IN8 ? MAPPING CHANGE IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION: GEOPOLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND DIPLOMACY. (아시아태평양 지역의 지정학, 경제, 그리고 외교 판도 변화) (East-West Center, Senior Policy Seminar, 2008, 40 pages) - Click here for available text on the Internet

The 2007 Senior Policy Seminar focused on a retrospective on the ongoing “tectonic shifts” in various dimensions of power within the Asia-Pacific region. The three subareas were strategic/geopolitical power, economic power, and the more recently articulated concept of “soft power.”

EC6 - MAD COW DISEASE AND U.S. BEEF TRADE (광우병과 미국산 쇠고기의 무역) (CRS Report for Congress, January 29, 2008, 6 pages) - Contact IRC for print copy

The 110th Congress is expected to monitor closely U.S. efforts to regain foreign markets that banned U.S. beef when a cow in Washington state tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease) in December 2003.1 Rebuilding foreign confidence in the safety of U.S. beef and cattle has been impeded by two other confirmed U.S. cases of BSE, announced June 2005 and March 2006. The four major U.S. beef export markets, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Korea, are again accepting U.S. product. Resumption of beef trade with Japan and Korea has not gone smoothly. Japan is permitting imports of beef from animals 20 months old or younger. U.S. beef imports are currently prohibited by Korea pending negotiation of a new animal health protocol. U.S. officials are using a World Animal Health Organization classification of the United States as a "controlled risk" country for BSE as an argument for beef importing countries to reopen their export markets to U.S. beef. Legislation has been introduced in both chambers to disapprove a rule to permit imports of live cattle and products from Canada. In the 110th Congress, Korea's suspension of quarantine inspections of U.S. beef has become a key issue in congressional consideration of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

EC7 - Roubini, Nouriel. THE COMING FINANCIAL PANDEMIC (미국 경기 침체가 세계에 미치는 영향) (Foreign Policy. Washington: Mar/Apr 2008. 5 pages)? - Contact IRC for print copy

For months, economists have debated whether the US is headed toward a recession. Today, there is no doubt. Pres George W. Bush can tout his $150 billion economic stimulus package, and the Federal Reserve can continue to cut short-term interest rates in an effort to goose consumer spending. In recent years, the global economy has been unbalanced, with Americans spending more than they earn and the country running massive external deficits. Because the US is such a huge part of the global economy there's real reason to worry that an American financial virus could mark the beginning of a global economic contagion. It may not devolve into a worldwide recession, but at the very least, other nations should expect sharp economic downturns, too. Here's how it will happen: 1. trade will drop, 2. weak dollar will make matters worse, 3. housing bubbles will burst worldwide, 4. commodity prices will fall, and 5. financial confidence will falter.

EC8 - Shoven, John B. ?NEW AGE THINKING (나이에 대한 새로운 시각) (Foreign Policy, January-February 2008, pp. 82-83) - Contact IRC for print copy

Will the worldwide tidal wave of aging baby boomers create a fiscal burden that will devastate the global economy? No, says Shoven, director of the Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. Our conception of “old” has itself become old-fashioned, he writes. He recommends using modern mortality risk measurements - or the chance a person has of dying within the next year - to measure age. The higher the mortality risk, the “older” a person is. Today’s 65-year-old man can expect to live another 17 years and has the same mortality risk a 59-year-old man did in 1970 or a 56-year-old man did in 1940. (Women, on average, live longer than men.) So, if one looks at the fraction of the U.S. population with a mortality risk higher than 1.5 percent, the growth of the “elderly” population is not that dramatic. By 2050, Shoven says, only 62.5 million Americans, or about 1.5 percent of the population, will have a mortality risk greater than 1.5 percent. Nonetheless, the average length of retirement for today’s 65-year-old man has stretched to more than 19 years. To keep the costs of ever-lengthening retirements under control, Shoven recommends altering retirement ages and pensions to reflect current mortality risks.

EN6 - CAMPUS GREENING BEHIND THE HEADLINES (그린 캠퍼스를 위한 노력) (Ann Rappaport. Environment. Washington: Jan/Feb 2008. Vol. 50, Iss. 1; pg. 7, 10pgs) - Contact IRC for print copy

Composting toilets in residences, electric vehicles for mail delivery, locally grown organic food in the dining halls, biodiesel buses, solar thermal systems to heat water, and photovoltaic panels for electricity-these are just a few of the features designed to reduce the environmental effects of today's college campuses. Actions being taken at colleges and universities include environmentally sensitive procurement, increased recycling, reduced reliance on fossil fuels and increased reliance on renewable energy, increased collaboration with state and community climate programs, changed behaviors and expectations, improved energy efficiency, modified grounds and water management practices, and greater attention to climate effects in transportation,50 new building construction, and renovation.

