12 EDITORIALS & OPINION
Address: 1-17, Jeong-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea Tel: 727-0114 Fax: 727-0670 Internet: www.koreaherald.com
Park Haeng-hwan, CEO & Publisher
Choi Nam-hyun, Editor in Chief, Yu Kun-ha, Managing Editor
National Desk: 727-0220
Business Desk: 727-0231
Subscription: 1588-0533
EDITORIAL PARTNERS
EDITORIALS
Change of tactics
Hyundai Group head Hyun
Jung-eun’s sudden visit to
Pyongyang this week raises
hope that one of her employees
at the Gaeseong Industrial
Complex, who has been de-
tained by North Koreans for
over four months, will be re-
leased soon. Pyongyang’s “invi-
tation” of Hyun’s visit at this
time is a strong indication of
their readiness to end the con-
troversy which did not serve the
interests of either side.
North Korea’s official Central
News Agency promptly reported
the conglomerate chairwoman’s
arrival in Pyongyang Monday
afternoon at the invitation of
Chosun Asia-Pacific Peace
Committee, the North’s official
body responsible for inter-
Korean businesses. Her trip
was made by the ground route
across the border via Gaeseong,
which the Northern authorities
rarely permit.
Since the North Koreans put
the Hyundai employee into cus-
tody in March on a claim that he
did something detrimental to
national security, they have nei-
ther allowed any Southern offi-
cials to meet with him nor pro-
vided information on his where-
abouts or conditions.
At the same time, the North
has pressed the South for a four-
fold raise of salaries for the
30,000 North Korean workers in
the inter-Korean industrial
complex and huge additional
rentals for the ground where
over 100 South Korean firms
have their production facilities.
It was typical of the arbitrary
action the North has often
shown in the past decade of in-
creased inter-Korean contacts.
Seoul has, however, responded
with patience and caution de-
spite complaints from civic
groups of government inaction
for the man’s release.
Time must have come for the
North Koreans to realize the
need for a more practical ap-
proach especially after they
“pardoned” two U.S. journalists
who they had detained for more
than 140 days for illegal entry
into the Northern territory from
KSLV and Taepodong
While the launching of South
Korea’s first space rocket is be-
ing delayed by days and weeks,
North Korea has come up with
an interesting logic to refute the
international community’s sanc-
tions against it for its firing of
long-range rockets. A North
Korean Foreign Ministry
spokesman said: “We will be
closely watching whether the
participants of the six-party
talks will also refer South
Korea’s launching of a satellite
to the U.N. Security Council.”
The comment from Pyongyang
meant that the UNSC which had
issued a president’s statement to
condemn the North’s launching
of what it claimed to be a com-
munications satellite last April
should either do the same for
South Korea when it launches a
satellite or should admit inap-
propriateness of its punitive ac-
tion on Pyongyang.
The spokesman stressed that
the UNSC sanctions against the
North “destroyed the principle
of respect for independence and
equality which was the vital ele-
ment of the six-party talks.” He
said Pyongyang would look
upon how the other parties of
the six-way talks respond to
TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Aug. 12, the 224th
day of 2009. There are 141 days
left in the year.
1986 — Rod Carew becomes
the first player in the history of
the California Angels franchise
to have his uniform (#29) re-
tired.
1988 — “The Last
Temptation of Christ” opens.
1992 — The United States,
Canada and Mexico announce
that the North American Free
News & Opinion Desk: 727-0210
Culture & Sports Desk: 727-0230
Advertising Tel: 727-0301
China. If Bill Clinton’s visit to
Pyongyang saved face for Kim
Jong-il, Hyun Jung-eun’s visit,
perhaps with a proposal for cer-
tain material benefits, could
suffice as an excuse for the
North’s release of the Hyundai
employee, as no official compen-
sation from Seoul was to be ex-
pected.
Pyongyang will also be seeking
to use the occasion for a break-
through in inter-Korean tourism,
in which Hyun’s Hyundai-Asan
Co. is the exclusive partner. Since
tours to Mount Geumgang were
suspended a year ago after North
Korean guards shot to death a
South Korean woman who inad-
vertently crossed into an off-lim-
its area in the mountain resort,
Hyundai suffered a loss of over
150 billion won ($120 million).
North Korea lost a similar
amount.
The North Korean military
commander responsible for the
area is known to have apolo-
gized to Hyundai officials for the
incident. A stern warning has
been given to the North with the
year-long suspension of the tour
program. If Pyongyang wants a
deal upon the release of the
Hyundai employee, the Seoul
authorities may positively con-
sider reopening the Mount
Geumgang tours, a project with
profound symbolic significance.
