[David Ignatius] A cyclone brews over Saudi Arabia

An internal political storm is roiling Saudi Arabia, as the crown prince and his deputy jockey for power under an aging King Salman -- while some other members of the royal family agitate on behalf of a third senior prince who they claim would have wider family support.　For the secretive oil kingdom, whose internal debates are usually opaque to outsiders, the recent strife has been unusually open. The tension between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and his deputy, Mohammed bin Salman (the king’s

Oct. 14, 2015

[Kim Ji-hyun] Osaka mayor’s gender bias

Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Japan’s third-largest city Osaka, is something of a revolutionary. 　I say revolutionary because this man has single-handedly blazed several new trails in Japanese politics. 　One of them involved trying to enforce radical changes to streamline Osaka City’s civil service. Although unsuccessful, the overture deserves praise for its practicality and antibureaucratic nature. 　This time, Hashimoto has cofounded a new party -- the Osaka Ishin no Kai. Pundits believe the par

Oct. 14, 2015

[Robert J. Fouser] Nobel Prizes and ‘culture of spec’

The Nobel Prize announcements this year marked another year with Korea coming away empty-handed, which has caused another round of soul searching. Korea’s neighbors did well this year, with the Japanese winning three prizes and Chinese one. Since 2000, Japanese have won 16 prizes and Chinese five. To date, Japanese have won 24 prizes covering all fields except economics. To date, former president Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 and is the only Korean to have won a Nobel Prize.　The

Oct. 13, 2015

[Kim Seong-kon] The two Koreas in American media

These days, North Korea frequently appears in American movies and TV shows as a serious threat to the United States. In the 2013 Hollywood action flick “Olympus Has Fallen,” North Korean terrorists seize the White House in a surprise attack and hold President Benjamin Asher and his staff, including the secretary of defense, as hostages. Driven by their obsession with the unification of the Korean peninsula, the North Korean terrorists devastate the White House with an air and ground assault. On

Oct. 13, 2015

[Jeffrey Frankel] Be open-minded about TPP

CAMBRIDGE — Agreement among negotiators from 12 Pacific Rim countries on the Trans-Pacific Partnership represents a triumph over long odds. 　Tremendous political obstacles, both domestic and international, had to be overcome to conclude the deal. And now critics of the TPP’s ratification, particularly in the United States, should read the agreement with an open mind.　Many of the issues surrounding the TPP have been framed, at least in U.S. political terms, as left versus right. The left’s unremi

Oct. 12, 2015

[David Ignatius] Corralling our objectives in Syria

WASHINGTON -- A favorite Arab proverb goes something like this: A shepherd asks the Prophet: Should I let my camels loose and trust in God? No, answers the Prophet. Tie down your camels and trust in God. 　The Obama administration has been operating with a loose strategy in Syria and Iraq. Washington said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go, but missed its opportunity to make him leave. The U.S. bet on the ability of a mainly Shiite security force in Iraq to regain territory from the Is

Oct. 12, 2015

[Ram Garikipati] Take gov’t projections with truckloads of salt

A recent media statement issued by the Seoul Metropolitan Government that got wide coverage had me in splits.　According to the note that was issued to mark the 10th anniversary of the Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project -- which removed an elevated freeway and transformed it into a lush walkway through the heart of Seoul -- which was faithfully picked up by all of local media without any question, 190 million tourists annually visit the landmark.　“Some 190 million Koreans and tourists are

Oct. 11, 2015

[Peter Singer] Volkswagen, the future of honesty

If you used the term “business ethics” in the 1970s, when the field was just starting to develop, a common response was: “Isn’t that an oxymoron?” That quip would often be followed by a recitation of Milton Friedman’s famous dictum that corporate executives’ only social responsibility is to make as much money for shareholders as is legally possible.　　Over the next 40 years, however, businesspeople stopped quoting Friedman and began to talk of their responsibilities to their companies’ stakeholde

Oct. 11, 2015

[Kim Hoo-ran] For the love of humanity

Today Koreans celebrate the 569th anniversary of the promulgation of Hangeul, the Korean writing system. When Koreans are asked to name the one part of their cultural heritage that they are most proud of, many will respond “Hangeul” without hesitation.　King Sejong the Great, one of the most revered of all Korean rulers, together with a group of royal scholars, invented Hangeul, also known as Hunminjeongeum, in 1443. After three years of fine tuning, Hangeul was officially promulgated with the pu

Oct. 8, 2015

[Rachel Marsden] Bad governance costs Europe its shirt

As I arrived back home via Charles de Gaulle Airport this week, my taxi was caught up in an Air France layoff-announcement protest in which some executives literally lost their shirts when they were mauled by a mob of angry proles. Granted, this was still more civil than the days when the guillotine resolved disputes between the elites and the masses.　As I sat there in gridlock, I had plenty of time to wonder: Although the guillotine at the Place de la Concorde has been replaced by the benign Ob

Oct. 7, 2015

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Clean-energy moonshot a chance worth taking

In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy stirred America and the world with these words: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Just eight years later, NASA did just that -- with astounding benefits for science, technology, and the world economy. Now, a group of leading scientists, innovators, and economists has identified our era’s moonshot: to replace fossil fuels with

Oct. 7, 2015

[Kim Seong-kon] Struggling to identifying Korea’s cultural icons

The other day, Park Min-kwon, the vice minister of culture, sports and tourism, asked me if I could think of cultural icons that could represent Korea. I found his question timely and compelling because, unlike her neighbors that boast a panoply of charming cultural icons, Korea suffers from a dearth of memorable symbolic images. Japan has samurai, ninja, geisha, kabuki and sushi to its name, while China lays claim to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, kung fu and Chinese cuisine. When it comes

Oct. 6, 2015

[Lee Jae-min] Supreme Court is swamped

“Best out of three” runs deep in settling grievances in Korean culture. This tradition apparently explains the exploding dockets of the Korean Supreme Court. Almost regardless of merit, many litigants like to have a day in the Supreme Court after adverse decisions in the District Court and High Court. An appeal to the nation’s highest court has been acknowledged as the right of every individual.　The inevitable outcome of this stance is the exploding caseloads at the Supreme Court. The numbers ar

Oct. 6, 2015

[Joseph E. Stiglitz and Adam S. Hersh] Trans-Pacific free-trade charade

NEW YORK — As negotiators and ministers from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries meet in Atlanta in an effort to finalize the details of the sweeping new Trans-Pacific Partnership, some sober analysis is warranted. The biggest regional trade and investment agreement in history is not what it seems.Joseph E. Stiglitz (left) and Adam S. HershYou will hear much about the importance of the TPP for “free trade.” The reality is that this is an agreement to manage its members’ trade an

Oct. 5, 2015

[J. Bradford DeLong and Michael M. DeLong] Shedding sunlight on tax havens

Tax havens are by design secretive and opaque. The entire point of their existence is to conceal the wealth hidden within them. And a new book by Gabriel Zucman, The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens, reveals, as never before, the extent of their role in the global economy. J. Bradford DeLong (left) and Michael M. DeLong　Zucman examines discrepancies in international accounts to provide the most precise and reliable figures we are likely to obtain about the amount of money stor

Oct. 4, 2015

[Ana Palacio] The fallacy of BRICS leadership

The recent downgrade of Brazil’s credit rating to junk status was followed by a raft of articles heralding the crumbling of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). How predictable: Schadenfreude almost always follows bad news about the BRICS, whose members were once hailed as the world’s up-and-coming economic powerhouses and next major political force.There is something deeper going on here. The world’s seeming obsession with the BRICS’ perceived rise and fall reflects a des

Oct. 2, 2015