The Korea Herald

[Opinion] End of an era?

[THE INVESTOR] The end of newspapers was last year. Or, maybe this year. In any case, the end has been coming for at least a few years now, perhaps up to a decade ago. We keep hearing how the end is near. Along with the doomsday prophesies come the threats and fears that always accompany them: How nobody is reading the news anymore, and even if they do, how nobody will ever pay. Most recently, JoongAng Ilbo, one of the top three publications in Korea, said its print version would soon become def

May 3, 2017

[David Ignatius] Secret warriors can be blinded by sunlight

“I was one very lucky kid,” wrote retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in a 2016 memoir about his bumpy childhood in a working-class Rhode Island family. “I was one of those nasty tough kids, hell-bent on breaking rules for the adrenaline rush and hardwired just enough to not care about the consequences.”　Flynn described how he was arrested but given probation after “some serious and unlawful activity.” But he added, “I would always retain my strong impulse to challenge authority and to think and act

May 3, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] ‘A house divided cannot stand’

One of Aesop’s fables, “The Four Oxen and the Lion,” is a story about a lion that tries to attack four oxen in a field. The oxen warn each other and whichever way the lion approaches he is met by horns and so cannot harm them. One day, the oxen quarrel and graze separately. The lion easily picks them off one by one. The moral of this fable is “United we stand, divided we fall.” Another Aesop’s fable, “The Bundle of Sticks,” also gives the same lesson, but more explicitly. Once there was a father

May 2, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] ‘A house divided cannot stand’

[Other view] Table for three: For North Korea, arrange joint talks with China

North Korea presents what is perhaps America’s most dangerous and urgent dilemma at the moment. So what should the Trump administration do?Here is the problem. The Pyongyang regime of leader Kim Jong-un, pretty much a one-trick pony with that steed being its nuclear weapon-missile program, has proved itself over the years to be very hard to deal with. Six-party talks, including South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, haven’t worked. Various palliative, conciliatory

May 2, 2017

[Lee Jae-min] Did you get your parents’ approval?

The Korean Army is an active user of social-networking services. The Army uses it to communicate with parents of enlisted men. To the parents, the 21 months their precious sons are away for their mandatory military service is a nail-biting wait. One common scene is mothers weeping at the gates of Army boot camps as their sons file in to report for duty. Parcels are delivered home about a week later containing the personal belongings of new recruits. Mothers weep again unpacking the parcels. My m

May 2, 2017

[Lee Jae-min] Did you get your parents’ approval?

[Shamshad Akhtar] Effective governance key to improving quality of Asia-Pacific economic growth

The Asia-Pacific region’s high and steady economic growth has been an anchor of stability for the struggling world economy in recent years. Developing economies of the region now account for almost a third of global GDP, slightly less than the combined output of the developed economies of North America and Western Europe. If the region continues to grow at the current pace, it would account for more than a half of world economic output by the year 2050. With its increasing importance, the role o

May 1, 2017

[Other view] The climate threat in your front yard

Smokestacks and tailpipes may be the biggest and most obvious sources of greenhouse gases, but they’re not the only ones to worry about. An invisible, underappreciated one is right in America’s front yards: leaking pipes that carry natural gas into people’s homes.The good news is that scientists have devised a clever way to find these leaks, by attaching methane detectors to car bumpers -- they’ve used Google’s “Street View” photography cars -- and driving along the city streets. It’s a strategy

May 1, 2017

[Yang Sung-chul] Time for China to act against North Korea’s WMD

On May 9, the Korean people will elect a new president. His or her most urgent task will be to take the initiative, especially in inter-Korean relations at this eleventh hour. For this initiative, China’s input is vital; it should take drastic measures in dealing with North Korea. It should be in the same boat with the Republic of Korea and the United States. The new initiative is in essence a two-track approach. One, the sanctions and pressures against North Korea, being implemented by the Repu

May 1, 2017

[Yang Sung-chul] Time for China to act against North Korea’s WMD

[Robert Park] Refuse fratricidal war

Just recently encountered the harrowing accounts of the 1950-53 “Korean War” by Pyun Yung-tai, who served as foreign minister and later acting prime minister of the Republic of Korea during the hellish, cataclysmic conflagration. Inverted commas encompass the most-routinely employed term for the war above – in deference to Pyun’s resolute protestations against what he viewed to be an overly simplistic and thus potentially misleading phrase.He told a UN committee on Nov. 3, 1952, “The struggle in

April 30, 2017

[The News&Observer] Disjointed US immigration policy needs an overhaul

The fuss over immigration reform always has been underlined by hypocrisy. Politicians, including the current president, talk about crime and drugs and portray huge groups of immigrants as a menace to American society. Trump’s pushing ahead for the southern border wall that was a centerpiece of his xenophobic campaign. In contrast, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is leading the way to allow more foreign workers in the country for seasonal jobs.Even as Trump shouted about “illegal immigrants” from

