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Column
Why overseas Koreans don’t vote
NEW YORK ― The upcoming Korean presidential election is a big deal ― and an even bigger one for Koreans overseas, or so we’re told. As it will be the first-ever presidential election allowing Korean citizens living abroad to vote, the ballot ― to be held in December ― is…
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Column
Korea-Japan: time for outside mediation?
There is an old Russian proverb that applies to current Japan-South Korea (ROK) relations: “Forget the past and lose an eye; dwell on the past and lose both eyes!” The Japanese, it would appear, are eager to forget the past, while the Koreans seem unable to see beyond it. Isn’t…
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Column
Russia Looks South As Well As East
*Author, Mihoko Kato is Senior Associate Member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, and GCOE Research Fellow at the Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan. ASEAN-Russia: Foundations and Future Prospects Edited by Victor Sumsky, Mark Hong and Amy Lugg Singapore: ISEAS Publications, 2012, 376 pages, S$59.90/US$52.90 (Softcover) SINCE VLADIVOSTOK WAS…
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Column
Experiencing Ramadan as a Non-Muslim
Interested to experience the Ramadan month that Muslim celebrates this month, I then decided to take my own little adventure. Although I was born and grew up in Indonesia, world’s largest Muslim country, and as a non-Muslim, but I am pretty familiar with the Muslim’s culture. I remembered, as a…
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Column
Is authority must-have virtue for president?
The presidential election campaign has heated up by a TV appearance of nonpolitical potential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo. He has neither joined a party nor declared he will run. Yet he has been steering the race with Park Geun-hye, according to opinion polls. Ahn apparently hasn’t shown a clear will toward…
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Column
Love and hunger
With three gold medals, South Korea is off to a good start at the London Olympics, even after controversies have affected some of its strongest gold medal prospects ― swimmer Park Tae-hwan, judoka Cho Jun-ho and fencer Shin A-lam – in the first few days. But when on Monday, North…
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Dispute over torture
Seoul, Beijing should seek cool-headed solution The gruesome details of torture suffered by Korean activist Kim Young-hwan in China are shocking and infuriating. Any country that can put a foreigner through such unjustifiable physical and mental ordeals must be nothing more than a third-rate dictatorship. What astonishes and disappoints people…
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Column
Middle East after Assad
BERLIN ― What will the Middle East look like once the Syrian civil war brings about the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, whose clan has ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 40 years? Given the recent dramatic turn of events that has pushed the battle for…
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Column
Hoping to taste a Jeju beer before long
Jeju-do, the nation’s southernmost island province, is now embroiled in a controversy over having its own brand of beer. If Jeju has a beer brand that can make people, residents and visitors alike, easily associate with the subtropical island, this will surely help increase its tourism income, the main source…
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Myanmar Media Law Reform A Key Test of Non-Partisan Press-2
*Editor’s note: This is the last of two part stories on Myanmar Media Law. To Thailand-based editor Aung Zaw the Press reforms represent the government’s switch to a more sophisticated approach in handling the media. He would like to see Unescos best practices reflected in the Press charter. As highlighted…
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