Of all the realizations Barack Obama has made in three years in the White House, this may be the most crucial: The U.S. is a Pacific nation. Odd as it sounds, the U.S. spent the past decade forgetting a fact that’s obvious from consulting a map or tracking container ships. When George W. Bush’s administration bothered with Asia, it was all terrorism all the time. Quite odd, considering how reliant the largest economy became on Asia’s money during his tenure. The region became America’s banker. O

Viewpoints Jan. 12, 2012

The main opposition Democratic Unified Party is undertaking an important experiment that could reshape the election culture in Korea. It has opened its leadership election process to ordinary citizens and allowed them to vote through their mobile phones. The party’s unprecedented move is being closely watched by rival parties as well as political analysts as it could also affect the outcomes of the coming parliamentary and presidential elections.According to the DUP, more than 643,000 citizens h

Editorial Jan. 11, 2012

Lotte Mart has joined a small but growing number of companies that help people continue to work beyond its mandatory retirement age, which is set at 55. The discount store chain announced Monday it would hire 1,000 senior employees aged between 56 and 60 under indefinite-term contracts this year. According to the company, the senior workers will be treated the same as regular employees. They will be entitled to the four social insurance benefits ― national pension, health insurance, employment i

Editorial Jan. 11, 2012

President Barack Obama has established that he’s done with Congress for the rest of his term. Feeling chumped after Republicans wouldn’t reach agreement with him on a broad deficit-reduction agreement, Obama has decided it’s time to campaign against GOP leadership of the House and Senate.Thus the dubious move to ignore the law and appoint a head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without the consent of the Senate.We can’t really blame Obama. Republicans have been playing gotcha with

Viewpoints Jan. 11, 2012

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s reaction to Moscow protesters perfectly illustrates how the former Soviet spy chief can masterfully leverage classic subversion strategies typically found in espionage to undermine the opposition and even ridicule the concept of democracy.In the wake of the Russian parliamentary vote in early December, a Russian opposition leader far more radically communist than Putin was jailed, and protesters hit the streets to protest what they considered electoral fra

Viewpoints Jan. 11, 2012

Almost 65 years ago, in 1947, the U.S. government sued 17 leading Wall Street investment banks, charging them with effectively colluding in violation of antitrust laws. In its complaint ― which was front-page news at the time ― the Justice Department alleged that these firms had created “an integrated, overall conspiracy and combination” starting in 1915 “and in continuous operation thereafter, by which” they developed a system “to eliminate competition and monopolize ‘the cream of the business’

Viewpoints Jan. 10, 2012

Mr. Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, a 30-year-old American national from Wisconsin, was recently arrested for drug and firearms offences (The Daily Mail, Jan. 7, 2012). Prior to October 2011 this individual was known as Jeffrey Drew Wilschke; however he legally changed his name as he is fully entitled to do. Not only is he entitled to change his name, he is not in fact required by law to tell the authorities about it unless he is subject to certain control orders, a point usually ignored by c

Viewpoints Jan. 10, 2012

More than 5 billion additional people will connect to the Internet in the next 20 years, and most of the newcomers will not speak English. This next generation will use the Internet in ways we cannot imagine, and its innovations will change the world. But if the debate in Washington over the creation of new domain names goes the wrong way, Internet policy won’t help the free flow of speech online. The U.S. can help by having the courage to stay the course. At issue is the Internet’s crabbed nami

Viewpoints Jan. 10, 2012

Rep. Koh Seung-deok of the Grand National Party is a first-term lawmaker from Seocho district of Seoul. He is called a “genius in Yeoeuido” with a diploma from Seoul National University College of Law, LL.M.’s from Yale Law School and Harvard Law School and J.D. from Columbia Law School. He passed the state judiciary examination as an SNU sophomore and the diplomatic and administration service exams in 1980, the year he graduated from the SNU law college with top honors. He also has CPA and pate

Editorial Jan. 9, 2012

As of 2011, women teachers accounted for 75.8 percent in the nation’s primary schools, 66.8 percent in middle schools and 46.2 percent in high schools. These figures represent significant rise in the presence of female teachers at primary and secondary schools since a decade ago, when the respective figures were 68 percent, 59 percent and 35 percent.With violence in school reportedly growing in recent years, occasionally causing suicides of young students after extended suffering from bullying a

Editorial Jan. 9, 2012