But problems remain. The
wayward, unilateral manner of
business shown in the North’s de-
mand for drastically higher
wages and rent as well as in halv-
ing the supporting manpower
from the South at the Gaeseong
complex has sorely disappointed
South Korean businesses invest-
ing in the joint industrial project.
The extended detention of a
South Korean employee, instead
of a denial of entry, for whatever
mistake he made, amounts to
hostage taking.
It may be still too early to pre-
dict a campaign of smiles replac-
ing a round of confrontational
approaches but experience tells
us that the best strategy is to set
up our own rules and stick to
them in tackling the North
Koreans’ changing tactics.
South Korea’s satellite launch to
determine whether the princi-
ple of equality still exists or not.
Some technical problems
again forced the delay of the
launch of the KSLV-1 at the
Naro Space Center from the
tentative D-Day of Aug. 11. But
even before the firing of the two-
stage rocket into the space, we
can tell the North Koreans how
differently the international
community will react — from
what they did about the launch
of Taepodong rocket. The UNSC
condemned Taepodong because
the world knows it was devel-
oped to deliver nuclear weapons
to transcontinental targets. The
members of the six-party denu-
clearization talks know that
South Korea’s KSLV-1 is not a
weapon.
Here, the North Koreans
should be reminded that the de-
velopment of rocket technolo-
gies in South Korea was trig-
gered late in the 1990s follow-
ing the launch of Taepodong-1
and the work is being spurred
by the firing of Taepodong-2
last April. They should just
think of what consequences
such competition on the Korean
Peninsula would lead to.
Trade Agreement has been cre-
ated after 14 months of negotia-
tions.
1998 — Swiss banks agree to
pay $1.25 billion as restitution
to World War II Holocaust vic-
tims.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Many would be cowards if they
had courage enough. — Thomas
Fuller (1608-1661), English
clergyman and historian
Are some women worth more?
CHRIS WILLIAMS
Last May,
Hilary Clinton
and President
Obama success-
fully argued for
the release of
the U.S.-Iranian
journalist
R oxana
Saberia, w ho
w as arrested
because she did
not have a
proper press
card.
INTERNATIONAL OPINION
Financial regulation reform plan under attack
Don’t look now, but another
one of the Obama administra-
tion’s signature reform efforts
is running into trouble. It’s not
health care this time, but the
also important financial regula-
tory overhaul that Treasury
Secretary Timothy F. Geithner
unveiled in June. President
Barack Obama has argued that
there could be a repeat of last
year’s financial panic some day
unless the existing patchwork
of financial oversight agencies
is modernized. The question
more and more people are ask-
ing, though, is whether his plan
will get the job done.
Wary of taking on deeply en-
trenched bureaucracies, Obama
opted for a proposal that left in
place all eight regulatory bodies
but one (the Office of Thrift
Supervision, which covers fed-
erally chartered savings and
H1N1 and schools: common-sense guidelines
Stay open. That was the
guidance issued Friday by the
Obama administration to the
nation’s schools as they pre-
pare for the fall return of stu-
dents, and swine flu.
Ultimately, it’s up to local au-
thorities whether to shut their
schools. But the information
gathered during and since the
initial outbreak in April shows
that in many cases it will
make more sense to keep
school in session.
Fears of swine flu (or H1N1,
the scientific moniker pre-
ferred by the administration
and the pork industry) led to
the closure of more than 700
schools across the country in
Former U.S. President Bill
Clinton put all concerns about
North Korea aside to go and res-
cue two American journalists.
Yet the current Secretary of
State Hilary Clinton, who is on
a special visit to Africa, has
made no move to help another
woman journalist in distress in
Sudan. Lubna Ahmed Hussein
faces being flogged in public just
for wearing trousers.
Should Western women ex-
pect special treatment, whatev-
er the circumstances?
Of course it was wonderful to
see Laura Ling and Euna Lee
reunited with their families. We
do not know the full story yet,
but it does seem that they
strayed into North Korean terri-
tory. As their Chinese guides
were not detained, perhaps they
were set up.
There is nothing strange
about a country arresting peo-
ple for straying across borders.
Imagine what would happen if
two North Koreans wandered
into USA from Canada, across
Lake Superior. Claiming it was
a mistake would not bring in-
stant release.
