The Korea Herald

[Kim Myong-sik] If I were an ordinary North Korean ...

Providence made me a citizen of the Republic of Korea. I lived under the rule of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for three months during the Korean War. But afterward I was blessed to be on the southern side of the line that divides the Korean Peninsula in two. Sometimes, I find myself drifting in the fantasy of living on the other side of the line by some vagary of God’s will.My wife is a refugee from North Korea. Her family, whose ancestors lived for centuries in Hwanghae Province, s

Viewpoints April 17, 2013

[Kim Myong-sik] If I were an ordinary North Korean ...

[Editorial] Boiling frog

The Korean economy is like a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water. It is in grave danger but the Korean people do not perceive it.So warn the analysts of McKinsey & Company who have recently written a report on Korea. Titled “Beyond Korean Style: Shaping a New Growth Formula,” the report urges Korea to retool the economy before it is too late.Fifteen years ago, the global management consulting firm issued its first report on Korea. At the time, it focused on the excessive debt of large corporat

Editorial April 16, 2013

[Editorial] Premature proposal

The government is reportedly planning to allow each member of provincial and metropolitan councils to employ an aide paid for by local residents. Minister of Security and Public Administration Yoo Jeong-bok said the government would push to revise the law on local autonomy to implement the plan within this year.Yoo justified the move by saying that “local councilors deserve better working conditions as they deal with budgets amounting to trillions of won and carry out numerous tasks directly rel

Editorial April 16, 2013

[Lee Jae-min] Time to eradicate IUU fishing

While largely unnoticed under the stack of North Korea-related news, an alarming and embarrassing report has been released. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce submitted its 2013 report to U.S. Congress, in which it had designated 10 countries as having engaged in IUU fishing activities: Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Spain, Tanzania, Venezuela and South Korea. IUU is an acronym for Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing a

Viewpoints April 16, 2013

[Lee Jae-min] Time to eradicate IUU fishing

Reasons to stay calm about bird flu

The bird-flu virus that suddenly started killing people last month in China is unquestionably a “serious human health risk,” as the scientists who discovered it have reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. H7N9 contains gene sequences that make it relatively effective, for a bird virus, at infecting humans and other mammals. People don’t appear to have natural immunity, there’s no vaccine, and so far about one in five known to have caught the virus have died. Fears grew as 11 more infec

Viewpoints April 16, 2013

[Kim Seong-kon] Fiction shows futility of journeying to the past

When a tragic incident or disaster happens, we all wish we could go back in time to prevent the unfortunate incident from unfolding. There are a number of American movies that precisely portray such fantasies. “Deja Vu,” for example, implicitly reflects the American people’s secret wish to time-travel and alter disastrous events such as 9/11. “Retroactive,” deals more explicitly with the theme of returning to the past to prevent a murder. “Back to the Future,” too, comically depicts the protagon

Viewpoints April 16, 2013

[Kim Seong-kon] Fiction shows futility of journeying to the past

[Trudy Rubin] New approach to North Korea

What to do about Kim Jong-un, the world’s greatest showman, who is noisily threatening a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and preparing to test a missile that could reach Guam?Politicians and pundits are furiously debating the answer, but I’ve heard no ideas likely to persuade North Korea’s twenty-something leader to behave better. That is, until Tuesday, when a prominent South Korean legislator suggested a response that would be bitterly opposed by Washington (and Beijing and Pyongyang).I co

Viewpoints April 15, 2013

[Trudy Rubin] New approach to North Korea

Ignore Kim’s threats and start over on MD

With Iran nuclear talks fizzling and North Korea threatening to turn Seoul into a sea of fire, it took political courage for U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to go before Congress this week with a 2014 defense budget that cut money for missile defense programs. Yet, in our eyes, the real problem is that the $500 million in trims was merely cosmetic. A deeper slice into the $10 billion the Pentagon spends each year on such programs wouldn’t make the U.S. one iota less safe, and would help with

Viewpoints April 15, 2013

To erase militarist past, Japan must re-learn it

It was raining heavily last week when I visited Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates Japanese who died in the “imperial cause.” But the tour buses still discharged scores of elderly Japanese visitors, and I received approving looks and even a faint smile from two Japanese women as we stood in the rain before the memorial to an Indian jurist called Radha Binod Pal. Pal was the only Indian judge at the so-called Tokyo Trials, Japan’s protracted version of Nuremberg. In his 1,2

Viewpoints April 15, 2013

[Yuliya Tymoshenko] The Iron Lady as liberator

KHARKIV, UKRAINE ― Prison is always a place of mourning. But perhaps learning of Margaret Thatcher’s death in this place is grimly appropriate, because it made me remember the imprisoned society of my youth that Thatcher did so much to set free. For many of us who grew up in the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe, Margaret Thatcher will always be a heroine. Not only did she espouse the cause of freedom ― particularly economic freedom ― in Britain and the West; by proclaiming Mikha

Viewpoints April 15, 2013

[Yuliya Tymoshenko] The Iron Lady as liberator

Barack Obama is flying blind on drones

As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama was unsparing in his criticism of President George W. Bush’s anti-terrorism policies. He condemned torture and the infamous detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the lack of transparency and congressional oversight, the dubious legal framework and the blowback that was spawning more terrorists and diminishing U.S. standing in the world. Bush’s policies “compromised our most precious values,” Obama said then. “We cannot win a war unless we maintain the high grou

Viewpoints April 15, 2013

[Joseph Stiglitz and Arjun Jayadev] India’s drug ruling is patently wise decision

NEW YORK ― The Indian Supreme Court’s refusal to uphold the patent on Gleevec, the blockbuster cancer drug developed by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, is good news for many of those in India suffering from cancer. If other developing countries follow India’s example, it will be good news elsewhere, too: more money could be devoted to other needs, whether fighting AIDS, providing education, or making investments that enable growth and poverty reduction.But the Indian decision also means

Viewpoints April 14, 2013

[Joseph Stiglitz and Arjun Jayadev] India’s drug ruling is patently wise decision

A socialist lawmaker’s fiscal double life

PARIS ― The left revels in sex scandals involving preachy conservative moralists, but when members of the left get caught up in seedy financial scandals, so perverted and twisted is their relationship with money that the effect can be equally jaw-dropping and salacious.Former French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac, who left his Socialist government post earlier this year amid allegations of a secret Swiss bank account, now faces a formal investigation for allegedly laundering the proceeds of tax

Viewpoints April 12, 2013

[Robert Reich] The sequester just invisible

So far, the much-dreaded “sequester” ― some $85 billion in federal spending cuts between March and September 30 ― hasn’t been evident to most Americans.The dire warnings that had been issued from the White House beforehand ― threatening that Social Security checks would be delayed, airport security checks would be clogged and other federal facilities closed ― seem to have been overblown.Sure, March’s employment report was a big disappointment. But it’s hard to see any direct connection between t

Viewpoints April 12, 2013

[Robert Reich] The sequester just invisible

North Korean threat should not be ignored

North Korea’s recent threats to target South Korean and American cities with atomic destruction have the shrill belligerence of a 6-year-old’s temper tantrum. But while few analysts believe North Korea has the means to carry out its threats, U.S. and South Korean officials would nevertheless be unwise to ignore them. With tensions on the peninsula higher than at any time since the end of the Korean War, there’s great danger a conflict could break out by accident or through miscalculation.So far,

Viewpoints April 11, 2013

Articles by Yu Kun-ha