Most Popular
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Seoul vows action over Naver's Line, Yahoo dispute
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[KH Explains] Hyundai Motor’s plan for new landmark keeps hitting bumps
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Key S. Korean, USFK special operations officials to hold rare meeting amid NK threats
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Samsung doubles down on Vietnam
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[Grace Kao] American racism against Stray Kids
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In Beijing, S. Korean top diplomat aims to jumpstart ties with China
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NewJeans' members' parents complained to Hybe, email shows
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Suspect behind murder of Korean tourist in Pattaya arrested
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Prosecutors summon pastor involved in Dior bag scandal
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Controversy brews over shakeup of prosecutors amid probe of first lady
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[Editorial] NK cyberattack threat
In what appears to be one of the biggest hacking attacks in recent years, it was belatedly known that a North Korean hacking group had continued to steal a massive amount of personal data from a South Korean court computer network over two years. The hackers, presumed to be from the notorious Lazarus Group, stole a staggering 1,014 gigabytes of data and legal documents from a Seoul court's computer network, according to the police, the prosecution and the National Intelligence Service on Sa
EditorialMay 15, 2024
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[Lilja Dogg Alfredsdottir] How to close the gender wage gap
Last year, a 24-hour women’s strike was organized to protest the country’s gender pay gap and gender-based violence. Thousands gathered in central Reykjavik to demonstrate their solidarity. For the 14th year running, Iceland (91.2 percent) takes the top position in the Global Gender Gap Report 2023. It also continues to be the only country to have closed more than 90 percent of its gender gap. The Economist’s glass-ceiling index rates Iceland as the best place in the world for
ViewpointsMay 14, 2024
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[Editorial] Dating violence
A gruesome murder of a young woman by her boyfriend shocked the nation last week. The assailant, a medical student in his 20s, stabbed her multiple times on the rooftop of a building in Seoul. In March, another man named Kim Re-ah in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, murdered his girlfriend after she expressed her wish to break up with him, and hurt her mother as well. In Incheon, a man in his 30s who was under a restraining order after physically attacking and stalking his ex-girlfriend killed her i
ViewpointsMay 14, 2024
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[Yoo Choon-sik] Promises for living cost problems
President Yoon Suk Yeol promised to do his best to control consumer prices as he resumed activities to interact directly with the public on Friday for the first time after the ruling party’s crushing defeat in the early April parliamentary election. The government also announced fresh measures to help counter the surging cost of living, led by rising food prices. This came a day after Yoon apologized for failing to solve the issues people face during his first news conference in nearly two
ViewpointsMay 13, 2024
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[Ken Taylor] Reshaping the discourse on heritage
The focus of the proposal by Korea‘s Cultural Heritage Administration to shift the emphasis of the Korean system on perceptions of heritage is a landmark decision. Notably, it reflects international scholarly discourse and professional best practice thinking in the field of cultural heritage and natural heritage management in that over the last thirty years or so, the concept of heritage, its management processes and the very role it plays in the social arena have gone through significant
ViewpointsMay 13, 2024
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[Editorial] Simplify property taxes
In South Korea, property tax is one of the most controversial and sensitive topics for both politicians and citizens. Since real estate prices and related taxes involve the bulk of individual assets, even a slight policy change, especially regarding taxation, tends to touch off heated disputes. In particular, the comprehensive real estate holding tax -- an additional tax burden imposed on owners of pricey houses -- is a hot-button issue, since major parties have long exchanged attacks at each ot
EditorialMay 13, 2024
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[Wang Son-taek] Problems in press freedom and democracy
The 2024 World Press Freedom Index, released recently by Reporters Without Borders, an international organization for monitoring press freedom, contains a severe warning to democracy in Korea. In the index, which reflects the media situation in 2023, South Korea ranked 62nd out of 180 countries surveyed. Korea received its worst report card since it ranked 69th in the 2009 index and 70th in the 2016 index. It was 43rd in the 2022 index, when the index methodology was changed significantly, but f
ViewpointsMay 9, 2024
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[Editorial] Negligence of duty
With about three weeks left before the 21st National Assembly closes on May 29, a significant number of lawmakers from both the ruling People Power Party and the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea have gone on overseas trips -- or plan to do so -- while failing to work on piles of pending bills. Of course, not all lawmakers of the current session are eager to travel abroad to exploit their privilege and spend taxpayer money for their own leisure. And not all trips are meaningless, as &ldq
