Most Popular
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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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New celebrity-endorsed therapy for face contouring requires only a pair of rubber bands
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Rapper jailed after public street fight with another rapper
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[KH Explains] No more 'Michael' at Kakao Games
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Woman gets suspended term for injuring boyfriend with knife
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Nominee for chief of anti-corruption body pledges 'independence, effectiveness'
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Samsung chief bolsters ties with Germany’s Zeiss
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Med schools expect 1,500+ new admission slots next year
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KT launches new mobile plans for foreign residents
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Obama’s winning streak with Cuba
Never before has a president experienced as severe an election drubbing as Barack Obama did in November and followed it with such a politically triumphant six weeks.Obama scored his latest coup Wednesday by announcing that the U.S. and Cuba would restore full diplomatic relations and exchange prisoners. The right is enraged, but the politics favor the president.Improving relations with Cuba used to be considered political suicide in Florida, a critical electoral state with a large population of
Dec. 19, 2014
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The horror of Peshawar massacre
The world seems full of crises and disasters: from political stasis and racial standoffs in Europe and the U.S., to the classic conflicts of capitalism in “emerging” economies (inequality, weakening states, authoritarianism), to tribal conflicts and sectarian uprisings in the Middle East and Africa. But the small coffins of Peshawar’s students are the heaviest burden on our conscience.The murder of children crushes our soul. It destroys the already frail hope, without which life becomes unbearab
Dec. 18, 2014
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[Kim Kyung-ho] Our regressive future generation
A 13-year-old boy murdered his aunt, who was in her 50s, at their home in a provincial city early this month, angered by her admonishment that he spent too much time playing online games. She had taken care of him since both of his parents died years earlier.What perplexed police officers who investigated the boy was that they could not arrest him because teenagers under age 14 are not subject to criminal punishment under the current law. This headline-grabbing incident drew public attention to
Dec. 18, 2014
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Financing infrastructure
The Indonesian government’s recent decision to join the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank will increase the sources of financing for the $100 billion investment needed for its ambitious infrastructure programs within the next five years.The AIIB, with an initial equity capital of $50 billion, will supplement the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund Ltd., which was set up in 2012 by ASEAN member countries, including Indonesia. The Manila-based Asian Development Bank is the administrator of the A
Dec. 18, 2014
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Corrupted system
In the end, the initially shocking jacuzzi, wide-screen TV sets, split-type air-conditioning units, music studio with sophisticated equipment, luxury watches and footwear, even the life-size sex doll, found in the quarters of drug convicts in the national penitentiary boil down to this: They are of a piece with the corrupted system that has also made possible the plunder of public funds by government officials including lawmakers, their enablers in various agencies, and private persons who have
Dec. 18, 2014
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[Frank Ching] In race for top, odds favor Tsai
The rout of the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, in Taiwan by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party in local elections on Nov. 29 changed Taiwan’s political landscape overnight, making the DPP candidate for president in 2016 the odds-on favorite and possibly marking a change in cross-strait relations.While each of the 9-in-1 elections was a local race, cumulatively, they constituted a referendum on the performance of the Ma Ying-jeou presidency. And Ma was keenly aware of this, immediatel
Dec. 18, 2014
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What makes Bangladesh proud in December?
On Nov. 11, 1970, the coastal region of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) was devastated by one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in recorded history with the loss of over 500,000 human lives.A BBC reporter visited a remote island in the affected region seven days after the devastation. He found no houses, no food and no drinking water in the entire island. No relief team visited the area. He saw a barren island with a few people roaming around aimlessly. “How could these people survive for seven
Dec. 18, 2014
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[David Ignatius] A ‘reset’ of U.S.-China ties?
