SEOUL ― The ascension to power of the pudgy 29-year-old Kim Jong-un in North Korea has grabbed headlines around the world, but the most important story involving Korean young people and politics is taking place in the South. There, young voters are becoming angrier, more politically active, and increasingly hostile to the old established parties. This demographic challenge to South Korea’s status quo suggests a “liberal” awakening that could completely alter the country’s political landscape.The

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s reaction to Moscow protesters perfectly illustrates how the former Soviet spy chief can masterfully leverage classic subversion strategies typically found in espionage to undermine the opposition and even ridicule the concept of democracy.In the wake of the Russian parliamentary vote in early December, a Russian opposition leader far more radically communist than Putin was jailed, and protesters hit the streets to protest what they considered electoral fra

During the last decade many right-wing American and Israeli analysts have described the geo-strategic struggles unfolding in the Middle East as a new “Cold War” pitting the United States against Shiite Iran. They have warned of an Arab “Shiite Crescent” ― stretching from Lebanon to Iraq ― connected to Iran via ties of religion, commerce and geostrategy.The new year has started with an attempted Shiite power play by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to dominate the Iraqi government, and an Iranian d

Almost 65 years ago, in 1947, the U.S. government sued 17 leading Wall Street investment banks, charging them with effectively colluding in violation of antitrust laws. In its complaint ― which was front-page news at the time ― the Justice Department alleged that these firms had created “an integrated, overall conspiracy and combination” starting in 1915 “and in continuous operation thereafter, by which” they developed a system “to eliminate competition and monopolize ‘the cream of the business’

Mr. Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, a 30-year-old American national from Wisconsin, was recently arrested for drug and firearms offences (The Daily Mail, Jan. 7, 2012). Prior to October 2011 this individual was known as Jeffrey Drew Wilschke; however he legally changed his name as he is fully entitled to do. Not only is he entitled to change his name, he is not in fact required by law to tell the authorities about it unless he is subject to certain control orders, a point usually ignored by c

More than 5 billion additional people will connect to the Internet in the next 20 years, and most of the newcomers will not speak English. This next generation will use the Internet in ways we cannot imagine, and its innovations will change the world. But if the debate in Washington over the creation of new domain names goes the wrong way, Internet policy won’t help the free flow of speech online. The U.S. can help by having the courage to stay the course. At issue is the Internet’s crabbed nami

Rep. Koh Seung-deok of the Grand National Party is a first-term lawmaker from Seocho district of Seoul. He is called a “genius in Yeoeuido” with a diploma from Seoul National University College of Law, LL.M.’s from Yale Law School and Harvard Law School and J.D. from Columbia Law School. He passed the state judiciary examination as an SNU sophomore and the diplomatic and administration service exams in 1980, the year he graduated from the SNU law college with top honors. He also has CPA and pate

As of 2011, women teachers accounted for 75.8 percent in the nation’s primary schools, 66.8 percent in middle schools and 46.2 percent in high schools. These figures represent significant rise in the presence of female teachers at primary and secondary schools since a decade ago, when the respective figures were 68 percent, 59 percent and 35 percent.With violence in school reportedly growing in recent years, occasionally causing suicides of young students after extended suffering from bullying a

JERUSALEM ― In my nearly nine decades of life, I cannot recall a time in which the past was so irrelevant to policymaking. All of today’s significant developments went unpredicted by anyone. Experts studied the past, but, constrained by old paradigms, they could not discern the future.Today’s dynamic complexity, in which a science-based, fast-changing global economy makes so many more phenomena interdependent, prevents us from foreseeing the future through linear extrapolations of the past. The

MADRID ― The folding of the American flag in Iraq amid a collapse of public security and a severe crisis in the country’s fragile political order seals a tragic chapter in the history of the United States. It marked the denouement of one of the clearest cases ever of the imperial overreach that former U.S. Senator William Fulbright called the “arrogance of power.”Violently torn by religious and ethnic rivalries, Iraq is in no condition to play its part in America’s vision of an Arab wall of cont