April 30, 2017

[Other view] Wash your food: EPA reverses itself on dangers of common pesticide

President Donald Trump told Fox Business News on April 13, “We’ve done an amazing job on regulations. We’ve freed it up. We freed up this country so much.”Last month, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, freed up the country to continue using a pesticide called chlorpyrifos on everything from strawberries and almonds to Brussels sprouts and broccoli.　This despite a warning from the National Institutes of Health that chlorpyrifos can cause “adverse developmental, r

April 30, 2017

[Ann McFeatters] 100 down, way too many to go

So what all has he done for us? Let’s count the ways.　If you have been a huge fan of building a big, beautiful wall on our southern border, you are disappointed. There may be a virtual one, more border agents and tons of drones. But there won’t be a physical wall. It is too costly, too difficult, too impractical and too immoral. Even the pope says so. If President Donald Trump read, he would know that the Berlin Wall symbolized, for more than a generation, man’s inhumanity to man.　If you are a f

April 28, 2017

[Ann McFeatters] 100 down, way too many to go

[Other view] Trade spats with Canada can’t derail strong ties

There is no good reason for President Donald Trump or any other senior American official to ping Canada.　It is certainly true that there are areas of sensitivity, particularly when it comes to trade items between the two countries, where one side feels that the other side is taking unfair advantage of it. But these matters should not get in the way of what is basically a positive relationship between the two neighboring countries. In particular, with Trump’s campaign promise to advocate vigorous

April 28, 2017

[Justin Fendos] It’s the economy, stupid

Dear Presidential Candidates,You need to get this right: it’s the economy. I get why you need to sound presidential and make big promises. I really do. I even understand why you ask each other cryptic questions during debates to bait gaffes. I really do. But please, please. The Korean economy is in trouble and whoever wins this election needs to get it right.It’s no secret Korea’s largest industries -- electronics, automobiles, and maritime shipping -- are in trouble. A slew of competitors, most

April 28, 2017

[Jerome Kim] Korean leadership for global health

In early 2017 experts worried about a yellow fever epidemic in Brazil, the worst in decades, that had already killed more than 200 people. Ironically, just one year before, Brazil had sent 18 million doses of yellow fever vaccine to West Africa, because an outbreak of yellow fever was spreading so rapidly that the entire World Health Organization stockpile of yellow fever vaccine was depleted -- twice. The situation in Africa was so pressing that public health officials recommended the use of 1/

April 27, 2017

[Jerome Kim] Korean leadership for global health

[Ana Palacio] Liberalism in the trenches

After a dizzying few months, in which Donald Trump’s young presidency called into question the entire post-World War II global order, the geopolitical status quo appears to have re-emerged. But this is no time for complacency: the liberal world order remains far from secure.To be sure, recent developments are encouraging. Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who was the executive chairman of Breitbart News, appears to be losing influence, and may even be on his way out. The once-marginalized

April 27, 2017

[Ana Palacio] Liberalism in the trenches

[Craig Snyder] Both choices on North Korea are bad

The Trump administration’s approach to the deadly serious problem of North Korea is the worst of all possible formulations. It is Teddy Roosevelt, turned upside down -- “Speak loudly, and pretend to carry a big stick.”What the administration wants is absolutely the ideal objective, to prevent North Korea from acquiring the capability to launch nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missiles at the United States. This has been the “red line” objective of the last several administrations. And th

April 27, 2017

[Craig Snyder] Both choices on North Korea are bad

[Jonathan Bernstein] RIP Trump’s wall

Donald Trump’s wall on the US-Mexico border, the signature issue of his presidential campaign, can safely be moved now from the “nearly dead” category to the just-plain-dead file.　That’s the only conclusion to be drawn from the Washington Post’s report on the new Republican bidding on the funding bill for the remainder of the current fiscal year, which won’t include anything for the wall. But it’s not just that. Instead of the wall -- which would have drawn a filibuster from Senate Democrats, at

April 27, 2017

[Tobin Harshaw] Putin’s arms bazaar is in a serious sales slump

Russian President Vladimir Putin is mighty proud of his military’s performance in Syria. And, as I have written, it’s become a central part of a sales pitch: “You can’t miss this opportunity to strengthen our position in the global arms market,” he told a meeting of Russian defense companies this week. He added that there was unprecedented desire for buying Russian munitions “thanks to the effective use of our weapons in real combat conditions including in anti-terrorist operations in Syria.”　Bu

April 27, 2017

[Other view] Government secrecy undermines public trust

The government’s covert approval for the purchase of a Chinese-made submarine for the Royal Thai Navy has further stirred public resentment over the controversial procurement. The government admitted only this week that the cabinet had quietly given the purchase the green light on April 18, when media attention was focused on the theft of a Royal Plaza plaque commemorating the 1932 constitutional revolution. The admission finally arrived, but only after the news media and outspoken critics of th

April 27, 2017