The Korea Herald

[David Ignatius] People power rises again

WASHINGTON ― “Authoritarianism in the name of Islam is dead,” messaged one Egyptian activist last Sunday, as millions gathered to denounce the rule of President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government. There’s a new wave of popular dissent this July 4th in Egypt, Iran and Turkey, the region’s three biggest Muslim democracies. Authoritarianism is still very much alive in the Middle East, but it’s under pressure from a surprisingly broad movement for change that defies religious or na

Viewpoints July 3, 2013

[David Ignatius] People power rises again

Ireland’s experience and the austerity debate

DUBLIN ― Both sides of the austerity debate that is now gripping economists and policymakers cite Ireland’s experience as evidence for their case. And, however much they try to position the country as a poster-child, neither side is able to convince the other. Yet this tug-of-war is important, because it illustrates the complex range of arguments that are in play. It also demonstrates why more conclusive economic policy making is proving so elusive.Here is a quick reminder of Ireland’s sad recen

Viewpoints July 3, 2013

U.S. officials shouldn’t go to bat for Egypt’s Morsi

Mohammed Morsi holds a singular distinction.As Egypt’s president, he is the world’s only democratically elected leader to motivate more than 20 million of his people, one-quarter of the population, to sign a petition calling for his ouster.Millions of these people began showing up at angry, sometimes violent demonstrations in Cairo and other cities on Sunday, the one-year anniversary of his rule. They’re irate about Morsi’s blatant leadership failures. Egypt is riven with enervating economic, po

Viewpoints July 3, 2013

[Naomi Wolf] The rape culture embedded in the U.S. military

NEW YORK ― Around the world, people’s understanding of why rape happens usually takes one of two forms. Either it is like lightning, striking some unlucky woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time (an isolated, mysterious event, caused by some individual man’s sudden psychopathology), or it is “explained” by some seductive transgression by the victim (the wrong dress, a misplaced smile).But the idea of a “rape culture” ― a concept formulated by feminists in the 1970s as they developed t

Viewpoints July 3, 2013

[Naomi Wolf] The rape culture embedded in the U.S. military

China’s slowdown could slam Hong Kong

In the run-up to Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, the world wondered what officials in Beijing would do with the place. Would Hong Kong’s dynamism and openness catalyze change in China, or would the Communist Party try to remake the freewheeling city-state in its image? Sixteen years on, we know it’s more the latter than the former. Beijing has shackled Hong Kong with one bad, handpicked leader after another. China’s commissars and their local lackeys continue to push anti-sedition laws, pat

Viewpoints July 2, 2013

A rational approach for Korea

Last year, a Vietnamese woman involved in a divorce from her South Korean husband left the country with their 13-month-old child and traveled back to Vietnam. Her husband pressed criminal charges against her for kidnapping and each successive court found her not guilty. Eventually the case reached the South Korean Supreme Court and the court, in its first live broadcast, heard the case. At the time choosing such a case for the very first live broadcast was roundly criticized for feeding into the

Viewpoints July 2, 2013

Grumpy old Scalia versus those pesky kids

You may have heard that Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the majority opinion striking down the Defense of Marriage Act as “legalistic argle-bargle.” Intemperate as the dissent was, derision for Justice Anthony Kennedy’s jurisprudence of dignity and personhood was nothing new for Scalia, who has been castigating what he once called Kennedy’s “sweet mystery of life” rhetoric for a decade. What’s new about Scalia’s numerous dissents issued over the U.S. Supreme Court’s remarkable June is how muc

Viewpoints July 2, 2013

Why are so many college graduates driving taxis?

It’s a parent’s nightmare: shelling out big money for college, then seeing the graduate unable to land a job that requires high-level skills. This situation may be growing more common, unfortunately, because the demand for cognitive skills associated with higher education, after rising sharply until 2000, has since been in decline. So concludes new research by economists Paul Beaudry and David Green of the University of British Columbia and Benjamin Sand of York University in Toronto. This rever

Viewpoints July 2, 2013

[Editorial] Harming national interest

Korea Water Resources Corp. is set to take legal action against Korean environmental activists who recently made misleading allegations against it in Thailand. The company is on the brink of winning two water management contracts there with a combined value of 6.1 trillion won.The state-run corporation heads a Korean consortium that was chosen on June 10 as the preferred bidder for two key components of the 11.5 trillion-won megaproject promoted by the Thai government to prevent the Chao Phraya

Editorial July 1, 2013

[Editorial] Seoul-Beijing trust

President Park Geun-hye has wrapped up her highly successful visit to China. During the four-day trip, she has captured the hearts and minds of the Chinese, laying the groundwork for enhanced ties between the two neighbors in the next 20 years.Before leaving for China, Park described her visit as “a journey of hearts and trust.” The description well summed up the main objective of her trip to China: She sought to bond the peoples of the two countries together with trust.Park has built her relati

Editorial July 1, 2013

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Profiles in peacemaking

NEW YORK ― Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy did the seemingly impossible. At the height of the Cold War, he moved the two nuclear superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, toward peace. The lessons of Kennedy’s act of leadership ― one of the greatest of modern times ― are directly relevant today.I recount this remarkable story in a new book, “To Move the World.” To many, war between the two superpowers seemed inevitable. The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 created a glo

Viewpoints July 1, 2013

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Profiles in peacemaking

Sub-Saharan Africa’s subprime borrowers

NEW YORK ― In recent years, a growing number of African governments have issued Eurobonds, diversifying away from traditional sources of finance such as concessional debt and foreign direct investment. Taking the lead in October 2007, when it issued a $750 million Eurobond with an 8.5 percent coupon rate, Ghana earned the distinction of being the first Sub-Saharan country ― other than South Africa ― to issue bonds in 30 years.This debut Sub-Saharan issue, which was four times oversubscribed, spa

Viewpoints July 1, 2013

Mess in Honduras has U.S. fingerprints

The State Department issued a new travel advisory last week for a neighbor state, Honduras, warning potential American visitors that they risk being kidnapped or killed. What’s more, it said, if they face a problem, the police may not even show up.If you do go, the advisory added, lock your car doors so robbers or kidnappers can’t burst in at traffic lights. Eighteen Americans have been killed there in the last two years. Police have arrested no one for any of those crimes.By now, many people kn

Viewpoints June 30, 2013

[David Ignatius] No clipping these wings

WASHINGTON ― For an illustration of why the federal government has become so unmanageable, consider the Air Force’s attempt last year to cut its budget by retiring unneeded warplanes. This sensible policy ran into a shredder ― largely because of the political clout of the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve.Governors united across party lines to protest the potential loss of their pet C-130s and other planes. Members of Congress lined up behind the potent lobbying pressure of the Guard

Viewpoints June 30, 2013

[David Ignatius] No clipping these wings

Germany’s case against the ECB

MUNICH ― Germany’s Constitutional Court is preparing what might become the most important decision in its history. Last September, the court allowed the German government to sign the Treaty Establishing the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the eurozone’s permanent intergovernmental rescue facility. Now, however, it may try to stop the European Central Bank’s so-called outright monetary transactions (OMT) program (the ECB’s pledge to buy, without limit, the government bonds of troubled eurozon

Viewpoints June 30, 2013

Articles by Yu Kun-ha