Former President Chun Doo-hwan reportedly offered on Wednesday to pay his outstanding fines. If he did, he undoubtedly did so to prevent his children from being sent to prison.Chun, who took power in a coup as an Army general in 1980, collected huge sums of money in bribes from businesses. He was ordered by a court in 1997 to pay 220.5 billion won ($201 million) in fines. He has since paid less than a third of that.It is not known whether he offered to pay the remaining fines, which amount to 16

WASHINGTON ― With the global furor over the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities, you might think that other governments are refraining from such intrusive monitoring. But recent reports by U.S. technology companies make clear that foreign governments are aggressively compelling the “lawful” disclosure of information, just as the NSA does.The latest indication of the volume of international snooping came last week from Facebook. The company said it had received requests from 74 cou

The only international issue to raise a ripple in Australia’s election campaign has been Syria, which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tried to exploit to highlight opponent Tony Abbott’s inexperience in world affairs. That’s unfortunate, because the most critical choice facing Australians on Sept. 7 isn’t between Rudd and Abbott. It’s between the U.S. and China. Nothing matters more to Australia’s long-term future than managing this increasingly difficult balancing act between the world’s two stronges

To Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, hosting the 2020 Olympics must be more important than facing up to the worsening toxic water crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant.On Wednesday, just a few days ahead of the Sept. 7 announcement of the 2020 host city, Abe assured that “there will be absolutely no problem” by the time the Games were held seven years later.Abe’s assurance was based on a $500 million package his administration announced Tuesday to contain the leakage of radioactive water from

Prosecutors have started questioning Rep. Lee Seok-ki of the United Progressive Party after arresting him Thursday on charges of conspiring to overthrow the Seoul government and forming an anti-state underground organization.They were able to detain the leftist legislator as the National Assembly approved his arrest Wednesday. The motion passed by an overwhelming margin, 258-14, showing that lawmakers took Lee’s alleged pro-North Korean activities very seriously. Now prosecutors and investigator

What would Deng Xiaoping make of Charles Xue? It’s a surprisingly edifying question. In the past few weeks, Chinese authorities have been eager to show their allegiance to the rule of law. They have gone after Western pharmaceutical companies for bribery, milk-powder suppliers for price-fixing and a well-known British investigator for illegally obtaining information about Chinese citizens.The most riveting spectacle ― the often salacious testimony in the trial of Bo Xilai, a former Politburo mem

MOSCOW ― In 1811, assessing the possibility ― or, rather, the impossibility ― of Russia ever undergoing a Western-style transformation, the diplomat and counter-Enlightenment philosopher Joseph de Maistre famously wrote, “Every nation has the government it deserves.” Fourteen years later, the Decembrist revolt ― a movement of poets and army officers to topple Czar Nicholas I and establish a constitutional monarchy ― seemed to refute de Maistre’s claim. Yet the revolt was suppressed, and the Dece

If President Obama ever does get around to targeting Syria, with congressional approval, it will be the strangest U.S. military strike in recent memory.The administration has made a convincing case that the Syrian regime gassed 1,400 of its own people to death last month, including 426 children. And yes, the use of poison gas violates longstanding international norms.Yet Obama can’t seem to make up his mind if he wants to punish Syria for using chemical weapons or not.On Saturday, he made a stro

Teachers teach the way they were taught. They pay more attention to receptive skills (listening and reading) than productive skills (speaking and writing). What most teachers do in class is reading and translating English, and they think they have done a fine job. They monopolize most of the class hour without letting students talk because they never learned how to reduce their teacher talk. How can a swimmer learn to swim by watching their coach swim in the pool most of the time? Depending on t

It is mind-boggling that the nation’s parliament has a member who allegedly attempted to use it as a “bridgehead for revolutionary struggle” and conspired to subvert the South Korean government through an armed revolt.Prosecutors made these allegations against Lee Seok-ki, a first-term lawmaker of the minor opposition United Progressive Party. They submitted detailed charges against Lee, 51, to the National Assembly on Tuesday as they sought parliamentary consent for his arrest. According to the

