Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: An open letter to leaders

Dear world leaders and delegates. Receive my Spring-time salutations. First, my sincere apologies for I will not be attending the summit. That should not bother you since I was actually not invited to the high level meeting.

By the way welcome to Korea. I am not a native of this land of the morning calm, but trust me I have been here long enough to show you how to use a pair chopsticks or do a taekwondo double kick. I assume that you’ve been inside Sangchoonjae in the Blue House where tradition and nature harmoniously subsist near a city. Therein, they must have served you with Kimchi and some makkolli. Koreans are cordial.

Secondly, I belong to the layman’s cluster and their wisdom that wonders why you, ladies and gentlemen, seem to have been making fires and now convincing the world to help think of a fire extinguisher. Okay, I will put it in a context. Sirs and madams, some of your nations’ passion for nuclear technology, for weapon or energy, supersedes any known safety capabilities. That makes me a worried chap.

You know what? If I came to the summit, I mean if I were really invited (jokes aside), I would first meet with the Japanese visitors in those extra meetings – What do you call them again? Aha, ‘side

Korea’s college entry exams and the ‘inconsolable’ desire

 Edited version published in Joongang Ilbo (http://mengnews.joinsmsn.com/view.aspx?gCat=010&aId=2944395)

Last week, over 600,000 Korean students sat an exam that seemingly determines their destiny in life. To most of them, the college entry exam is also a postern to their critical goal of entering Seoul National University, Korea University or Yonsei University. The three institutions are commonly christened as SKY. And they know quite well, that credentials from the “sky” comfortably land graduates plum jobs with big companies or the government. The three institutions are considered the academic cream of Korea.

There is nothing wrong with education that assures one a stable, happy future; after all, it is every parent’s dream to see their children prosper in all aspects. However, observers have termed the College Scholastic Ability Test or CSAT in Korea as either a national obsession or radically esteemed.

On the day of the nine hour exam, the country literally changes. All flight landings and take-offs at the airports are put on hold while the arriving international aircrafts are ordered to circle at altitudes above 10,000 feet for some while. Motorists are also asked to lower their speed and to avoid honking near the test locations during the listening comprehension assessment. In fact, traffic is usually banned from within 200 meters of the test centers until the exam is over.

At the periphery, parents, friends and school juniors of test-takers gather to wish their loved ones success. Some parents would be praying outside the exam centers. In the recent past a mother reportedly vowed to bow 3,000 times, kneeling down with her forehead touching a red cushion perhaps to invoke luck to her beloved son. Most schools will also give a day off to students who are not sitting the exam.

But beyond the facade lies fundamental question that many parents and educationists raise regarding

Our Nomadic Existence: How Electronic Culture Shapes Community

By Shane Hipps (http://www.qideas.org/essays/our-nomadic-existence-how-electronic-culture-shapes-community.aspx?page=5)

I remember flinching for the dashboard as if that was going to help. The car was careening toward a snake-like elbow in the track. I glanced at the driver expecting him to slam on the brakes and save us from catastrophe. He looked almost bored; I think he may have even yawned. The car glided smoothly in and out of the turn as if it had prepared its whole life for that moment. As he accelerated out of the curve, the driver apologized for not going faster. Apparently, if you’re not wearing a helmet — and I wasn’t — drivers are only allowed to take the track at 70 percent speed. This was part of my “research” for the new account I had been assigned — Porsche Cars North America. At the time, I was working for an ad agency. The people at Porsche had taken us to a racetrack to develop an appreciation for their product. Apart from nearly soiling my drawers, it worked.

My role as an account planner in advertising was to serve as a kind of consumer anthropologist. Basically, I was to keep my finger on the pulse of what consumers influenced and what they were influenced by. There were no rules for this task, no formal training, no manual — just raw intuition, ingenuity, and a dose of insanity. As a result, I go

Wangari Maathai: Audacious Woman of Her Time

Also published in The Seoul Times, Oct. 4, 2011 and The Korea Times, Oct 2, 2011

Sometime in January, 1999, I came face to face with quite a frightening sight in Nairobi. I was just about to cross the road when a speeding anti-riot police truck swerved past followed by a jeep full of policemen with wooden clubs. Panic raged high prompting women to grab their children and flee. Some shops were shut instantaneously. Were it not for my school uniform, a distinctive red shirt and blue pair of shorts, I would not have been allowed into a matatu, public transport van, heading East. I was a high school sophomore.

Inside the van grape vine was churning from every other tongue but the theme was, “Wangari was in the forest planting trees”. You see, I knew Wangari Maathai from my Boy Scout training on environmental conservation, but it took me longer to comprehend why one can be clobbered for planting trees. The television’s chilling images later in the evening and newspaper pictures the following morning are still fresh in my memory – unsettling.

