The Korea Herald

[Dominique Moisi] Who among us will help the poor?

PARIS ― With the deepening of the economic crisis and the prospect of another recession looming large on the horizon, growing social inequality has become an increasingly urgent issue. How does one reinforce a sense of solidarity and responsibility within a country? Who will protect the weakest?&nbs

Aug. 31, 2011

[Dominique Moisi] Who among us will help the poor?

[Meghan Daum] Politics signals the invasion of the idiocrats

You may not have seen “Idiocracy,” the 2006 sci-fi comedy set in an utterly dysfunctional nation 500 years in the future, but chances are you’ve heard it mentioned lately. References to the film seem to be everywhere, and not just in op-eds penned by cranky columnists (I mentioned it in a column las

Aug. 31, 2011

[Meghan Daum] Politics signals the invasion of the idiocrats

[Eve Weinbaum and Rachel Roth] Beyond suffrage: How far have women come since?

Today we celebrate the anniversary of female suffrage, a victory that took more than 70 years of political struggle to achieve. After women won the right to vote in 1920, socialist feminist Crystal Eastman observed that suffrage was an important first step but that what women really wanted was freed

Aug. 31, 2011

[Hans-Werner Sinn] The trouble with eurobonds

MUNICH ― German Chancellor Angela Merkel has withstood the pressure from southern Europe: there will be no eurobonds. For the markets, this is a disappointment, but there is no other way for these countries to rebuild themselves than to insist patiently on a phase of debt discipline and an end to la

Aug. 30, 2011

[Hans-Werner Sinn] The trouble with eurobonds

[William Pesek] Steve Jobs trumps CEO of $5 trillion economy

Things are bad when a world leader quitting registers less than a corporate executive. That’s what Naoto Kan gets for bowing out the same week as Steve Jobs. Markets reacted immediately to news of Jobs’s departure from Apple Inc.; there was barely a ripple after Kan cashed out and paved the way for

Aug. 30, 2011

[Kim Seong-kon] Korean vs. American universities

As someone who has taught at both Korean and American universities, I know there are some interesting differences between the two higher educational institutions. In Korea, for example, most high school students seem to believe that a college degree is imperative in order to climb the ladder of soci

Aug. 30, 2011

[Kim Seong-kon] Korean vs. American universities

[Daniel Fiedler] Child abuse and the failure of South Korean courts

In November 1991 South Korea ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Since that ratification, the South Korean government has enacted a variety of laws to protect children from abuse and exploitation, the centerpiece law being the Child Welfare Act. More recently Korea b

Aug. 30, 2011

[Albert R. Hunt] Changing Vietnam yearns for closer U.S. embrace

Pham Binh Minh, whose father fought to force the U.S. out of Vietnam, is working fervently to elevate the interest and involvement of his country’s former enemy. Vietnam wants a U.S. presence for economic reasons and as a balance to China, the regional superpower. Minh is the new foreign minister; h

Aug. 30, 2011

[David Ignatius] Another al-Qaida leader falls

WASHINGTON ― The death of Atiyah Abd al-Rahman in an Aug. 22 drone attack in Pakistan may appear to be just another in the revolving-door fatalities among al-Qaida’s operations chiefs. But it was a crucial blow to the core group that once surrounded Osama bin Laden. Atiyah, as he was known to a

Aug. 29, 2011

[David Ignatius] Another al-Qaida leader falls

[Susan Crawford] U.S. falls behind in race toward open government

When Brazil’s government buys anything from fighter jets to a fancy villa, details are available online within 24 hours. Such disclosures are a powerful way to combat corruption, and are a model for official openness that could inspire other nations. Brazil’s online portal started in 2004. Among its

Aug. 29, 2011

[Virginia Postrel] How Jobs made business cool

To understand the cultural significance of Steve Jobs, you have to go back in time: to before the iPad or iPhone or iTunes, before Apple Inc.’s comeback products made candy-colored plastics and iAnything cool, before Jobs got kicked out of Apple, even before the Macintosh hurled a sledgehammer at Bi

Aug. 29, 2011

[Virginia Postrel] How Jobs made business cool

[Jack Goldstone and Charles Cadwell] Planning for new Libya in post-Gadhafi era

Post-Gadhafi Libya brims with promise, but also with pitfalls. Blessed with low-sulfur oil, proximity to Europe, and recent strong economic growth, the country should be poised to move forward. But that’s only if the risks of tribal conflicts and the challenges of a very young population and regiona

Aug. 29, 2011

[Simon Johnson] Behind euro, a crisis unfolds in slow motion

Is the economic and financial situation in Western Europe largely under control, as many prominent Europeans contend? Or is it poised to move into a new and more difficult phase? The crisis feels unreal to some people in the same way that war felt phony to some Britons from September 1939 through sp

Aug. 29, 2011

[David Ignatius] A rare look inside al-Qaida

WASHINGTON ― Government officials refer to it blandly as the “SSE,” or Sensitive Site Exploitation. That’s their oblique term for the extraordinary cache of evidence that was carried away from Osama bin Laden’s compound the night the al-Qaida leader was killed. With the anniversary of the Sept.

Aug. 28, 2011

[David Ignatius] A rare look inside al-Qaida

[Ramin Jahanbegloo] Syria, Iran will only change if people unite as in Libya

TORONTO ― When future generations look back, they will remember 2011 as the year of end of dictators in the Middle East and the Maghreb. Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi has now joined the Middle East parade of fallen despots. Practically nine months after Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was oust

Aug. 28, 2011

[Gordon Brown] The eurozone’s cure should start with Germany

LONDON ― I can well understand the defiant mood in Germany today as it grapples with the crisis engulfing the eurozone. German anger is obvious and well founded.Over the last 10 years, while Spain, Ireland, Portugal and others partied on low interest rates, the German people cut their wages, endured

Aug. 28, 2011

[Gordon Brown] The eurozone’s cure should start with Germany

[Noah Charney] Art theft, from the ‘Mona Lisa’ to today

One hundred years ago, an Italian handyman named Vincenzo Peruggia stole the world’s most famous painting from the world’s most famous museum. Peruggia slipped out of a closet inside the Louvre in which he had hidden overnight, removed the “Mona Lisa” from the wall and retreated to a service stairca

Aug. 28, 2011

[Malcolm Sparrow] An e-ripoff of the U.S.

A Los Angeles jury recently convicted a local pastor and his wife of fraudulently claiming $14.2 million from Medicare. The culprits recruited parishioners to help run fake durable medical equipment companies, and spent the proceeds on expensive cars and other luxuries. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gener

Aug. 28, 2011

[Michael Broning] U.N.: Which Palestinian state?

JERUSALEM ― Israelis and Palestinians are preparing for a showdown at the United Nations in September, when the Palestinian leadership will ask for recognition of a Palestinian state within the borders that existed before the Six Day War in 1967 (when Israel seized control of Jordanian-occupied terr

Aug. 26, 2011

[Michael Broning] U.N.: Which Palestinian state?

[William Pesek] Banker suicides offer clues in a bellwether

If our world has any place that acts like a financial early warning system, it’s South Korea. With high short-term debt levels and little to cushion it from destabilizing global events, Korea is often the first of the top 15 economies to zig, zag or hit an economic wall. At the moment, events on the

Aug. 26, 2011