The frozen housing market is showing early signs of thawing following the government’s stimulus package announced a week ago. According to reports, apartment sale prices in Seoul rose 0.03 percent last week, the first rise in 14 weeks. A price rise was also spotted in cities around Seoul, with the average apartment sale prices in the capital zone inching up 0.01 percent, the first gain since March 2011.These signs are encouraging. To help the budding recovery take root, it is incumbent upon the

If anyone still believes this country has a “pay for performance” system for corporate executives, it’s time to put the notion to rest. For more than two decades, corporations have gotten away with this sham ― at the expense of workers, shareholders and taxpayers.The good news: there’s reason to hope that members of Congress could come together across the aisle to help end this charade by closing one loophole in the tax code.The “pay for performance” myth has been unraveling for years. Most of t

Turn on the radio in the morning. Surf different channels. One common feature is the remarkable increase in listener participation. The radio show host endlessly receives phone calls and text messages from all over Korea just when the roads are busiest. A question is aired and thousands of phone calls and text messages arrive instantly. The host then selects certain phone numbers and sends gifts. Then, the listeners text message their comments on the song that has just been played, followed by t

NEW YORK ― The ordeal of David Miranda ― the partner of Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald detained at London’s Heathrow Airport, interrogated for nine hours, and forced to surrender his electronic devices (some of which allegedly contained documents leaked to Greenwald by the former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden) ― is a shocking demonstration of the changed climate surrounding the press.So is the fact that state officials threatened Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger with criminal ch

BRUSSELS ― There is a saying, too often used in interpreting international relations, that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Sometimes it proves true; often it does not.Thirty years ago, the Afghan mujahedin were mistaken for friends of the West when they fought their country’s Soviet invaders. But how lazy that assumption seems now, given all that has since happened.Syria’s deepening crisis, and the criminal use of chemical weapons there, has created a similar dynamic and dilemma. But the West nee

With communism long dismissed as “the God that failed,” capitalism is now under fire. Leftist writers and scholars argue that capitalism, albeit better than communism, has serious side effects like the polarization of the rich and the poor, mammonism and dehumanization. Indeed, capitalism is certainly not impeccable and must be applied judiciously to reduce its many problems. In 2011, a Hollywood movie entitled “In Time” poignantly criticized the inherent problems of capitalism using intriguing

India’s economy has stalled. Growth in the second quarter fell to 4.4 percent at an annual rate, down from 8 percent two years ago. The rupee has slumped. Consumer-price inflation is about 10 percent and rising. The country faces what could be a full-scale financial crisis. This would be a testing situation even if India had a well-functioning government, but it doesn’t. With a general election due next May, politics are paralyzed. Between now and the vote, the Reserve Bank of India, led by its

For five years, President Obama has more or less successfully adhered to a very specific, though not immediately discernible, doctrine when formulating American policy in the Muslim world.Many foreign policy experts believe that Obama doesn’t have a Middle East policy at all ― a clear-cut set of ideas that guide American engagement in the greater Middle East. This, we are told, is a big problem.But the conventional wisdom is wrong. There is, in fact, an Obama doctrine. And for the first time sin

So the U.S. launches a military strike. Then what?As the Obama administration and the U.S. military plot military action against Syria, they should be spending just as much time ― and arguably more ― considering what happens next. Once Washington crosses the threshold of action, there’s no retreating from blame for anything that follows, whether through action or inaction. And in the weeks and months to come, dangers will only deepen.First, quick hits rarely achieve enduring political goals ― an

NEW YORK ― The world’s governments meet at a special session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 25 to discuss how to accelerate progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and also to agree on a timetable for a new set of Sustainable Development Goals. The MDGs, adopted in 2000, will conclude in 2015, to be followed by the SDGs, most likely for the 2015-2030 period.The MDGs focus on ending extreme poverty, hunger, and preventable disease. They have been the most important global d