CAIRO ― “We want democracy, but one constrained by God’s laws. Ruling without God’s laws is infidelity,” Yasser Burhami, the second leading figure in the Salafi Call Society (SCS) and its most charismatic leader, recently said. The unexpected rise of the Salafis in Egypt’s parliamentary election has fueled concern that the most populous Sunni Arab country could be on its way to becoming a fundamentalist theocracy akin to Shia Iran. Known for its social ultra-conservatism, literal and strict inte

WASHINGTON ― At its best, U.S. policy toward the Middle East consists of a deft combination of short-term pragmatism and long-term idealism.In the short term, Washington works to protect Israel and other U.S. allies, combat terrorism, rebuff Iran’s hegemonic ambitions, and support regional stability, all of which ensures the continued flow of oil to power Western economies.In the long run, Washington promotes the advance of freedom and democracy in the region and elsewhere to expand the circle o

The faulty breast implants made by the French company Poly Implants Protheses, or PIP, have grabbed headlines around the world in recent weeks, and it’s no wonder. The prostheses are more prone to rupture than other models, and they contain an industrial grade of silicone never intended for use in a medical device. The scandal is also global in scope. Sold in 65 countries, the implants were re-branded by a Dutch company registered in Cyprus, offered on credit in Venezuela and smuggled into Boliv

During the last two decades, relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea starkly improved in the economic and cultural dimensions while political cooperation still shows a Cold War scheme. For a real normalization process to start, the two countries should follow the example set by two former foes turned friends: Germany and Poland.Look at the dynamics of bilateral trade and normalization that Tokyo and Seoul seem to have achieved. In 2010 total volume of trade was more than $92 billion ―

As I look over my 2011, I not only appreciate the good experiences of the year, but revisit the difficulties, foremost of which was a cyber crime I suffered while living in Korea. As a foreigner, dealing with law enforcement was more complex, and in my case, as damaging as suffering the cyber attack.Months have passed and time has given me perspective so that I can look at the experience objectively and offer suggestions to help others. As I’d lived in Korea for many years, I had a number of bil

A couple of weeks ago, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced that they’d made “significant progress” in the search for a subatomic particle called the Higgs boson ― the so-called God particle.Two teams of physicists conducting separate analyses of data collected by the Hadron supercollider outside of Geneva, Switzerland, noticed a similar rise in indication of particle decay in approximately the same range ― 125 gigaelectronvolts.I have no idea how much a

BUDAPEST ― Today, millions of Europeans are afraid and frustrated as they face unemployment, loss of savings and pensions, radically reduced social benefits, and other economic hardships. Their fears are warranted, because the current financial crisis is undermining the very union that was established to heal Europe’s wounds at the end of World War II. But, in the midst of the general suffering, one group ― the Roma ― has been ignored. Europe’s largest and most disadvantaged ethnic minority, wit

Tensions are mounting in the ruling Grand National Party as the party’s emergency leadership council has started to discuss the highly sensitive issue of overhauling the process to pick candidates for parliamentary elections.Changing the nomination process is at the top of the reform agenda pushed by the emergency council, which was launched last month with the mandate to thoroughly reinvent the embattled party before the April general election.The task is basically about establishing a fair, tr

President Lee Myung-bak has renewed efforts to curb inflation ― again resorting to a strong-arm approach. In the first Cabinet meeting of the year Tuesday, Lee instructed officials to introduce a system in which an official is appointed for each of the major daily goods to monitor and manage its prices. Under the system, a section chief of, for instance, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance would be made responsible for checking the price movements of, say, napa cabbage. If cabbage prices are fo

It took a relatively obscure former British academic to propagate a theory of the financial crisis that would confirm what many people suspected all along: The “corporate psychopaths” at the helm of our financial institutions are to blame. Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of “people who, perhaps due to physical factors to do with abnormal brain connectivity and chemistry” lack a “conscie