The world commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophic accident in Ukraine on April 26. However, this event did not do justice to the significance and impact of this plant on the world, as I saw and felt about it in 1997.When I got the first sight of the sarcophagus of the Chernobyl nuclear power station while being driven in the Exclusion Zone toward the pla

Viewpoints April 27, 2011

From womb to tomb, corruption has become a part of everyday life.It’s so widespread that only few Indians ― rich or poor, illiterate or highly-educated ― have not experienced it first-hand.All politicians promise to stem it but when in power, they invariably end up being stained by it.An expectant mother has to grease the palm of officials in a government hospital for admission while it is routine

Viewpoints April 27, 2011

No sane person would deposit a large sum of money with a financial institution if he had no conviction that he would be able to withdraw the deposit at maturity. This depositor trust was betrayed when the Financial Services Commission suspended operations at Busan Savings Bank on Feb. 17.Worse still, what had reportedly happened at the savings bank before it was ordered to suspend operations calls

Editorial April 26, 2011

Balloting starts at 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday for the by-elections in three parliamentary districts, one gubernatorial district and several districts for municipal mayors. Though the electoral districts are small in number, the polls have good reason to draw more attention than they would normally deserve.First of all, public attention will focus on the vote in the Bundang B district in Seongnam, Gye

Editorial April 26, 2011

Efforts have been made at nuclear power plants across the nation to ramp up safety measures in the wake of the series of serious accidents that occurred at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in the aftermath of the massive tsunami on March 11.Plant operators reportedly aim to establish safety measures to prevent similar accidents from happening even if a plant is struck by a

Viewpoints April 26, 2011

The fast fall in vegetable prices must be what Chinese policymakers have long anticipated in their fight against soaring consumer inflation. But sadly, as the recent suicide of a cabbage grower Han Jin in Shandong province shows, it is proving too dear for many Chinese farmers. The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture are right to take immediate action to help farmers facing an ove

Viewpoints April 26, 2011

WASHINGTON ― It’s a truth of economics and life that if you have bad news coming, take the hit early and get it behind you. You can’t start building until the debris is out of the way. Modern illustrations of this “pain, then gain” approach start with Paul Volcker, Mr. Tough Guy, who as Fed chairman sharply raised interest rates in 1979 to break the inflationary psychology that had a grip on the U

Viewpoints April 26, 2011

The line between prudence and moral cowardice can be a fine one, particularly when it comes to the conduct of diplomacy.For Americans, the question of where and how to make such distinctions has a particular urgency last week, as we commemorated the 96th anniversary of the genocide inflicted on the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. In massacres from 1915 to 1923, more than 1.5 million Armenians were

Viewpoints April 26, 2011

How happy are you? How happy is the country? This very important question has gradually gained attention over the years, occupying the attention not only of psychologists and New Age gurus, but of economists, political scientists and government leaders.The field of happiness studies is booming with researchers hard at work taking our emotional temperature, figuring out how we feel and trying to un

Viewpoints April 26, 2011

I have a blue-ribbon commission in mind for Ray LaHood as he tries to sort out what to do about sleeping air traffic controllers. The panel members I’m thinking of have names like Preston & Steve, Cataldi, heck, maybe even Harvey in the Morning. Because when I heard the secretary of transportation say he’d never allow naps on the job, the first person I thought of was a radio DJ.For years, Don Can

Viewpoints April 26, 2011

From April into midsummer last year, Americans watched BP’s oil spew from the seafloor into the Gulf of Mexico with outrage and guilt that came to feel like a chronic stomachache.Then, on July 15, it stopped. And within a couple of weeks the bad feelings for a lot of us stopped too. There were reports that the surface oil was quickly disappearing. There was a government study that hopeful journali

Viewpoints April 25, 2011

A week after Apple Inc. filed a patent lawsuit with a California court against Samsung Electronics, the latter came up with countersuits against Apple at courts in Korea, Japan and Germany. While the battle between the two global giants will cost both sides huge legal, the suits could generate enough consumer interests in the products of both parties to more than compensate the costs of litigation

Editorial April 25, 2011

Singer and actor Rain was chosen as the most influential person in the world in a Time magazine poll for the third time since 2006. Rain, 28, with the Korean name Jung Ji-hoon, took the top spot in the Time 100 reader poll for the third year, trouncing competitors from Barack Obama to Lady Gaga, the U.S. news magazine said. Calling him “the unstoppable South Korean superstar,” Time reviewed how Ra

Editorial April 25, 2011