This woman never quit. Sooner than later Wangari Maathai was back in the forest or Uhuru park either attempting to plant trees or dodging tear gas from the authorities. Today Uhuru Park is scenic and Karura Forest where she was beaten by hired guards as the police watched is mostly saved from the hands of land grabbers.

The woman was also unbowed; a fitting title she gave to her biography

Zambia: Slow but sure, a new sunrise is going up

Also published in The Seoul Times. September 29, 2011

By Patriciah Njambi & Benson Kamary

A new political sunrise in sub-Saharan Africa is seemingly licking away outdated regimes and leaving an aroma of democracy. But this is not to say that democracy is the redeemer of Africa. Not yet. Like any other political system impacted by a corrupted world, democracy can be abused, and seriously so. Even in the West where democracy is hailed as an assuring pragmatic system, it has severally been turned into the ‘tyranny of the majority’ with persecuting claws on the minority and their feeble voice.

Well, at least in the savannah land, the ‘jasmine revolution’ of a kind has just arrived if the recent polls in Zambia are anything to count on.  But unlike the mass action and street battles witnessed in the Arabic Northern regions, sub-Saharan Africa is getting new governments with a reduced violence. Optimistically, minimal or no

Nairobi Fire: A call for urgent safety measures across Africa

Also published in The Seoul Times

The images of raging fire from Nairobi a few days ago was shocking andthe pictures from its aftermath even more disturbing. But perhaps what might be disappointing is the pattern in which most African governments have provided in the past as a response to slums-related challenges. Will there be seriousness this time around?

The inferno at the Sinai slums near the Kenya Pipeline Company depot in Nairobi is said to have been triggered when a section of oilpipe succumbedto high pressure leading to a spillage. Explosion is claimed to have occurred at the Sinai village where the oil, running through a drainage system, met fire at a time when villagers were scooping oil for various reasons. The outcome of the outburstwascatastrophic with over 100 people dead andmany others still to nursingserious wounds in the hospital

IAAF false start rule rips athletes of their true being

Also published in The Korea Times, Joongang Daily and The Seoul Times (Sept. 2, 2011)

IAAF false start rule rips athletes of their true being 

“An athlete, after assuming a full and final set position, shall not commence his start until after receiving the report of the gun. If, in the judgment of the starter or recallers, he does so any earlier, it shall be deemed a false start. Except in combined events, any athlete responsible for a false start shall be disqualified”, thus says the IAAF rule number 162.7.

It is the above tenet that has seen big names on track including Christine Ohuruogu, Olympic champion, and Dwain Chambers, former European champion, bowing out of their races here in Daegu. Eight athletes were forced to eat a humble pie by the end of the second day of the world’s biggest athletics championships. But it was the expulsion of the 100 meter world record holder Usain Bolt that instigated a near uproar across the gigantic stadium. Where I was seated, few meters away from a group of Jamaican fans, I heard “tough words” of despondency. Some threw their hands up; others had their heads between their knees – dejected

Facebook: Connecting friends but chocking friendship?… but I’m not quitting yet

Picture this, if Facebook were a deadly viral disease, 500 million of us would be dead, or headed for demise! According to Facebook statistics, 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day and in average, users spend over 700billion minutes per month on Facebook. An average user has about 150 friends.  

While Facebook has connected many users to their friends, it has seemingly demeaned the true meaning of friendship at least from

Should Korea rethink nuclear energy?

Edited version published in Joongang Daily, March 30, 2011: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2934146

A recent revelation that Korea’s nuclear reactors broke down 89 times over the past 10 years due to malfunctions warrants a reflection over the country’s ambitious pursuit for nuclear energy. Korea, always dubbed as an economic model for developing nations, is also the world’s fifth largest nuclear power producer and the second-largest in Asia after Japan. It operates 21 nuclear reactors which provide about 40 percent of the national power supply.

While there are undeniable benefits of nuclear energy in providing the capacity of electricity needed for homes, institutions and industries, the cost and safety concerns involved in nuclear energy production is undoubtedly colossal and

Japan nuclear crisis should stir deliberations for energy alternatives

As Japan frantically fights to prevent power reactors meltdown following last week’s overwhelming earthquake and tsunami, I entreat that the world takes a hiatus and reflect. Perhaps I’m in a panic – or have I immersed myself too deep into junk news and analysis? Whatever the case, I have a right to choose hermeneutic of suspicion and doubt if we are being told only but the truth about the Fukushima radiation levels. The facts are neither consistent nor convincing. For the benefit of doubt though,