Samsung comes of age
You don’t have to hang around Samsung Electronics for long before the word “innovation” is mentioned. Samsung people love to use it; I am not sure you can even have a chinwag with them without the “i” word cropping up. Personally, I have never been convinced. Certainly, Samsung is a well-run company, a zero-to-hero success. […]
Rule of law in China
China’s new leader Xi Jinping gave a major address recently in which he pledged to curtail power and investigate violations of the law so as to protect the rights of Chinese citizens. “No organization or individual has the special rights to overstep the constitution and law, any violation of the Constitution and the law must […]
Dying alone
Last week, the skeleton of a man was found in the southeastern port city of Busan about six years after he apparently committed suicide. The man, identified only as Kim, was 49 when he hung himself at a rented house in 2006. Kim, an unmarried manual laborer, had lived alone since his mother died in […]
Local people in eastern Nepal take initiative to preserve red pandas
KATHMANDU, Jan 20 – The Red Panda Network of Kathmandu has initiated the preservation process of the red pandas at four Village Development Committees of Ilam district, in eastern Nepal. The red pandas, one of the endangered animals, are found in the community and national forests of this district adjoining Darjeeling, the popular hill station of […]
The Arab Youth: How do they think? Why do they Revolt?
After a year which was characterized mainly by “change” demanded by millions of young men and women who sparked off a wave of uprisings and even sacrificed their lives for it, many voices were heard giving descriptions, making analyses and comparisons and drawing conclusions. In the midst of all that the Fourth Arab Cultural Development […]
Koreans shouldn’t romanticize ‘Les Miserables’
The movie “Les Miserables,” which was adapted from Victor Hugo’s novel by the same name, has become a hit this year in Korea. The late Hugo might find it puzzling that his fictional work is influencing the Korean society today. About five million Koreans watched the movie. Hugo’s novel, which was first published in 1862, […]
Oil spill compensation
Moon Seung-il earned his living by running fishing boats for weekend anglers in Taean County along the west coast. On Dec. 7, 2007, a Samsung Heavy Industries barge struck a crude oil tanker passing there, causing the country’s worst oil spill and driving him out of business. Moon filed a claim of 13 million won […]
Japan’s quest for allies
MANILA ― Japan is probing the possibilities of a most improbable alliance in a corner of Southeast Asia that once lay at the heart of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” The term “co-prosperity” was a euphemism for Imperial Japan’s policy of prospering off impoverished people from Burma through the French Indochinese states of Vietnam, […]
Retooling government
What matters are not organizations but their operations Restructuring the government has become one of the traditional tasks of newly-elected leaders in Korea. Park Geun-hye is no exception. There may be little wrong with the organizational reboot ― why not put new wine into new bottles? ― except Korea is perhaps the only country to […]
Korea’s Japanese problem
Just a few days before Park Geun-hye was elected as the new Korean president, Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party won a landslide victory in Japan. That event could have a major impact on Park’s administration over the next five years. The state of Korean-Japanese relations might even overshadow those between Seoul and Pyongyang […]