Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania annually ranks think tanks around the world through an intensive 8 month long process through expert and peer institution feed back on the scope, performance and influence of global think tanks. This year, Centre for Civil Society (CCS) has featured in the list of top-50 global think tanks outside of the US. Ranked 34th, CCS is the only Indian think tank to make it to this list of top 50 non-US think tanks. In addition, it also features among the Top 30 think tanks in Asia from among 1198 nominated from the continent.

Kim Chung-Ho, CFE president, and Casey Lartigue, Jr., director of international relations at CFE, are quoted at length in today`s Korea Herald about the prospect of South Korea adopting a welfare state.

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But with the U.S. and much of Europe struggling with debt problems partly caused by heavy social spending, some here such as Kim Chung-ho, head of the Seoul-based Center for Free Enterprise, say that Korea should think twice before committing to the welfare state model."Korea is already going down the welfare road," Kim said. "It is a dangerous road. People will have to be determined to continue working hard despite welfare handouts, also they will have to pay more taxes, which seems to be unlikely. So it could mean a trip down bankrupt road."

By Bacchus Barua and Mark Rovere

The Fraser Institute's 21st annual waiting list survey finds that the total waiting time between referring to a general practitioner to a delivery of medically necessary elective treatment by a specialist has risen from 18.2 weeks in 2010 to 19 weeks in 2011. At 104 percent longer than 1993, this is the longest wait time recorded since the Fraser Institute began measuring wait times in Canada. Moreover, when compared to Australia, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, 'Canada ranks last next-to-last on almost all measures of timeliness of care.'