If an individual’s body mass index isn’t a purely personal matter, what is? We have the right to choose between healthy food or junk food, even if the latter is more likely to result in obesity and related health problems. But once our choices affect others, there’s a natural conflict between individual freedom and social responsibility. In a nation where rising health-care costs and diminished ac

When asked about judicial reform last week, Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik was noncommittal. He apparently did not want to be drawn into a conflict over the thorny issue when he said, “There is no right answer to the question. I hope considerate debate (on the issue) will proceed in a way that will be of help in advancing the nation in the future.”But the administration will have to get itself activ

NEW DELHI ― India-Pakistan relations ― a challenge at the best of times, and in the doldrums since the terrorist attacks on Mumbai of November 2008 ― received an unexpected boost last month from an unlikely source: cricket. When the two countries became semi-finalists in the game’s quadrennial World Cup, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart, Yusuf Reza Gilani, to

Rarely has the fog of war settled so quickly or as thickly as it has around President Obama’s Libyan adventure. Remember how the president promised military operations would last “days, not weeks”? That was nearly a month ago ― and now Obama’s advisers are being coy about whether the White House intends to comply with the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which sets a 60-day limit on military actions wi

There are few occasions in life more idyllic than college graduation. Steeped in ceremony, it is the moment of triumph after years of work, a time for parents to beam proudly and gowned students to receive their hard-earned diplomas.However, graduates aren’t the only ones earning something on commencement day. Some colleges and universities are paying exorbitant fees ― not just expenses ― for grad

Once the dust settles from last week’s short-term budget battle, we may learn something important for the long term: What did voters really want last November when they handed control of the House of Representatives to Speaker John A. Boehner’s Republicans?Budget wonks complain that all that recent brinksmanship and fury was over relatively trivial sums of money, less than 1 percent of the governm

CAIRO ― They make an unlikely trio of “founding fathers” for the new Egypt: One is a wily old-school politician, the second is a reticent scientist who won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the third is a hard-nosed business tycoon. But they are emerging as the country’s senior political voices and, interestingly, they share similar views about Egypt’s transition to democracy. The three leaders are Amr M

The central bank was more realistic than before when it abandoned its policy goal of keeping this year’s inflation at 3.5 percent or lower, raising the target rate to 3.9 percent this week. Still, the bank took no action to convince the public that the new goal was attainable.In revising the targeted rate of inflation upward, the Bank of Korea maintained its earlier growth outlook for this year ―

Indonesia has recently selected Korea Aerospace Industries as the preferred bidder for its trainer jet project ― a deal which is brightening the prospects for exporting Korean-made supersonic T-50 trainer jets. As the KAI chief executive officer says, it will take some time to conclude negotiations on a final contract regarding the price, the time of delivery, the provision of parts, assistance in

What a strange turn of events. Instead of uniting the environmental movement in renewed opposition to nuclear power, the Fukushima disaster in Japan has divided it still further. An increasing number of green advocates, including some very prominent voices, have declared their support for nuclear power as a clean energy option, even as radioactive water accumulates and the timeline for cleaning up

Hey, President Obama has formally announced his re-election bid! I’ve added the exclamation mark to help ratchet up the excitement.It has been a long and difficult slog since Inauguration Day, so I’m going to assume that the looming inevitability of another presidential campaign is about as welcome as the prospect of trace radioactive elements in your milk. Still, attention must be paid. If you’re

NEW DELHI ― Will “mission creep” in the West’s intervention in Libya end up creating, inadvertently, a jihadist citadel at Europe’s southern doorstep?Of course, the Western powers must be applauded for their efforts, with the support of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to prevent a slaughter of Libya’s civilian population. The democratic world should never stand by idly while a tyrant uses mili

Japanese professional baseball’s regular season starts Tuesday as the 12 teams of the Central and Pacific leagues play their openers. The pennant race begins, though belatedly, while wounds from the March 11 catastrophe remain fresh.As the nation faces a difficult time, players are urged all the more to do their best to give hope and vigor to disaster victims and the nation as a whole.Both leagues

Every time I hear Donald Trump talk about President Obama’s birth certificate, I think of O.J. Simpson.The conspiracy theory invented by Simpson’s defenders was every bit as loopy as the fantasies concerning Obama. Remember the O.J. defense ruse?Years before the murder, conspirators would have had to incite Simpson to commit domestic abuse, laying a foundation for a future motive.Several weeks bef

When I was growing up in upstate New York in the late 1950s and ‘60s, people didn’t exercise in public the way they do now. You didn’t see adults jogging, biking or power-walking on the street.Except one. Nearly every day, a middle-age woman of slight build walked rapidly through our suburban neighborhood, usually with her head down. No one knew her name, so we called her the Walker. She usually w

LAHORE ― In 2005, during a visit to Islamabad, I met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and told him of a conversation I had had with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India. The Indian leader, whom I have known for years, had said that he wanted better relations with Pakistan as one his legacies.Musharraf’s response was interesting. He said he had the same aspiration, but that it would need effo

In this age of plastic cards, keeping a few 50,000-won bills in wallet would not make one feel particularly comfortable. In everyday life, you rarely need to use the light brown note graced by the elegant portrait of virtuous Joseon era lady Shin Saimdang, which was first issued in June 2009. Yet, the Bank of Korea reports that some 400 million 50,000-won notes are “in circulation,” believe it or

Suh Nam-pyo, a Korean-born professor emeritus at MIT with more than 70 patents in mechanical engineering and experience as vice president of the U.S. National Science Foundation, assumed presidency at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in July 2006. At the time, he set the goal of making KAIST one of the 10 best research universities in the world. He followed up with reform mea

CAIRO ― The weak have a new power in the modern media age: Their suffering is visible to millions of well-intentioned people around the world who are likely to support humanitarian intervention to rescue them from their plight. But there’s a dangerous corollary to this new power of the weak: It can lead disorganized groups to start fights with established authorities that they can’t finish ― unles

There were times when academic doctors were so rare in Korea that it was an honor to be called Dr. Kim or Dr. Park. When Rhee Syngman, a Princeton Ph.D., was elected the first president of South Korea in 1948, the Korean people found their political leader’s academic title so fascinating that they preferred to call him Dr. Rhee instead of President Rhee. Indeed, there were days when if a person re