EN7 - SOLAR IS THE SOLUTION (태양열 에너지가 해결책이다) (Steve Heckeroth. Mother Earth News. Hendersonville: Dec 2007/Jan 2008., Iss. 225; pg. 50, 6pgs) - Contact IRC for print copy

The exhaust from burning coal contains more pollutants and global warming emissions per unit of energy produced than any other fossil fuel.

US7 - ELECTIONS: THE POLITICS OF THE PERMANENT CAMPAIGN: PRESIDENTIAL TRAVEL AND THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, 1977-2004 (선거: 영구 캠페인의 정치: 선거 유세와 선거인단, 1977-2004) (Brendan J Doherty. Presidential Studies Quarterly. Washington: Dec 2007. Vol. 37, Iss 4; pg. 749, 25pgs) - Contact IRC for print copy

This article undertakes an empirical assessment of a key element of the permanent campaign for the presidency by systematically examining presidential travel from 1977 through 2004. I find that presidential travel does target large, competitive states, and that such strategic targeting has increased over time, supporting the notion that the permanent campaign is on the rise. However, substantial differences between reelection and other years, as well as measures of the breadth of presidential travel and proportional attention to the states, indicate that electoral concerns do not thoroughly permeate patterns of presidential activity throughout a president's years in office, as the logic of the permanent campaign would suggest.

US8 - PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATING PROCESS: CURRENT ISSUES (대통령 지명 절차) (Kevin J. Coleman. CRS Report for Congress, February 14, 2008, 8 pages) - Contact IRC for print copy

Every four years, the presidential nominating process generates complaints and proposed modifications, and the rapid pace of primaries and caucuses that characterized the 2000 and 2004 cycles will continue in 2008. Because many states scheduled early contests in the 2000 cycle, both parties subsequently created task forces on the process. For a time the parties pursued a cooperative effort to confront problems associated with front-loading for 2004. In the end, Democrats approved moving up state primary dates for 2004, but retained Iowa and New Hampshire's early events; Republicans rejected a proposed reform plan. At the state level, the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) supports a regional primary plan that would rotate regional dates every four years.

US9 - EXPANDING EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: THE PRINCETON EXPERIENCE WITH FINANCIAL AID (공정한 기회 확대: 프린스턴대의 장학금 제도) (Shirley M Tilghman. Harvard Educational Review. Cambridge: Winter 2007. Vol. 77, Iss. 4; pg.435, 8pgs) - Contact IRC for print copy

In this essay, Shirley M. Tilghman discusses the purpose, design, and impact of Princeton University's no-loan financial aid policy, which was enacted in 2001. As the centerpiece of an aid and recruitment strategy that seeks to improve college access despite growing socioeconomic stratification, the policy obliges Princeton to meet all student financial need with grants rather than loans. Thanks to its financial well-being, the university is now able to remove the financial barriers to enrollment and free its students from the obligation to repay tuition debt upon graduation. While not intended to be a prescription for all, Princeton hopes to set an example for other institutions to improve their own financial aid programs in an effort to meet student need in a generous, equitable, and transparent manner.

AR5 - ‘A WONDERFUL JOURNEY’ (메트로폴리탄 미술관 관장, 필립 디 몬티벨로 인터뷰) (Milton Esterow. ARTnews. New York: March 2008. Vol. 107, Iss. 3; pg. 128) ?- Contact IRC for print copy

An interview with Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is presented. Among other things, de Montebello discusses his retirement and reflects on the pleasures and complexities of his job.

AR6 - THE CHILDREN OF 1965: ALLEGORY, POSTMODERNISM, AND JHUMPA LAHIRI’S THE NAMESAKE (알레고리, 포스트모더니즘과 줌파 라히리의 ’더 네임세익’) (Min Hyoung Song. Twentieth Century Literature. Hempstead: Fall 2007. Vol. 53, Iss. 3; pg. 345, 27 pgs) - Contact IRC for print copy

The combination, then, of an intense focus on form with a preoccupation with ethnicity leads to a "high cultural pluralism" (117)-a phrase that describes an impressive array of authors from Jews Uke PhiUp Roth and Saul Bellow to Native Americans like N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Louise Erdrich; Asian Americans like Maxine Hong Kingston and Chang-rae Lee; Chicanas like Sandra Cisneros; and African Americans like Ralph Elison, Ishmael Reed, and Toni Morrison. The cultural landscape that confronted an earlier cohort of pioneering high cultural postwar novelists required hard work to make imaginable the phenomena we have come to group under the capacious and aging sign of postmodernism; these are phenomena like the accelerated time/space compression of late capitahsm, the feverish self-fashioning of individuality that is wholly consonant with the consumerism such capitalism relies on, the hypermobility of populations within and across borders of various kinds, and the dominance of biopolitics and its intertwining with geopolitics.2 The narrative of The Namesake, on the other hand, can assume the pressures such phenomena have placed on the concept of the nation and must furthermore contend with a mainstream that has fully mastered the rhetoric and formal innovations associated with postmodern fiction.