The Korea Herald

[David Ignatius] Quarrel between top leaders in Tehran

WASHINGTON ― When there’s political upheaval in Tehran, it’s often interwoven with the explosive question of possible outreach to the United States. And that may be the case with a recent feud between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The key figure in this dispute is Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Ahmadinejad’s former chief of staff and said to be his choice as successor in

May 9, 2011

[David Ignatius] Quarrel between top leaders in Tehran

[Albert R. Hunt] Obama’s Abbottabad bounce may prove short-lived

The cardinal sin of political prognostication is static analysis.A short weekend ago the emerging wisdom was that President Barack Obama’s reelection was in peril. The House Republican whip, Kevin McCarthy of California, perhaps the most politically attuned elected member of his party, was saying that while he always believed Republicans would have a good year in 2012, he now thought it was likely

May 9, 2011

[William Pesek] China needs to upgrade economic software

Mark Zuckerberg shouldn’t lose too much sleep about China’s Facebook beating him to Wall Street.Renren Inc. is the first social-networking website to go public in the U.S., raising $743 million with which founder Joseph Chen can tap China’s 1.3 billion people. China is a market Facebook Inc. has yet to friend and the U.S. equity market is a place Zuckerberg has yet to tread.Here’s the thing, thoug

May 9, 2011

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] The IMF’s switch comes at right time

NEW YORK ― The annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund was notable in marking the fund’s effort to distance itself from its own long-standing tenets on capital controls and labor-market flexibility. It appears that a new IMF has gradually, and cautiously, emerged under the leadership of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.Slightly more than 13 years earlier, at the IMF’s Hong Kong meeting in 1

May 9, 2011

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] The IMF’s switch comes at right time

Death row delays show lack of conviction

Last year, California added 28 inmates to the state’s death row, eight of whom were sentenced in Los Angeles County. They aren’t in much danger of an early demise, however, thanks largely to legal delays, including a decision Tuesday by state officials not to pursue executions in 2011. The seemingly never-ending court battles mean that convicts in capital cases are far more likely to die of natura

May 8, 2011

Is the world safer now al-Qaida chief is dead?

Although the Americans have been gloatingly bandying about the death of Osama bin Laden since their “successful” operation at Abbottabad on Monday (May 2), doubts have continued to persist about the man whom they had identified as al-Qaida’s chief before taking his life. In fact, the burial of the body at sea tends to reinforce the suspicion of a questionable identity of the murdered person; if pr

May 8, 2011

[Max Boot] Bin Laden: The day of reckoning

In evaluating Osama bin Laden’s dubious legacy, it is important to note that there was nothing new about religiously inspired terrorism when this rich Saudi exile convened a small group of jihadists in his Peshawar, Pakistan, home in 1988 to found al-Qaida ― an organization designed to carry on the war waged so successfully against the Red Army in Afghanistan.Two of the earliest known terrorist gr

May 8, 2011

[David Ignatius] Kingmaker’s tale recalls CIA’s purpose

WASHINGTON ― As Washington buzzes about yet another restart for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, I have been reading a book that summarizes the past 44 years of botched peacemaking, blown opportunities and, sometimes, sheer folly. The book is a posthumous memoir by Jack O’Connell, a former CIA operative who was for many years King Hussein’s “case officer” in Jordan. Yes, you read that right

May 8, 2011

[David Ignatius] Kingmaker’s tale recalls CIA’s purpose

[Meghan Daum] Big breaking news is now impossible to escape

When it emerged Sunday night that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, some people thought I might not hear about it for weeks. Not because I only consume news about Sarah Palin but because, for the last month, I’ve been in semi-isolation in the New Hampshire woods. I’m on a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, a hallowed institution that provides artists of all kinds ― write