BEIJING ― This year began with some Chinese and American foreign-policy analysts looking back a century to World War I and wondering if confrontation was inevitable between a rising power and a dominant one. But now there has been progress on climate, trade and security issues and what seems a modest “reset” of the Sino-American relationship. Future disagreements between the U.S. and China are inevitable. But the surprise of a high-level dialogue here last weekend was the interest by both sides
Dec. 17, 2014
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Asia isn’t ready for a China crash
As China’s first full year of rebalancing draws to close, how has President Xi Jinping done? Reasonably well, it seems. Growth appears to be moderating gently, stocks continue to soar and most economists still foresee a soft landing rather than market-shaking meltdown for the world’s second-largest economy.Next year, however, Xi’s team will have to get to the hard stuff: taming an opaque, unwieldy financial system. My question isn’t so much whether China will or won’t crash. It’s whether the res
Dec. 17, 2014
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[Jeffrey Frankel] Why commodity prices fall
Oil prices have plummeted 40 percent since June ― good news for oil-importing countries, but bad news for Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and other oil exporters. Some attribute the price drop to the U.S. shale-energy boom. Others cite OPEC’s failure to agree on supply restrictions.But that is not the whole story. The price of iron ore is down, too. So are gold, silver, and platinum prices. And the same is true of sugar, cotton, and soybean prices. In fact, most dollar commodity prices have fallen s
Dec. 17, 2014
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Time for Afghanistan to stand on its own
Last week, the last American general to lead combat operations in Afghanistan officially lowered the flag to signal the end of the U.S. coalition’s war-fighting mission after 13 years, a milestone that went strangely unheralded in the United States and much of the world.The absence of fanfare regarding this significant moment in post-9/11 history reflects the uncertain outcome of U.S. military involvement in a faraway, indomitable land where the headlines often delivered more bad news than good
Dec. 17, 2014
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Russia’s problems are everyone’s problems
“Cyprus with nukes.” That’s how someone, maybe me, referred to Russia in an IM conversation this morning. It’s not really a fair comparison; Russia is a vast country loaded with natural resources, not a tiny island banking haven. But it does express a very real fear: that the world is about to experience a major financial crisis in a country that seems to deal with its internal troubles by slicing off bits of neighboring countries.The ruble is plunging, for reasons that have roots in the falling
Dec. 17, 2014
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Another Malala moment for Pakistan
Two years ago, a Taliban gunman boarded a school bus in Pakistan and fired a shot that outraged the world. He seriously wounded 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai. She recovered, became a powerful voice in the fight against Taliban extremism, and won the Nobel Peace Prize this year.On Tuesday, another Malala moment staggered Pakistan ... and the world.Taliban gunmen stormed a military school in Peshawar and slaughtered more than 140 people, mostly children. This was no random school. These students we
Dec. 17, 2014
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[Lee Jae-min] Who is paying the price?
When other people do not believe what you say, it really puts you on edge. When you believe (and know) that something does not exist but circumstantial pieces of information indicate that it may exist, nothing can be more frustrating. The same things also happen between states: country A argues the absence of something while country B argues otherwise, and the listening third person raises the hand of country B. Then the same feeling of frustration sinks in.Korea knows about this awkward feeling
Dec. 16, 2014
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Time to take away the punchbowl in Japan
As the world watches to see what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does with his renewed mandate in Japan, my eyes are on Haruhiko Kuroda instead. After all, the Bank of Japan governor probably deserves about 90 percent of the credit for whatever success Abe’s reflation efforts have had thus far ― in particular, a more than 70 percent rise in the benchmark Topix index. Whether the prime minister now goes further and implements the real structural reforms Japan needs depends as much on Kuroda as anyone e
Dec. 16, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] What the nutty case of ‘nut rage’ tells us
Recently, the whole nation was shaken by the Korean Air “nut rage” case. The Korean people’s anger boiled over when they heard about the embarrassing incident that happened recently on a Korean Air flight from New York to Incheon. A vice president of Korean Air, on board the flight in the cosseted seclusion of the first-class cabin, became enraged when served nuts in a bag and not on a plate. She forced the plane that was already taxiing in preparation for takeoff to return to its gate so she co
Dec. 16, 2014
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What economists can learn from humans
Every year now for more than three decades, the World Bank has published the World Development Report, a survey and synthesis of current thinking on a major theme or debate in development economics.These reports, which are produced by the bank’s research wing, are collaborative ventures integrating the work of many hands; they are rarely very striking in their style or bold in their judgments. Although their aim is to set the agenda for development economics, they generally are not very efficaci
Dec. 16, 2014
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Regulatory ‘red tape’ often saves lives
Last month, the Obama administration announced tougher Clean Air Act rules intended to reduce ground-level ozone, the chief component of the smog that plagues the Baltimore-Washington area and much of the nation. With at least half the pollution blowing into Maryland from the burning of fossil fuels outside the state (and much of the densely-populated Northeast faced with the same downwind problem), a nationwide approach is essential to cleaner, healthier air.Yet Republicans in Congress, prodded
Dec. 16, 2014
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Inequality and the U.S. child
NEW YORK ― Children, it has long been recognized, are a special group. They do not choose their parents, let alone the broader conditions into which they are born. They do not have the same abilities as adults to protect or care for themselves. That is why the League of Nations approved the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1924, and why the international community adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.Sadly, the United States is not living up to its obligation
Dec. 15, 2014
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Election win gives Abe second chance
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe asked Japanese voters for a renewed mandate to pursue his economic-revival program, and on Sunday they gave it to him. To breathe new life into his reforms at home, he should now look abroad.As the election made clear, there’s little debate about the thrust of Abe’s current reform plan. Even Japan’s weak opposition parties more or less acknowledge the good that the first two “arrows” in Abe’s program ― massive monetary easing and fiscal stimulus ― have done. The Bank of
Dec. 15, 2014