Most Popular
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Blinken calls on China to press N. Korea to end its 'dangerous' behavior
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New celebrity-endorsed therapy for face contouring requires only a pair of rubber bands
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Tensions heighten ahead of first president-opposition chief meeting
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Seoul to provide housing subsidy to married couples with newborns
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[Weekender] How DDP emerged as an icon of Seoul
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Rapper jailed after public street fight with another rapper
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Doctor group's incoming head renews call for govt. to scrap medical school quota hike for dialogue
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Woman gets suspended term for injuring boyfriend with knife
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[KH Explains] No more 'Michael' at Kakao Games
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NewJeans pops out ‘Bubble Gum’ video amid troubles at agency
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[Kim Seong-kon] Insights from outsiders can illuminate us
Recently, I came across an intriguing interview in a Korean daily of an American professor specializing in North Korea. As an outsider, the foreign professor was able to perceive many things that we Koreans are unable to see or recognize. Reading his insightful interview, I came to realize how an outsider can provide a fresh new insight into Korean culture and society, and how we are blind to certain aspects of our society that are inscrutable to foreign eyes.First, the foreign professor thought
Jan. 6, 2015
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Our unrealistic expectations of public figures
A few years ago, Charles Barkley got into a lot of trouble for making the audacious observation that sports figures didn’t need to be role models. Legions of fans and professional journalists (who are simply glorified fans with a byline) were outraged at this attack on the fundamental principle that the person who jumps highest must aim highest, the person who tackles the running back must also be able to tackle life’s problems with grace, the person who hits it out of the park must swing for th
Jan. 6, 2015
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Do ‘corporate citizens’ get a say in politics?
In criticizing U.S. firms that moved their headquarters to lower-tax countries, President Barack Obama has said that corporate executives are paid not only to maximize profits but also to be “good corporate citizens.” That corporations can and should be “good citizens” is a familiar idea, and a controversial one.On one hand, business leaders often emphasize their commitment to the public good. In its list of the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” of this past year, Corporate Responsibility magazine c
Jan. 6, 2015
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Remembering Hyun Bong-hak
When we were little, Christmas meant decorating the tree, making holiday cookies, singing Christmas carols while our older sister played the piano, and most of all, receiving presents from Santa Claus. By the time we were adolescents, Christmas became more like Thanksgiving ― a time for reflection and gratefulness. Our father, the late Dr. Hyun Bong-hak, always brought home foreign students who didn’t have a place to go for the holidays.Our father didn’t talk about growing up in Korea ― other th
Jan. 5, 2015
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Rise of superbugs and what we can do
“For an American in the 21st century, it is hard to imagine the world before antibiotics. At the beginning of the 20th century as many as 9 women out of every 1,000 who gave birth died, 40 percent from sepsis. In some cities as many as 30 percent of children died before their first birthday. One of every 9 people who developed a serious skin infection died, even from something as simple as a scrape or an insect bite. Pneumonia killed 30 percent of those who contracted it; meningitis killed 70 pe
Jan. 5, 2015
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[Katie Benner] Online privacy and the Snowden documentary
Laura Poitras’ new documentary about mega-leaker Edward Snowden, “Citizenfour,” makes no pretense at being evenhanded. It’s a polemic against the National Security Agency’s effort to spy on people in the U.S. and around the world ― innocent, guilty, or simply suspect ― all in the name of national security.Snowden, a former government contractor who famously stole and delivered information to the press about the NSA’s spying efforts, is portrayed as an intellectually thoughtful hero (albeit young
Jan. 5, 2015
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Don’t abstain: Secret of the genetically gifted
Flipping the calendar to 2015 makes time seem fleeting, but some of us will have more years on this planet than we expect. Demographers tell us that centenarians ― people aged 100 and older ― are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.The number of centenarians increased by about 6 percent, to more than 53,000, between the 2000 and 2010 Census. Health officials predict that by 2050, roughly 800,000 Americans will hit triple digits.This has sent dozens of researchers scurrying for the
Jan. 5, 2015
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Can’t wait for ‘Selma,’ a film on true-life drama
The film that’s been talked about the most among Americans during the last couple of weeks is not the one I most want to see right now.In fact, I have no intention at all of buying a ticket, paying an online fee or purchasing outright the movie, “The Interview,” the Sony Pictures comedy that’s being ballyhooed because of North Korea’s objection to the depiction (and scripted assassination plot) of its leader, Kim Jong-un.The real interest in that film is not what’s on the screen, but the turmoil
Jan. 5, 2015
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[J. Bradford DeLong] U.S. must experiment on economy
When it became clear in late 2008 that the global economy was headed toward a crash at least as dangerous as the one that had initiated the Great Depression, I was alarmed, but also hopeful. We had, after all, seen this before. And we also had a model for how to mitigate the damage; unfortunately, policymakers left it on the shelf.For three and a half years following the start of the Great Depression, U.S. President Herbert Hoover’s top priority was to balance the budget, trying ― but ultimately
Jan. 4, 2015
