Toward partnership with two Koreas In March 2008, then-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared his foreign policy philosophy and promised that "during the course of the next three years, the world will see an increasingly activist Australian international policy in areas where..
Soccer unites deeply-divided Lebanon In a country where almost every facet of life is defined by its sectarian fault lines, soccer is at least temporarily performing where politicians and religious figures have failed: rallying a divided country scarred by years of bitter civil war ar..
Shifting from hard to soft words The South Korean and U.S. intelligence services had little information on the sudden but long-expected death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. His death was reported to have happened on his luxurious train at 8:30 a.m., Dec.17. No one detected th..
Seoul-Sydney imbalance in image trade SYDNEY Unlike the United State, for instance, Australia is not a big power. So the Korea-Australia Year of Friendship 2011 was not a pompous and high-profile one. A closer look at the scene, however, offers an immensely useful case study for Kor..
Looking at 2012 turbulence ahead? NEW YORK Its once again time to peer into the foggy crystal ball and try to decipher the future political trends and events. Indeed, after the roller-coaster year of 2011, its hard to imagine that 2012 could hold some equally disquieting soci..
Two models of subverted revolts The popular revolts in Egypt and Yemen have been put on the defensive by a combination of Islamist electoral success and Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) support for Egypts military and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Despite being u..
Overseas adoption: child welfare or abuse? Some years ago, during a seminar about overseas adoption from Korea, I stated that the practice is child abuse rather than child welfare. Some of the social workers who were working for overseas adoption agencies looked very shocked when they h..
Sunni-Shia war On Dec. 22, there were 16 bomb blasts in Baghdad, killing 72 people and injuring 217. The next day, two big car bombs in Damascus killed 40 people and injured 150. Even for Iraq, where there are suicide bombs every week, that is impressive.
Main player on peninsula The North Korean puzzle has become more difficult to solve after the death of Kim Jong-il. I really wonder if Kims passing is such sad news to 23 million North Koreans who have been deprived of their basic rights even though they are crying over ..
Kim Jong-il vs. Vaclav Havel Washington In a strange, and some might say divinely-inspired juxtaposition, Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-il died around the same time this month. Their lives and their impact on peoples lives were extraordinarily different.
Combine assistance with entrepreneurialism UNITED NATIONS Recently U.N. member states turned their attention to the need for financing for development, or put more plainly, stressing the still pressing need for development assistance to assist the plethora of poor nations.
Euro crisis: Barking up the wrong tree One senior European politician said angrily that British Prime Minister David Cameron was like a man who comes to a wife-swapping party without his wife, and there was some truth in that.
Soccer sparks political rift in Turkey A massive match-fixing scandal in Turkish soccer has shifted passions from the soccer pitch to politics opening a rift between the countrys president and prime minister, driving a wedge between the president and parliament, and fuelling already h..
Nuclear summit: beyond security toward peace We often say that we live in an age of uncertainty. In such times, it is only sensible that we hedge our risks and prepare for the unexpected. This has long been a tradition in the field of security and it only became more convincing after the 9/11..
Women and Middle Eastern monotheism One should not mock the sexual obsessions of Islamic fundamentalists; its like shooting fish in a barrel. When a senior academic in Saudi Arabia, professor Kamal Subhi, declares in a report for the Shura Council, the kingdoms legislative assemb..
Reopening Myanmar Road UNITED NATIONS With the historic visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Myanmar (Burma), the highest profile American diplomatic contact in 50 years, the United States has entered a high stakes geopolitical chess game in Southeast Asia. ..
Arab revolts impact on Southeast Asia Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizs self-immolation was not simply a cry for justice, freedom and economic opportunity. It was first and foremost an act of desperation in the face of humiliation, a cry for dignity that resonated with the mass..
