Korea was very poor when the Korean War ended in 1953. It was the second poorest country in the world at that time. So, the government carried out overseas adoption for orphans and children dying of starvation as a national policy with the intention of keeping those children alive. The government’s adoption policy is still going on without change. About 1,000 children are being adopted to foreign countries each year. Absolute poverty was the fundamental reason for adoption until the 1970s. Recen

Viewpoints May 14, 2012

It’s never polite to say I told you so, but JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s $2 billion trading loss has proponents of a tougher proprietary trading ban saying . . . well, you know what. JPMorgan’s admission is a shocker. The bank said the losses resulted from errors, sloppiness and bad judgment, which top bank executives didn’t know about or understand until it was too late. On Wall Street and around the globe, JPMorgan was a standard-setter for risk management. If regulators can’t trust JPMorgan to get

Viewpoints May 14, 2012

The discovery last month of a case of mad-cow disease in California could be taken as good news. The cow in question was found at a rendering plant, where spent animals are sent for processing into leather, soap, cosmetics and pet food. Tests detected the illness before slaughter. There was never any chance that meat from the cow would enter the human food chain. Cattle futures prices, which initially plunged, are higher now than before the announcement. Agriculture officials say the animal was

Viewpoints May 13, 2012

India and Korea are two flourishing democracies in the modern world. There is much in common, although not very obvious, in the social and cultural spectrum. In the past, Indian culture, especially Buddhism, inspired Korean society in a big way. However, today things are different. Korea has leapfrogged economically, as well as socially, way ahead of India, while India is struggling. A role reversal has taken place and today it is Korea that can inspire India in many ways.What Korea has achieved

Viewpoints May 13, 2012

Political upheaval in Europe reached a new apex over the weekend when French voters threw out their incumbent president and Greeks gave the heave-ho to the ruling parliamentary coalition. The results suggest that a new consensus is emerging in Europe in favor of more economic stimulus, but they also call into question the continent’s ability to agree on a plan to keep its fiscal problems from spreading uncontrollably.European leaders had agreed to a series of pacts that would rescue Greece and o

Viewpoints May 13, 2012

On May 2, the South Korean National Assembly passed a law introducing a national carbon trading scheme by 2015. This is a truly significant moment not only in terms of Korea’s national efforts to tackle climate change, but also because it underlines the emergence of a nascent Asian-Pacific carbon emissions trading hub with the potential to be a tipping point in the global fight against climate change.So why is Korea’s move so important when the country is responsible for fewer than 2 percent of

Viewpoints May 13, 2012

European elections over the last few days dealt a stunning blow to austerity, one of most profoundly mistaken economic policies propounded in modern times.The French voted President Nicolas Sarkozy out of office. In Greek parliamentary elections, anti-austerity parties triumphed. The same held true for local elections in Britain and elsewhere.For several years now, German politicians and technocrats, primarily, have directed their profligate southern European neighbors to impose brutal austerity

Viewpoints May 11, 2012

The Democratic Party of Japan decided Tuesday to lift the suspension of former DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa’s party membership. The move followed last month’s court decision that found Ozawa not guilty of falsely reporting political funds handled by his political funds management body, Rikuzan-kai.In February 2011, after Ozawa had been indicted on charges of violating the Political Funds Control Law, the then party leadership “suspended his party membership until a court ruling on his case becomes

Viewpoints May 11, 2012

The case of the blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng could well have trapped China and the United States in a test of strength from which neither side would have found it easy to back down. A prolonged confrontation might have ensued if the incident had happened at a time when China was not as self-confident and America habitually acted out of a sense of all-knowing might. The way the impasse was resolved is a development to be thankful for, as it might be something of a full-dress preview of

Viewpoints May 11, 2012

The killing of Vice Mayor Abel Martinez of Mambusao, Capiz in central Philippines may have unofficially but bloodily opened the 2013 election season, violence being a trademark of Philippine elections. No less than Interior Secretary Jesse M. Robredo has warned that he expects political killings to rise in the months leading to the midterm elections, following the assassination of Martinez. But Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesperson Senior Supt. Generoso Cerbo Jr. has cautioned against li

Viewpoints May 11, 2012