The Korea Herald

[Peter Singer] America’s flawed election and ethical benchmarks

PRINCETON ― No doubt many people around the world, if not most, breathed a sigh of relief over the reelection of U.S. President Barack Obama. A BBC World service poll of 21 countries found a strong preference for Obama everywhere except Pakistan. Joy over the election’s outcome, however, should not blind us to its failure to meet a series of ethical benchmarks for democratic choice.According to the U.S.-based Center for Responsive Politics, spending on the election ― for President and Congress,

Viewpoints Nov. 12, 2012

[Peter Singer] America’s flawed election and ethical benchmarks

Cooperation required in Obama’s second act

Second terms have rarely been kind to American presidents.Our last two-term leader, George W. Bush, ended his tenure with a financial crash so disastrous that his own party has tried to erase him from memory. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, was more successful, but he still spent much of his second term enmeshed in a sex scandal and battling impeachment.Even our greatest modern presidents had rocky second terms: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan are all revered more

Viewpoints Nov. 11, 2012

[Jonathan Schell] Mitt Romney’s reality check

NEW YORK ― There is a kind of war underway in the United States nowadays between fact and fantasy. President Barack Obama’s reelection marked a victory, limited but unmistakable, for the cause of fact.Events in the days leading up to America’s presidential election provided a stark illustration of the struggle. Among senior aides to Republican challenger Mitt Romney, a belief developed that he was on the cusp of victory. Their conviction had no basis in poll results. Nevertheless, the feeling gr

Viewpoints Nov. 11, 2012

[Jonathan Schell] Mitt Romney’s reality check

Mr. Xi, tear down this firewall!

This week’s meeting in Beijing of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which will inaugurate a new slate of leaders, has not exactly brought a golden dawn of free expression. In addition to cracking down on all forms of media, China’s creatively paranoid security forces are on the lookout for threats such as taxi passengers carrying pingpong balls that they might slip through windows to deliver subversive messages. Such off-the-wall measures, however, usefully highlight on

Viewpoints Nov. 11, 2012

Tyrant’s leverage wanes without Cognac Pipeline

One would be hard-pressed to accuse South Korea’s Park Geun-hye of holding a grudge. The presidential candidate wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to improve relations if she wins next month’s presidential election. That’s mighty big of Park, considering North Korean agents killed her mother in a 1974 assassination attempt on her father when he led the South. It’s also a heartening sign for this increasingly unhinged world of ours. Park, 60, is the ruling party’s nominee and outpollin

Viewpoints Nov. 11, 2012

Late works reveal maturing of artistic visions

“Does one grow wiser with age,” Edward Said ponders in the book “On Late Style” (2006); “and are there unique qualities of perception and form,” he continues, “that artists acquire as a result of age in the late phase of their career?” Usually, Said argues, we think of late artistic works as the crowning achievements of a career; works that exude resolution, serenity, harmony. Old age is accompanied by an acute awareness that the late artistic work is at the same time the artist’s final word; a

Viewpoints Nov. 11, 2012

Late works reveal maturing of artistic visions

Afghanistan project is money ill-spent

Now it can be told: United States government auditors are finally acknowledging that Afghan security forces will be incapable of defending the nation from the Taliban after Western forces withdraw in 2014.What does this mean? The Taliban, obviously determined to return to power, will most certainly retake most of the nation. The hapless Afghan army will probably just run away. That’s what it did almost as soon as the Soviet Union, the last foreign occupier, pulled out.Does that mean the U.S. has

Viewpoints Nov. 9, 2012

[Robert B. Reich] The new American civil war

The vitriol is worse than I ever recall. Worse than the Palin-induced smarm of 2008. Worse than the swift-boat lies of 2004. Worse, even, than the anything-goes craziness of 2000 and its ensuing bitterness.It’s almost a civil war. I know families in which close relatives are no longer speaking. A dating service says Democrats won’t even consider going out with Republicans, and vice versa. My email and Twitter feeds contain messages from strangers I wouldn’t share with my granddaughter.What’s goi

Viewpoints Nov. 9, 2012

[Robert B. Reich] The new American civil war

[Editorial] Challenges facing Obama

Re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama faces a long list of challenges that have deep implications not just for his country but for the entire world. To tackle these tasks, Obama will need courage, insight, and above all things, the cooperation of the Republicans. The biggest challenge confronting Obama is putting the U.S. economy back on track. The world’s largest national economy is currently reeling under colossal government debt. The debt mountain has topped $16 trillion and keeps growing du

Editorial Nov. 8, 2012

[Editorial] Gloomy job outlook

Despite the sluggish economy, the job market has remained surprisingly buoyant this year. According to the Bank of Korea, the economy is expected to add 430,000 jobs this year, an impressive performance that Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jae-wan described as a “job bonanza.”Yet the outsized employment gains are likely to come to a halt soon. As the economic slowdown takes hold, the job market is contracting rapidly. Research institutions paint a gloomy employment picture for next year, w

Editorial Nov. 8, 2012

[Changyong Rhee] Asia’s stifled service sector

MANILA ― The eurozone crisis has dominated discussion among policymakers over the last few years, but the economic slowdown in Asia’s two giants ― the People’s Republic of China and India ― has become a source of growing public concern as well. How worried should we be about an additional drag on the global economy?After years of double-digit GDP growth, the PRC’s economy is decelerating. At the Asian Development Bank, we predict that its growth will slow to 7.7 percent this year, from 9.3 perce

Viewpoints Nov. 7, 2012

[Changyong Rhee] Asia’s stifled service sector

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] The other financial crisis less in the spotlight

NEWPORT BEACH ― Two variants of financial crisis continue to wreak havoc on Western economies, fueling joblessness and poverty: the one that we read about regularly in newspapers, involving governments around the world; and a less visible one at the level of small and medium-size businesses and households. Until both are addressed properly, the West will remain burdened by sluggish growth, persistently high unemployment, and excessive income and wealth inequality.The sovereign-debt crisis is wel

Viewpoints Nov. 7, 2012

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] The other financial crisis less in the spotlight

[Daniel Fiedler] Free speech and pornography

One of the fundamental bases of a democracy is the right to free expression or free speech. This right allows the people to engage in open and uncensored discussions on the conduct of the government, on the conduct of politicians, on economic and social issues, on political issues and often on issues that may be offensive to many of their fellow citizens. The importance of this right is reflected by its enshrinement in both the United States and the South Korean constitutions. However, while bot

Viewpoints Nov. 6, 2012

[Daniel Fiedler] Free speech and pornography

Indonesia’s people-centered economic model

Indonesia’s most-promising politician, Joko Widodo, who was elected governor of Jakarta province last month, looks like Barack Obama: lean and coolly self-possessed in a way that seems as much Bogartian as Javanese. Emerging out of nowhere, and serenely vaulting over the heads of establishment politicians, he embodies the possibility of change. But here the resemblance to the U.S. president ends. Obama is fighting to win reelection. Jokowi, as Widodo is popularly known, enjoyed hugely successful

Viewpoints Nov. 6, 2012

[Editorial] Is Park not a woman?

Is Park Geun-hye a presidential candidate who represents the Korean women? To leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party, the answer is a resounding yes. They say that if Park is elected as the nation’s first woman president, it would be a significant milestone in Korea’s arduous march toward political reform.Yet many in the opposition camp do not agree. For instance, Rep. Jung Sung-ho, a spokesman of the main opposition Democratic United Party, asserted that the unmarried Saenuri candidate “is a woman

Editorial Nov. 5, 2012

Articles by Yu Kun-ha