right-wing government has governed Israel for almost three years, settlers feel emboldened so that Jewish extremists are wreaking havoc and mayhem. West Bank Palestinians, meanwhile, are standing by quietly, largely minding their own business ― even as these settler-marauders repeatedly attack

Dec. 25, 2011

[Yoon Young-kwan] Whither North Korea?

SEOUL ― According to North Korean state television, the heart attack that killed Kim Jong-il on Dec. 17 was “due to severe mental and physical stress from overwork.” That report instantly raised a question in my mind: if we accept the regime’s diagnosis, why did Kim need to work so hard, despite his frail health? In some sense, his sudden death seems to symbolize the helplessness of a desperate leader confronting overwhelming challenges.Seen in this light, the more important question is whether

Dec. 25, 2011

When it comes to marriage, money matters

Last week, Elizabeth Taylor’s jewels were auctioned for an astonishing $116 million, easily a record for a single collection. Taylor’s talent for amassing jewelry was equaled only by her ability to accumulate husbands. There were eight marriages in all, two of them to Richard Burton, who bought her a 33-carat diamond ring that was auctioned for $8.8 million.By coincidence, the same day’s newspaper had another story about marriage, this one less spectacular but more far-reaching. The news was a f

Dec. 25, 2011

How bad ideas worsen Europe’s debt meltdown

Europe is as full of bad ideas as it is of bad debts. Conventional wisdom says that sovereign defaults mean the end of the euro: If Greece defaults it has to leave the single currency; German taxpayers have to bail out southern governments to save the union. This is nonsense. U.S. states and local governments have defaulted on dollar debts, just as companies default. A currency is simply a unit of value, as meters are units of length. If the Greeks had skimped on the olive oil in a liter bottle,

Dec. 25, 2011

[Robert Reich] Defining issue for 2012 isn’t size

The defining political issue of 2012 won’t be the government’s size. It will be who government is for.Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government.But the surge of cynicism engulfing America isn’t about how big government has become. It’s a growing perception that our government is no longer working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street and the very rich.In a recent Pew Foundation poll, 77 percent of responden

Dec. 25, 2011

[Robert Reich] Defining issue for 2012 isn’t size

Kim Jong-il’s two-decade rule was a road to ruin

The career of Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” was marked by a series of historical firsts ― most of them dubious at best. He was, to begin, the first ruler of a Marxist-Leninist state to inherit absolute power through hereditary succession from his father, “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung, founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK.He was also the first ruler of an urbanized, literate society to preside over a mass famine in peacetime: The Great North Korean Famine of the

Dec. 23, 2011

Kim Jong-il’s two-decade rule was a road to ruin

[David Ignatius] How quick to exit in Afghanistan?

KABUL, Afghanistan ― Gen. John Allen insists that there is “no daylight” between him and President Obama about policy for continued troop withdrawals from Afghanistan next year. That may be technically true, but a political battle is brewing over the future pace of the U.S. military drawdown here. Allen, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, says the White House hasn’t given him any timetable for further cuts after September 2012. That’s when the last of the 30,000 “surge” troops Obama di

Dec. 23, 2011

[David Ignatius] How quick to exit in Afghanistan?

Global community must prepare for unstable N. K.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the general secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, died Saturday.After the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, he struggled for 17 years to maintain the reclusive country’s regime. News of the dictator’s sudden death flashed around the globe, after the fact was hidden for two days.It is inevitable that North Korea, a country with a father-son political succession system, will become more unstable for a while.What will the regime be like under the rule of

Dec. 23, 2011

Time enough to determine who’s responsible

For the tremendous physical and emotional damage it has wrought, “Sendong” is one for the books.But there will be time enough for blame after the dead are buried and the missing are found, whether breathing or rendered extinct, in the storm-stricken areas of Mindanao. For now, let sorrow and the ceremony of mourning take their course. Let those suddenly bereft of loved ones and earthly possessions find the strength to come to grips with their loss and, though inconceivable for the moment, to go

Dec. 23, 2011

North Korea at a crossroads

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Saturday, reported by Pyongyang’s special broadcast from noon Monday, could destabilize the isolated communist country as well as all of the Korean Peninsula. Events unfolding in the North Korean leadership must be watched carefully to prepare for possible deterioration of regional stability.Kim, reported to have suffered a stroke in 2008, died of a heart attack on his train due to “great mental and physical strain caused by his uninterrupted field

Dec. 23, 2011

[William Choong] Provocations over rapprochement?

Following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the 2004 film Team America, which had portrayed Kim as a lonely and insane dictator, began trending on the Internet. A popular clip being circulated is that of Kim singing, Broadway-style, in the opulent surroundings of his palace. “I’m so ronery (sic),” he sings, saying that the world does not appreciate his “grand prans (sic).”This state of affairs now applies to his heir apparent Kim Jong-un, who is reported to be his late 20s and a newc

Dec. 23, 2011

[William Choong] Provocations over rapprochement?

U.S. gets new chance to engage North Korea

Hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death on Saturday, news reports out of Seoul said Pyongyang had agreed to suspend its enriched uranium nuclear weapons program.This was a sign that denuclearization talks, stalled since April 2009 when North Korea pulled out, could resume. It was a key demand of the United States before it would agree to the resumption of talks.The agreement, struck between North Korean and U.S. negotiators in talks in Beijing last Thursday and Friday, included 240,0

Dec. 22, 2011