Some people may feel that
women with families and young
children, who could easily be
mistaken for South Korean or
American spies, would have
been wiser to keep well clear of
North Korea. Others would
commend them for their brav-
ery. But whatever the perspec-
loans). This went against the
recommendations of many who
felt that consolidating the agen-
cies would eliminate the regula-
tory forum-shopping that had
enabled some of Wall Street’s
riskiest practices. The adminis-
tration concluded it was more
realistic politically, and suffi-
cient in policy terms, to realign
responsibilities among the
agencies, while adding two new
bodies, one for financial con-
sumer protection and one to
monitor systemic risks.
Sen. Mark R. Warner,
Democrat-Virginia, has come
out against the administration
plan in favor of what he says is
a necessarily bolder one that
would assign to a single new
agency the banking regulation
functions that are currently
spread among the OTS, the
Federal Deposit Insurance
the spring. The guidelines re-
leased by the departments of
Education and of Health and
Human Services and the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention outline three
situations when a school clo-
sure would be warranted: one,
children with special needs are
the majority, and swine flu
emerges; two, large numbers
of students and staff are hit
with H1N1; or, three, parents
send sick, feverish kids to
school.
The CDC also recommends
that students and staff return
to school 24 hours after their
fever is gone, not after an extra
week. Schools with students
tive, Ling and Lee were taking a
risk.
In contrast, Lubna Hussein
has simply dressed in the same
way as millions of Muslim
women in Islamic countries like
Iran and Pakistan. Wearing
trousers is not against Islamic
or Sudanese law. Lubna is not
even a Muslim. The Sudanese
justice system seems to be act-
ing contrary to its own rules,
and to Islamic norms and laws.
Yet the U.S., and other Islamic
countries, all remain silent.
Lubna faces a cruel and de-
grading punishment that is
against international law. She
could be taken to a public place,
tied to a post, and her clothing
pulled down. She would be
whipped to the bone, which
would leave her scarred for life.
Some die of infection after this
torture.
Whatever “hard labor” means
in North Korea, it is unlikely
that Lee and Ling would have
faced such treatment. North
Korea was unlikely to give
Korean-American journalists,
who would eventually be re-
leased, the chance to see what
happens inside a labor camp.
And, whatever its failings, the
regime is smart enough not to
degrade its national integrity
through public acts of barbarism.
On the same day as the news
about the return of Lee and
Ling, a British woman prisoner
also returned home from Laos.
Corp., the Federal Reserve
Board and the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency.
Meanwhile, the heads of some
of these same agencies have
trooped to Capitol Hill to com-
plain that the proposed con-
sumer agency would usurp
functions that should belong to
them.
A key point of contention is
the administration’s insistence
that the consumer agency
have not only rule-making
power for the entire financial
system but also enforcement
and examination authority.
This offends community
banks, which make up a pow-
erful lobby. They argue that
they were innocent of the riski-
est subprime mortgage lend-
ing and securitization that
helped bring on the crisis, so
they should remain under the
and staff members who appear
to have flu-like symptoms are
encouraged to send the sick to a
separate room until they can be
sent home. Students with ill
household members should
stay home for five days from
the day that relative got sick.
For more information, go to
www.flu.gov.
Concern about swine flu is
understandable. It roared to life
in Mexico, came to the United
States and then made its way to
just about every corner of the
world. The World Health
Organization classifies it as an
unstoppable pandemic. So far, it
is less deadly than regular flu,
which claims 36,000 lives in the
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 12, 2009
Samantha Orobator had been
arrested for trafficking 68g of
heroin through Laos airport last
August. The usual sentence is
death, but she became pregnant
while in prison. Under Laotian
law pregnant women cannot be
executed.
Views about Orobator are eas-
ily clouded by views about the
death sentence and pregnancy.
But the fact is that she was traf-
ficking a drug that harms and
kills people. There are doubtless
many Laotians in the same situ-
ation who do not escape punish-
ment.
Last May, Hilary Clinton and
President Obama successfully
argued for the release of the
U.S.-Iranian journalist Roxana
Saberia, who was arrested be-
cause she did not have a proper
press card.
But what of the 41 Iranian
journalists who have been im-
prisoned during the recent pub-
lic protests? The women among
them include Henghameh
Shahidi, the editor of the
“Paineveste” blog, and Somaieh
Nosrati, parliamentary editor
for the newspapers “Teheran
Emoroz” and “Hayat No”. There
has been no official expression
of concern from the west.
