A feed-in tariff system for electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power will face many difficult problems.An expert panel of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry has made a proposal on prices at which electric power companies will purchase electricity generated by renewable energy under the system.The government will officially decide on recommended rates within May, and power companies will become obliged to buy the electricity from July.The proposed rates are 42

Viewpoints May 4, 2012

The OECD has recently published two reports on Korea that offer valuable advice to Korean politicians as well as government policymakers. One is the latest OECD economic survey of Korea while the other is the first OECD assessment of the Korean government’s urban policy. The OECD Economic Survey of Korea 2012 focuses on the two key challenges confronting the Korean economy ― sustaining economic growth in the face of rapid population aging and improving social cohesion by reducing inequality and

Editorial May 3, 2012

The United Progressive Party is in crisis. An internal investigation team has confirmed that the party’s process of selecting proportional representation candidates for the April 11 parliamentary elections was riddled with irregularities. The left-wing minor party won a total of 13 seats in the election, seven from local districts and six by proportional representation. Of the six proportional lawmakers-elect, three were selected through online and offline voting within the party, while the othe

Editorial May 3, 2012

Now it has turned out in China that not only power corrupts, but also money. And what if the two join hand in hand? The results are dramatic, tragic, and ruinous, as the cascading events in China show. For nearly three months since February, the world has been watching a drama with suspense and disbelief. Perhaps some sadness, too.What I am talking about is the purge of Bo Xilai, who until April 10 was a high-flying Politburo member and a contender for top leadership of the Chinese Communist Par

Viewpoints May 2, 2012

Newt Gingrich never saw it ending this way. The former House speaker, who has long thought of himself as a historic figure, envisioned he would be the candidate of innovative “big ideas” and the agenda-setter for the 2012 U.S. election. This either would catapult him to the White House or ensure a consolation prize: a vice presidential nomination or secretary of State appointment in a Republican administration. In the worst case, he would be a genuine senior statesman in his party. Instead, as h

Viewpoints May 2, 2012

At times of economic crisis, politicians like to blame investors, preferably foreign investors. Harold Wilson, the British prime minister in the 1960s, pointed the finger at bankers in Zurich. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia accused George Soros of undermining his country’s financial stability in the late 1990s. And in parts of Europe today, it is increasingly common to blame hedge funds, “locust”-like investors, or even credit-default swaps for the euro-area crisis. This is almost e

Viewpoints May 2, 2012

Addressing the health needs of the world’s most vulnerable people is often a costly and complicated undertaking. But on rare occasions, if the will is sufficient, it can be simple. So it is with the No. 2 cause of death among children in low-income countries: diarrhea. Weak health and poor nutrition can make these children especially susceptible to deadly dehydration. Among those less than 5 years old, 1.5 million die from the condition annually, mostly in Africa and South Asia. India, Nigeria a

Viewpoints May 1, 2012

JERUSALEM ― Two things stand out in the Middle East since the Arab Spring began ― one that happened, and one that did not. What happened was that for the first time in modern Arab history, authoritarian regimes and rulers were toppled, or seriously challenged, by popular demonstrations, not ― as in the past ― through military coups.But what did not happen might be as important as what did. While dictators associated with military juntas were challenged overnight, the Arab Spring never came to th

Viewpoints May 1, 2012

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Initial reports indicated the justices weren’t buying the Obama administration’s arguments against a provision that requires police officers to check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.We hope that’s not the case. We think that provision and others in the law need to be struck down, and we hope the court upholds the primacy of federal law and agencies in dealing w

Viewpoints May 1, 2012

Never one to eat his words, Newt Gingrich is nonetheless being fed replay after replay of the famous ABC News clip in which he confidently declared, “I’m going to be the nominee.”That was Dec. 1. On Wednesday, the morning after Mitt Romney swept five presidential primaries, Gingrich’s campaign staff signaled that he would soon officially concede the obvious: Romney is the presumptive Republican presidential candidate.That Gingrich lasted this long is a testament to... what, exactly? Monomaniacal

Viewpoints May 1, 2012

Anyone with half a brain knows that bolstering the middle class is critical to securing the future of the U.S. It’s a matter of national self-interest. Setting aside the misery of poverty for a minute, the rich need a skilled middle-class workforce to make their businesses successful or they won’t stay rich for long. Skills, of course, require education, which is why it’s nutty that Republican House members want to cut Pell grants and are making unreasonable demands in the debate over preventing

Viewpoints April 30, 2012

If your child is one of the 1.5 million high school students eagerly awaiting acceptance letters from colleges this month, he or she is probably entertaining dreams of high scholarship, intellectual ferment, new friends, raging keggers. You probably have a few other things on your mind. For starters, you may be thinking that the average annual cost of a four-year institution now exceeds $20,000. Or that outstanding student-loan debt surpasses $1 trillion. Or that defaults are rising, economic gr

Viewpoints April 30, 2012

A lot of people search endlessly for the secret key or a magic formula that would enable them to understand China. Naturally, at some point they will want to know how the Chinese are educated. The Middle Kingdom has many prestigious schools, but let us take a closer look at Peking University, the mother lode of the Chinese “wenming.”Wenming is often translated as “civilization,” but that is misleading. In a recent lecture at Peking University, the renowned linguist Gu Zhengkun explained that “we

Viewpoints April 30, 2012