Seek truth from facts,” goes an old Chinese saying favored by Deng Xiaoping. That injunction should also apply to the story of Bo Xilai, the recently ousted party chief of Chongqing whose fall has become something of a morality tale. To hear some tea-leaf readers tell it, the high-flying Bo was the creator of the “Chongqing model,” a program that melded support for state-owned enterprises and measures to help the poor with a relentless campaign against crime and corruption and a rekindling of re

Viewpoints March 26, 2012

Barely two weeks ago, the drumbeat of war against Iran pounded like a throbbing headache. Israel’s prime minister made the rounds in Washington threatening to launch a preemptive attack, while President Barack Obama argued his best case for letting economic sanctions run their course.After the prime minister’s departure, the international banking system came together like never before. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, broke a longstanding neutrality poli

Viewpoints March 26, 2012

Students all over Korea are hard at work posting comments on the Internet, positive comments! With more than 2.5 million positive comments posted to date, our Sunfull Movement, which I started five years ago, is proving an effective way to reduce students’ posting of malicious comments. Now we are looking to expand our idea to other countries.The harassment of children and teenagers via the Internet and cellphones is becoming common in countries around the world. Every month, there are more stor

Viewpoints March 26, 2012

In any country in the world, most citizens tend to want more social/welfare programs from their governments. When politicians are running in local or national elections, they become particularly sensitive to the pressure from groups advocating their pet social/welfare programs. It is quite natural for politicians in any democracy to cater to the citizens’ wishes, hoping to ingratiate themselves to the voters. All is good except for the problem of paying for the programs, or more specifically, wh

Viewpoints March 26, 2012

Clean water is increasingly scarce. About a third of the world’s fisheries have collapsed and desertification now threatens the livelihoods of a third of the world’s people. Parts of our planet are in peril. For a comprehensive solution, green is not enough.To protect our home, we must empower people. The Arab Spring and the Occupy movement are clear calls for equality. We must heed them. Only by working to ensure the next generation has jobs, basic services and opportunity, as well as a protect

Viewpoints March 25, 2012

Within 10 minutes of landing in Tokyo Narita International Airport, I encountered my very first earthquake, and it was a brutal one. More than 15,000 people were confirmed dead and more than 3,000 are still missing. While Japan marks its first year since the quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, I contemplate the incident. There’s one lesson for Tokyo: Do not hide a problem under the rug and pray that it will simply go away.Tokyo was quick to silence dissent when a spokesman for the Nuclear and I

Viewpoints March 25, 2012

In 2005, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then Israel’s finance minister, made an official visit to Uganda. For Netanyahu, visits to Uganda are weighted with sadness. It was at the airport in Entebbe that his older brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, was shot dead by a Ugandan soldier. Yonatan was the leader of an Israeli commando team dispatched by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in July 1976 to rescue Jewish hostages held by pro-Palestinian terrorists. The terrorists had diverted an Air France flight to Ugand

Viewpoints March 23, 2012

Witn a well-stocked energy sector, international buyers are lining up to access Brunei Darussalam’s liquefied natural gas. It will be up to officials to ensure that a balance is struck between fueling overseas demand and supplying the local economy, and in particular, the country’s growing petrochemicals industry, the Oxford Business Group said in its latest report.Estimates put Brunei Darussalam’s natural gas reserves at around 390 billion cu meters, though this is likely to be extended due to

Viewpoints March 23, 2012

The outcome of this year’s spring labor offensive, known as “shunto,” has been bleak, with major companies in such key industrial sectors as automobiles and electronics not offering any pay increases. Offers regarding biannual bonuses have also been harsh, falling below last year’s levels at most companies.Because of the historic appreciation of the yen and the deterioration of economic conditions overseas, the business performance of the nation’s companies has been stagnant.Under the circumstan

Viewpoints March 23, 2012

Cheong Wa Dae is under snowballing pressure to come clean on its role in the alleged attempt to cover up the illegal surveillance of a civilian by officials of the Prime Minister’s Office in 2008. Opposition parties are zeroing in on President Lee Myung-bak. Defining the case as a Korean version of the Watergate scandal that ousted U.S. President Richard Nixon, they urged Lee to clear up the suspicions that some of his former top aides had been involved in a systematic cover-up. The suspicions s

Editorial March 22, 2012

The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission has concluded that the power outage at the Gori-1 reactor on Feb. 9 had been caused by a combination of a worker’s mistake, a defect in the emergency diesel power generator and a weak safety culture.According to the commission, external power supply to the Gori-1 reactor was suspended while a worker tested the protection system for the back-up diesel power generator. He was found to have not followed the instructions of his supervisor.The emergency powe

Editorial March 22, 2012

In this age of austerity, many governments are looking for ways to fill gaps in their budgets by taxing the rich more. These proposals make for great politics, but terrible economics. This week, the U.K.’s coalition government will produce its budget for the next year. Among proposals being discussed between the coalition partners is a so-called mansion tax ― an annual 1 percent levy on homes worth more than 2 million pounds ($3.2 million). In Russia, meanwhile, President-elect Vladimir Putin ha

Viewpoints March 22, 2012