American diplomats would
quickly point out that there is a
distinction between helping
U.S. nationals, and interfering
in the internal affairs of another
country. But although Aun San
aegis of traditional bank regu-
lators - while the consumer
agency supervises mortgage
brokers and other parts of the
“non-bank” financial sector.
Both the FDIC and the OCC
have publicly agreed.
This was directly counter to
the Obama administration’s po-
sition that the consumer
agency should police a “level
playing field.” Small wonder
that Geithner recently un-
loaded on the regulators behind
closed doors. Insofar as he was
trying to jar these regulators
out of their traditional turf-con-
scious mentality, he had a
point. But it’s also true that, by
positioning itself in the cau-
tious middle, the administra-
tion opened itself to attacks
from all sides
The Washington Post, Aug. 10
United States every year. But
researchers are carefully follow-
ing the virus’s progression and
potential mutations as it makes
its way through the Southern
Hemisphere’s winter.
As they have since the initial
outbreak of swine flu, federal
officials are counseling common
sense in responding to the next
wave of illness. Those who feel
sick should stay home. If you
sneeze or cough, cover your
mouth. And wash your hands
frequently or use a hand sani-
tizer. In the end, you are your
best defense against the pan-
demic’s spread.
The Washington Post, Aug. 10
Suu Kyi is not an American citi-
zen, President Obama stated
publicly, “I strongly condemn
her house arrest and detention”.
It seems unlikely that any
American leader will venture to
Myanmar to negotiate her re-
lease, yet it was a foolhardy
American who gave the junta
the excuse to imprison her, be-
cause he swam uninvited across
a river to her house. Would it
not be appropriate for a high
ranking U.S. leader to go and
say sorry, and suggest to the
junta that it is not creditable to
punish a woman for a crime
that a man has committed
against her wishes? It was left
to U.N. envoy Ibrahim
Gambari, and U.N. Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon to visit
Myanmar and negotiate.
In South Korea, Lee Chun-
keun, a male journalist em-
ployed by the public TV station
MBC, was arrested in March,
following a complaint from the
agriculture ministry. This was a
reaction to an investigative pro-
gram which probably fuelled the
beef protests last year. Lee and
his colleagues faced up to five
Continued on Page 13
Chris Williams is based at the
Center for International Edu-
cation and Research, University
of Birmingham, United
Kingdom. He can be reached at
chrisunula@yahoo.com. — Ed.
A summer
Obama drama
By Fred Hiatt
Washington Post Service
Here are two versions of the
summer sizzler “President
Obama and the Exploding
Deficit,” playing in a cineplex
near you:
In Version One, President
Obama pronounces himself
ready to make hard political
choices to tame the federal debt.
But after spending a trillion dol-
lars to extinguish an inherited
economic crisis, he proceeds to
insist — as if nothing had hap-
pened — on the biggest expan-
sion of federal government
spending since Medicare: guar-
anteed health insurance for all.
He claims to want a biparti-
san bill but refuses to consider
any component that might of-
fend a Democratic constituency,
no matter how essential to a co-
herent plan: no malpractice re-
form (trial lawyers), no taxing of
employer-provided health-care
benefits (unions), no means-
testing of Medicare benefits
(middle-class seniors).
The president says this new
entitlement will be “deficit-neu-
tral.” But he proposes to pay for
it in part with “Medicare sav-
ings” that will be so unpopular
that Congress will never let
them kick in, and in part with a
tax on the wealthy that might
have been used for deficit reduc-
tion — thereby reducing the
prospects for real deficit reduc-
tion from dim to dismal.
Only after health care is in
place — as well as, oh yes, a sec-
ond unprecedented expansion of
federal power into the economy
on behalf of energy reform —
will he put deficit reduction on
the table. And when he does
that, he will support, at best, an
apolitical commission that will
remove any need for Obama
himself to put forth any unpop-
ular proposals.
Plausible? Does this scenario
mesh with the facts? Well, but
consider Version Two:
President Obama cares
deeply about controlling the
federal debt, appreciating the
existential risk it poses to
America’s future, and is ready
to make hard political choices to
deal with it. But he also under-
stands a couple of fundamental
truths: First, that rising health-
care costs are one of two basic
drivers of that debt (the other
being the aging of the popula-
tion), so no solution to the fed-
eral quandary is imaginable
without getting a handle on
those costs. Second, that
America’s political system sim-
ply will not swallow, even from
a popular, persuasive president,
a reform plan built exclusively
on cost control — a diet of
Continued on Page 13
Fred Hiatt is the Washington
Post’s editorial page editor —
Ed.