The Korea Herald

[Shlomo Ben Ami] Saving the Egyptian revolution

TEL AVIV ― Revolutions throughout history have proven to devour their children. Their final outcomes are seldom congruent with their prime movers’ intentions. Too frequently, revolutions are hijacked by a second wave, either more conservative or more radical than what was first contemplated by the initiators of change.What started in France in 1789 as an uprising of the middle classes in alliance

Viewpoints March 13, 2011

[Shlomo Ben Ami] Saving the Egyptian revolution

[Eric Jackson] Steve Jobs’s hottest app may be succession plan

Apple Inc. suffers from a Steve Jobs discount, and it’s not fair.Ever since Jobs, the chief executive officer, disclosed that he had a rare form of pancreatic cancer in August 2004, Apple’s stock has been underpriced. That assertion may seem absurd, given that the shares have risen more than 2,000 percent since then and the company’s market value of $325 billion is second only to that of Exxon Mob

Viewpoints March 13, 2011

[Annette Heuser] Gadhafi’s end depends on one power stepping up

The turmoil in much of the Arab world has grown into more than a regional protest by peoples seeking to overthrow repressive regimes. Successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have spurred demonstrations from Morocco to Iran and now, tragically, conflict in Libya which increasingly looks like civil war.The criminal acts of that country’s leader, Moammar Gadhafi, demand foreign intervention. With t

Viewpoints March 13, 2011

[Brigitte Granville] Targeting the targeters in controlling inflation

LONDON ― Speaking in the happier economic times of 2005, Mervyn King ― then, as now, governor of the Bank of England ― stressed the importance of entrenching public expectations of stable, low inflation. He warned that, “if you let inflation expectations drift too far away from the target, you can end up in quite serious difficulty with a costly process to bring them back again.” King must now be

Viewpoints March 13, 2011

[Brigitte Granville] Targeting the targeters in controlling inflation

It’s not time to tap the strategic oil reserve

Whenever gasoline prices spike, it’s a pretty good bet that politicians are going to propose tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This time around, the talk started with Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who last week urged President Obama to consider selling oil from the reserve as a way to stabilize prices. Then on Sunday, White House

Viewpoints March 11, 2011

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Mauritius miracle of social welfare

NEW YORK ― Suppose someone were to describe a small country that provided free education through university for all of its citizens, transportation for school children, and free health care ― including heart surgery ― for all. You might suspect that such a country is either phenomenally rich or on the fast track to fiscal crisis.After all, rich countries in Europe have increasingly found that they

Viewpoints March 11, 2011

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Mauritius miracle of social welfare

Foreign press crackdown a blot on China’s image

My doorbell rang unexpectedly on Sunday (March 6) afternoon.I wasn’t expecting guests, but I guess the two uninvited ones at my door belong to an organization that is not in the habit of ringing ahead to announce its arrival.The two uniformed Chinese policemen at my door, accompanied by a staff member of the estate management, did not introduce themselves or show any identification. Perhaps they f

Viewpoints March 11, 2011

[Editorial] Galliano a reminder of repercussions to discrimination

Before he was accused of being an anti-Semitic drunk, before videos surfaced of him calling people “ugly Jews” and professing his love for Adolf Hitler, designer John Galliano was a long-time fashion darling who wowed the sartorial elite, season after season, as the creative force behind luxury fashion house Christian Dior.On March 1, at the height of the controversy, Dior fired its creative direc

Viewpoints March 11, 2011

[Editorial] Brakes on bonuses

State-run corporations never cease to amaze us. According to a report released by Rep. Kwon Kyung-seok of the ruling Grand National Party, 22 state-run corporations spent 1.75 trillion won last year to pay bonuses to their employees, in crass disregard for their snowballing debts.These corporations paid 14.5 million won on average to each employee last year, an increase of 46.5 percent from the pr

Editorial March 10, 2011

[Editorial] Shanghai scandal

Was she a mere visa broker or a spy of a Chinese intelligence agency? This question comes to mind first when we hear that several Korean diplomats at the consulate in Shanghai are accused of having affairs with a Chinese woman and leaking classified information to her.The scandal first surfaced in November last year but the ministries whose officers were suspected of being involved in it did not b

Editorial March 10, 2011

[Omar Ashour] A regime incapable of self-reform

LONDON ― “The enemy of yesterday is the friend of today.... It was a real war, but those brothers are free men now.” Thus spoke Saif al-Islam al-Gadhafi in March 2010, referring to the leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an armed organization that had attempted to assassinate his father, Muammar al-Gadhafi, three times in the mid-1990s.This may seem surprising. A few days ago, the

Viewpoints March 10, 2011

[Omar Ashour] A regime incapable of self-reform

[Shashi Tharoor] The crisis of private microfinance industry in India

NEW DELHI ― The recent ouster of the Nobel Prize-winning Bangladeshi economist Mohammed Yunus as managing director of the Grameen Bank, which blazed a trail for microfinance in developing countries, has thrown a spotlight on the crisis engulfing a business that was once seen as a harbinger of hope for millions.Yunus’s tussle with the government of Bangladesh, which had tried to retire him on groun

Viewpoints March 10, 2011

[Shashi Tharoor] The crisis of private microfinance industry in India

Don’t overlook the issue of illegal donations

Japaneses Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara has admitted in a meeting of the House of Councillors Budget Committee that he received political donations from a South Korean resident living in Kyoto.This is a problem that cannot be forgiven just because the amount of money involved was small or because he may not have received it intentionally.The Political Funds Control Law prohibits politicians from

Viewpoints March 9, 2011

[Matthew Lynn] Charlie Sheen could teach Wall Street a lesson

It would take most of us a few dozen lifetimes to amass 2 million followers on Twitter. And yet Charlie Sheen managed it in less than a week.Last month, CBS Corp. discontinued the hit comedy show “Two and a Half Men” after Sheen’s public jousting with senior management over a binge that the wild-man actor has described as “epic” and “radical.” Since then, he has become one of the biggest names on

Viewpoints March 9, 2011

[David Ignatius] A rocky transition for Arab economies?

WASHINGTON ― After the radiant sunrise of the Arab spring, here’s a somber shadow: Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries making the transition to democracy are likely to face severe economic problems over the next several years ― ones that could bring chaos if the Arabs and their friends in the West aren’t wise. For the dimensions of this economic transition, think of the Marshall Plan after Wo

Viewpoints March 9, 2011

[David Ignatius] A rocky transition for Arab economies?

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