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However rebranded, Afghanistan is still at war
Imagine President Franklin Roosevelt announcing at the end of 1944, after the liberation of France but before the final defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, that World War II was over and that U.S. forces were ending combat operations. Instead we would support our allies, from Britain to China, in their fight against the Axis powers.Hard to imagine, but that’s roughly what happened Sunday when the International Security Assistance Command held a ceremony in Kabul to mark the “end” of the w
Jan. 4, 2015
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[James Gibney] Japan should embrace Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’
In the just-released film “Unbroken,” as in real life, U.S. Army Air Corps Lieutenant Louis Zamperini was beaten, starved and forced to work as a slave laborer by his Japanese captors.Things could have been worse. Like some other war prisoners held by the Japanese, Zamperini could have been used in biological warfare experiments. Or vivisected. Or beheaded, with parts of his body then eaten by his captors. As the historian Daqing Yang notes, 9 out of 10 U.S. POWs who died in captivity in World W
Jan. 4, 2015
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Shanghai’s anxieties result in tragedy
There’s still no definitive explanation of what caused last Wednesday’s New Year’s Eve stampede that left at least 36 dead and 47 injured. Perhaps, as some have suggested, the crowd of 300,000 lost control when someone dumped leaflets that resemble $100 bills from a nightclub. Or, more likely, there were simply too many people on the Bund, the city’s signature riverside promenade, for too few reserved spaces (some are reporting 2000 reserved spots) from which spectators could watch a free laser
Jan. 4, 2015
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Dirty money and economic development
The world has made enormous progress in recent decades in the fight against poverty. But, as 2014 draws to a close, one billion people ― one in seven ― still live on less than $1.25 a day.It will take a global effort to end poverty ― and to find the resources to do so. At first glance, the price tag is staggering. We know that development aid will not be sufficient to end poverty. It will take private sector investment, taxes collected in developing countries and other sources of finance to do t
Jan. 4, 2015
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Cheap oil could be a Trojan horse for America
“Subversion introduced from the outside.” That’s part of Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition for a Trojan horse, the hollow structure that allowed Greek soldiers to penetrate the city of Troy and win the Trojan War. What if the drop in oil prices currently making everyone cheer at the pumps is exactly that ― a Trojan horse?Subversion theory dictates that in order for an offensive move to be effective, it has to be welcomed. And who in America isn’t psyched about cheap gas right now? Meanwhile,
Jan. 2, 2015
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[Dominique Moisi] Not so splendid isolation
PARIS ― At the end of the 19th century, the British Empire pursued a policy of what it called “splendid isolation,” reflecting its leaders’ determination to stand aloof from international engagements. With the strength of its economy and the superiority of its navy, the United Kingdom could afford to avoid entanglement in others’ affairs.Today, as recent events have shown, isolation is ― more often than not ― a mistake, an unenviable condition resulting from failed policies. Cuba’s emergence fro
Jan. 2, 2015
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[Gareth Evans] East Asia’s New Year’s resolutions
If World War III ever breaks out, its origins will not lie in the Middle East, South Asia or Eastern Europe. It is in East Asia ― where the strategic interests of China, the U.S., and their respective partners intersect ― that the geopolitical stakes, diplomatic tensions, and potential for a global explosion are highest.Because it is so obviously in every player’s interest to avoid outright conflict, we have stony handshakes like that between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minis
Jan. 1, 2015
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China needs its Lehman moment
As they prepare for 2015, China’s leaders should learn from the experience of Japan in 2014.There is mounting evidence that Japan may have squandered its best chance for a meaningful recovery in more than a decade. The country is in recession again, foreign investors are losing confidence in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s revival plan and deflation has returned. This week, the government approved a $29 billion stimulus package that it hopes will keep things from getting worse.The travails of Abenom
Jan. 1, 2015
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Only the people can choose prime minister
The Constitutional Drafting Committee last week adopted a key element in the new charter by ruling that the prime minister’s post would henceforth be open to people other than members of the legislature.Thailand has had many non-elected premiers in its history, but only under the rule of authoritarian figures, primarily from the military. Citizens, though, have long struggled to have the final say about who runs the government. It is right and legitimate for people to choose their own leader, ye
Jan. 1, 2015
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[Andrew Sheng] What can we do about inequality?
The New Year is a time to think about what we can do better this coming year. Last year, rock-star French economist Thomas Piketty’s book on “Capital in the 21st Century” signaled the growing sense of inequality in an age of plenty. When 0.1 percent of the population own as much as 90 percent of the rest of the population, something is seriously wrong with capitalism. However bad the inequality, it is not the static status quo that is the problem. It is the dynamic expectation that the system ca
Jan. 1, 2015
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Pakistan’s war against terrorism
It is a wake-up call, they say. A tragedy so awful the mind reels at the thought of it; the soul curdles at the sight of it. We’ve had many such wake-up calls.We’ve had the Parade Lane mosque massacre, the Karsaz blasts, the Marriot bombing, the recurring apocalypses that the Hazaras have faced, the steady drip-drip of killings so many in number that it becomes impossible to even list them.We wake, like sleepwalkers jolted into reality by a fall; shocked to find ourselves muddied and bloodied, w
Jan. 1, 2015