It may be pleasing for our manufacturing giants to hear a major Japanese business newspaper admit Korea’s overtaking or close chase of Japanese rivals in the global market with such top-line products as cars, ships and appliances. But what is important is paying attention to how they assess the factors of success and failure in the intense rivalry between the two neighbors.In an article titled “So

“Are you in favor of providing free school lunch ― by stages until 2014 ― for students from families in the lower 50 percent income level?”“Are you in favor of providing free school lunch for all students regardless of their families’ income level ― from this year at elementary schools and from next year at middle schools?”The above are the two questions that will be asked to Seoul citizens when a

The other day while walking on the campus of Seoul National University, I saw a big poster put up by the College of Humanities Student Association. The poster harshly criticized the incorporation plan of the university scheduled to be effective as of 2012, asserting that students do not want any radical change on campus.Then I found an amusingly contradictory signature at the bottom of the poster:

MANILA ― One of the main sources of tension in Asia nowadays are the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, where the Philippines, Vietnam, China, and others have conflicting claims. In Chinese media reports, the heightened “unfriendliness” in the region has allegedly arisen from “bad rumors and speculations” on the part of Filipino commentators. But the reality is starker: the intrusions by Chin

Even if the White House and congressional leaders reach a deal to raise the debt limit, they face at least two hurdles to persuading rank-and-file Republicans to go along. Some cling to a disturbing belief that the Treasury Department doesn’t need to borrow more money to keep America’s creditors happy. And many more insist that the deal must include a constitutional amendment to require a balanced

Samsung Group’s virtual absence of working trade union gives the 200,000 employees at its 78 subsidiaries both pride and embarrassment. As the nation’s labor movement entered a new phase with the legalizing of multiple unions at a single workplace, some change may be expected at Samsung. But what has so far happened at Korea’s number one conglomerate disappoints many unionists.A labor union at Sam

The world has had other affairs since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan. Media outlets are devoting less and less space and time to the aftermath of the disaster. But employees of the Fukushima No. 1 Power Plant, government officials, the residents of Fukushima prefecture and volunteers are still struggling at the limits of human perseverance to contain the nuclear damage that

To watch Diane Sawyer’s recent interview with Jaycee Dugard was to wonder at times if that was Dugard herself on screen or an actress hired to play the role of the quintessential survivor. Dugard was so serene and lacking in rancor that it was hard to believe she had been kidnapped at age 11 and held prisoner for 18 years, during which she was repeatedly raped and bore two children, the first when

PRINCETON ― Mahatma Gandhi acutely observed that “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” To seek to reduce the suffering of those who are completely under one’s domination, and unable to fight back, is truly a mark of a civilized society.Charting the progress of animal-welfare legislation around the world is therefore an indication of mo

I didn’t yet know what a font was but I do recall that learning how to write in cursive was a big deal, the sort of thing you anxiously anticipated.I can still picture how each letter was posted in cursive above the blackboard in classrooms, and I remember all the time we spent trying to mimic those letters with our No. 2 pencils on white-lined paper. It was a milestone lesson, akin to learning to

WASHINGTON ― Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is a company with a chip on its shoulder. His defy-the-establishment sensibility has built a print and television empire, to the despair of more traditional (and, Murdoch would say, elitist) rivals. But the phone-hacking scandal that now envelops one of Murdoch’s British publications shows how corrosive this style of anything-goes journalism can be. It’s be

When you read last week that terrorists have discussed surgically implanting explosives in passengers so they could blow up airliners, did you feel a little less aggrieved about the TSA agents who supposedly patted down a 95-year-old woman in a wheelchair?That patdown was a late-June outrage du jour about the Transportation Security Administration. The story: The elderly woman was patted down and,

NEW DELHI ― U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement of the start of American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, and his administration’s increasing emphasis on reconciliation with the Taliban, have been studied attentively in one capital that has a large stake in the outcome ― New Delhi.India has no troops in Afghanistan, but it has invested roughly $1.5 billion to help reconstruct the country

The months ahead in 2011 will constitute a summer to remember for a long, long time.The world’s two largest economies ― the United States and Europe ― are drifting toward brutal days of reckoning. Both economies face severe financial and economic challenges.Failure by either or both would send severe shocks through the already limping global economy. In the United States, a fiercely aroused but in

Everyone knows you can train a dog by rewarding the behavior you want Rover to repeat. But Barack Obama has always been ambitious, so he trains Republicans. The behavior he rewards is intransigence. Every time congressional Republicans adopt an inflexible position ― such as their current no-tax-hikes stance in negotiations over raising the federal debt ceiling ― the president rewards them with a t

The only sort of power a news organization can wield safely is the power to persuade.Every other sort ― no matter how high-minded or expedient the reason for taking it up ― is a kind of slow poison that twists the souls of the journalists involved and, ultimately, makes their enterprise dangerously self-interested and unaccountable. That’s the fundamental lesson to be taken from the spectacle of t

Korea’s economy is led by a handful of large business groups, most of them being family-controlled chaebol. Their influence is growing, as evidenced by an increase in their contribution to the nation’s gross domestic product. The 10 largest business groups, on an asset basis, accounted for 75.6 percent of GDP last year, up 20.6 percentage points from 2008.Another measure of their dominance in the

The bills that are not moving along in the process of legislation number 6312. As the leader of the ruling Grand National Party says, it is shameful for each standing committee of the National Assembly to sit on hundreds of bills.The ruling party has decided to speed up the legislation process when the National Assembly opens an extraordinary session next month. That is a welcome decision. Among t

Lawmakers are jockeying for position ahead of party nominations, though eight long months are left until the next general elections. Some are abandoning their existing constituencies in search of new electoral districts. Others are jumping ship in factional regrouping.But these efforts to enhance their chances of being nominated again should not come as a surprise. All members of the National Asse

The establishment of South Sudan last weekend sowed a seed of new hope. For the seed to bear fruit, wholehearted assistance from the international community is crucial.A major breakup occurred over the weekend and this one was very peaceful. The southern part of Sudan seceded from the country and went independent. The Republic of South Sudan was thus established on July 9 with the attendance of ma