EditorialMay 9, 2024
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[Andrew Sheng] Protecting trade is protecting yourself
Until 2016, it was almost taken for granted that free trade is good for everyone. That was before Donald Trump started the tariff war on Chinese imports, which his successor Biden turbocharged with even more sanctions against individuals, companies and countries. The IMF has estimated that since 2019, the number of new sanctions imposed yearly has tripled to over 3,000. The European Union is about to impose Carbon Border taxes on imports, which will further add costs and administrative burdens o
ViewpointsMay 8, 2024
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[Kim Seong-kon] A time to leave your parents
It is nature’s law that children leave their parents when they enter adulthood. Whether we are talking about humans or animals, there comes a time when children leave their parents and become independent. No one can expect to live with his or her parents or children forever. Traditionally in America, when your child turns 18 years old and enters legal adulthood, your parental duties and responsibilities are finally over. Your child becomes independent by either leaving home for college or
ViewpointsMay 8, 2024
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[Editorial] Naked short selling
The nation’s financial regulator said it has found suspected cases of illegal naked stock short selling at five more global investment banks, bringing the total number of suspected institutions to nine. The Financial Supervisory Service has been inspecting 14 global investment banks with the largest short selling transactions here after it found last year that BNP Paribas and HSBC had placed naked stock short selling orders worth 55.6 billion won ($40.3 million) between 2021 and 2022. The
EditorialMay 8, 2024
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[Editorial] Data leak disclosure
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Sunday admitted that more than 1200 civil documents were erroneously issued to the wrong applicants last month, resulting in the exposure of sensitive private information -- a major cybersecurity breach that illustrates the weakness of a public online service and the poor handling of such incidents by a government agency. The breach at Government24 (gov.kr), the government’s civil service portal that provides certification issuances and other docu
EditorialMay 7, 2024
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[Grace Kao, Meera Choi] Has money displaced romance on dates?
According to a March 29, 2023 article in The Korea Herald, 83 percent of couples have argued over how to split dating expenses. Increasingly, it seems that young people are measuring love and romance in won. Meera Choi, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Yale University, has interviewed 130 women aged 20 to 40 in Korea for her dissertation research. These women all believed in women’s rights, and some had strong opinions about how dating expenses (for heterosexual couples) ought to be split
ViewpointsMay 7, 2024
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[Yoo Choon-sik] Saemaul Geumgo and trust in financial system
Some of the business irregularities involving MG Community Credit Cooperatives, better known as Saemaul Geumgo within the country, have again grabbed media headlines in recent weeks, even as their stretched exposure to the depressed real estate market remains a potential risk to South Korea’s financial stability. The Korea Economic Daily and other local media reported that Saemaul Geumgo cooperatives paid out some 500 billion won ($367 million) in dividends to their members last year, more
ViewpointsMay 7, 2024
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[Robert J. Fouser] AI changes rationale for learning languages
As the AI boom spreads and puts down ever deeper roots, questions about the future of foreign language education have arisen. If AI can translate and interpret on demand, then why learn foreign languages in the first place? Is there some innate value in learning foreign languages that negates the convenience of AI? These questions are important for South Korea because foreign languages have an important place in the educational curriculum and in career development. Foreign language learning on a
ViewpointsMay 3, 2024
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[Editorial] Face up to Trump
Former US President Donald Trump suggested that should he be reelected, the US could withdraw its forces from South Korea if it does not pay more to support US troops stationed here. “I want South Korea to treat us properly. As you know, I got them to -- I had negotiations, because they were paying virtually nothing for 40,000 troops that we had there,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said in a recent interview with Time magazine. The number is actually 28,500. &ldquo
EditorialMay 3, 2024
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[Wang Son-taek] 'Lattice-like architecture' to manage alliances
Mr. Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, introduced the concept of "lattice-like architecture," which can be a new US alliance management system in the Indo-Pacific region, replacing the current "hub-and-spokes" system. Emanuel explained that the new system will help allies in the Indo-Pacific area work together and increase collective deterrence to counter China's coercive and aggressive behavior. The concept metaphorically describes several small-size cooperation
ViewpointsMay 2, 2024