May 8, 2011

[Meghan Daum] Big breaking news is now impossible to escape

[Trudy Rubin] Now, we can put terrorist movement into perspective

“Al-Qaida. Bin Laden. Old news. This is the time to move forward.”So said President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser John Brennan last week, and his words couldn’t be more true.For Americans, for President Obama, for the landscape of security threats we face, for the war in Afghanistan, bin Laden’s death is a game changer. Yes, there is still a terrorist threat, but the death of this killer change

May 8, 2011

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Sleepwalking through America’s unemployment crisis

NEWPORT BEACH ― It was relegated to the Q&A session, rather than featured prominently in the opening statement, at last week’s first-ever press conference of U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. It is an issue that too many in Washington, DC are willing to dismiss as “transitory,” despite visible evidence to the contrary. It is extremely vulnerable to high oil and food prices. And it

May 8, 2011

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Sleepwalking through America’s unemployment crisis

[Editorial] Follow-up action

With the Korea-EU free trade agreement ratified earlier in the week and set to take effect in July, Korean companies are gearing up for an opportunity to expand their exports to the 27-member European Union. At the top of the list of potential beneficiaries are automakers, television manufacturers and footwear companies, whose products would be exempted from high tariffs.The EU is set to phase out

May 6, 2011

Despite the euphoria, this is still the long war

When you cut the head off a snake, it dies. U.S. officials would be wise to stop making allusions to decapitated reptiles when referring to al-Qaida after Osama bin Laden’s death because this organization remains alive and active across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and, yes, the United States.Killing bin Laden deals a significant blow to al-Qaida, but be assured, it lives to fight again.T

May 6, 2011

[Hans-Werner Sinn] The ECB’s secret bailout strategy

MUNICH ― Why did Greece, Ireland, and Portugal have to seek shelter under the European Union’s rescue umbrella, and why is Spain a potential candidate?For many, the answer is obvious: international markets no longer want to finance the “PIGS.” But that is only half true. In fact, international markets have not financed any of them to a considerable extent for the past three years; the European Cen

May 6, 2011

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Global economy’s corporate crime wave

NEW YORK ― The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries ― those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich countries that host the global companies that carry out the largest offenses. Money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.H

May 6, 2011

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Global economy’s corporate crime wave

Triple disaster and the Constitution

Japan on Tuesday marked the 64th anniversary of the enforcement of the postwar Constitution just as the entire nation, including its people, private enterprises, and the central and local governments, is struggling to overcome the consequences of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan.The anniversary also came at a time when the lives of the people in Fukushima Pref

May 6, 2011

Game makers must boost security measures

There was a time when all one had to worry about from video games were ― for parents ― their affects on children’s homework and eyesight, possible violent content, their cost and ― for game makers ― pirated game cassettes.Those good old days were officially over yesterday (May 2) as video game giant Sony apologized for a security breach that caused the loss of some 77 million accounts’ personal in

May 6, 2011

[Suthichai Yoon] None willing to serve in Thai opposition

Now that we are on the verge of a new election, the important questions to ask are: Should a mediocre Thai government be given a second chance? Does a failed opposition party deserve to be the next government?To put it in another way: How do we know that a party that doesn’t perform well as a government would do better if voted back in? And how do we know that a party that refuses to be a strong o

May 6, 2011

[Suthichai Yoon] None willing to serve in Thai opposition

[Matthew Lynn] The next stage of euro crisis

Greece? Been there. Ireland? Done that. Portugal? Got the T-shirt. For the past year, countries sharing the euro have been going bust one by one.So where’s next? Plenty of people will point the finger at Spain. Some at Italy. A few single out Belgium, a country with high debts, and no government.But they should be looking somewhere else: France.It is increasingly politically unstable, its debt pos

May 5, 2011

U.S. ties with Middle East after Osama bin Laden

The dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden after a 40-minute gun battle in a Pakistani hill station mansion is, as President Obama rightly said, a triumph of justice. It is a symbolic and historic milestone in the war on terror, marking the end of a frustrating, decade-long manhunt.By continuing to pursue bin Laden years after 9/11, the United States sought to demonstrate that it has staying power an

May 5, 2011