Most Popular
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Russia sent more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to N. Korea in March: White House
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Key suspects grilled over alleged abuse of power in Marine death inquiry
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S. Korean children, teens grow taller, mature faster than before: study
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Army takes group action against Hybe for neglecting BTS
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Marine Corps commander summoned by CIO for questioning on alleged influence-peddling case
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[Graphic News] Number of coffee franchises in S. Korea rises 13%
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Some junior doctors are returning: Health Ministry
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Ador CEO's request for exclusive right to terminate NewJeans' contract with Hybe refused in February
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Naver will consider company benefits in deciding on selling Line shares: CEO
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Woman dangling from power lines rescued by residents holding blanket
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Abe’s Yasukuni offering strains regional ties
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe put already frosty ties with China and South Korea under further strain yesterday by sending a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine.Though Abe refrained from visiting the shrine personally, his gesture looked set to complicate a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, who has been trying to soothe tension between Seoul and Tokyo, two of Washington’s key allies in East Asia.Reflecting tense Sino-Japanese ties, a Shanghai court on Saturday order
April 24, 2014
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[Ravi Velloor] India elections: The times are a-changing
Last week, I spent two evenings with Naseeruddin Shah, India’s most refined actor.With Singapore businessman George Abraham on guitar, and joined by our wives, we drank, sang Bob Dylan songs and talked about India’s changing social fabric, how the country was morphing in not-always pleasant ways and of our sons who were House mates at a boarding school in Dehradun, northern India.The following evening, we watched as Naseer, directed by his wife and actress Ratna Pathak Shah, held a sellout crowd
April 24, 2014
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Toward an official anthem for our planet
The celebration of Earth Hour on March 29 this year by over 7,000 cities across the world as well as the celebration of Equinox Earth Day on March 20 and Earth Day on April 22 by Earth Day Network are some of the landmark events that make us aware of our responsibilities toward our planet.Other events such as World Environment Day on June 5, World Forestry Day on March 21, World Water Day on March 22 are celebrated with enthusiasm across the world by the schools, colleges, ministries, national a
April 24, 2014
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[Margaret Carlson] Hillary as grandma, candidate
There are few happier events than becoming a grandmother, and almost none that says quite so loudly “over the hill.”Even before the announcement that Chelsea Clinton was pregnant, Republicans were in love with the notion of Hillary Clinton being too old to be president ― she would take office at age 69. Karl Rove said his party should make the argument that “we’re at the end of her generation.” On Friday, the Drudge Report put up the banner headline “Grandma Hillary.” This followed a spate of ar
April 23, 2014
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[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Putin’s perilous course and future of Russia
NEW YORK ― The dangers of the crisis in Ukraine cannot be exaggerated. Russian President Vladimir Putin is overtly and covertly inciting separatism in eastern Ukraine, and has declared Russia’s unilateral right to intervene there, in complete contravention of international law. Russia’s provocative policies are putting it on a collision course with the West. Putin explained his point of view in a recent television appearance: Russia’s current international borders are provisional, determined by
April 23, 2014
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Don’t buy the hype on Alibaba’s IPO
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s coming initial public offering is being heralded as a victory for Wall Street, which appears to have lured the Chinese e-commerce giant away from a Hong Kong listing. In fact, the real winner may be Silicon Valley.If you buy the conventional wisdom, this is China’s big Internet moment. What’s likely to be the second-biggest IPO ever, after Facebook Inc.’s, supposedly signals the beginning of the end for America’s technological dominance. Soon the millions of young an
April 23, 2014
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Threat of Trans-Pacific Partnership
Many supporters of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, trade agreement are arguing that its fate rests on President Obama’s bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Japan this week. If Japan and the United States can sort out market access issues for agriculture and automobiles, the wisdom goes, this huge deal ― in effect, a North American Free Trade Agreement on steroids ― can at last be concluded.But this view obscures the many seemingly intractable problems TPP n
April 23, 2014
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Angry Republican foreign policy mess
Republican politicians are at war over the world.Representative Peter King of New York says that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky encourages “paranoia.” Paul says his critics are distorting his views. Walter Jones, a North Carolina representative seeking his 11th term, is being challenged in a primary that features ads saying he “preaches American decline” and “opposes sanctions on Iran.”It has been at least 20 years since Republicans have argued this angrily about foreign policy. Voters don’t much ca
April 23, 2014
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[Robert J. Fouser] How to improve ties with Japan
Over the past several years, relations between Korea and Japan have steadily deteriorated. President Park Geun-hye and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have not had a summit and only speak occasionally at international gatherings. Irresponsible media in both countries stir nationalist sentiment through negative, often sensational, reporting. Out of concern for the deteriorating situation, Ogata Sadako, Han Sung-Joo and Ezra F. Vogel wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post (April 12, 2014) that ca
April 22, 2014
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Does ferry disaster expose Korea’s flaws?
The concept of “balle balle,” or “quick, quick!,” is at the very core of Koreans’ view of themselves. After rising from the ashes of war in the 1950s, bouncing back from financial collapse in the late 1990s, and growing into a technology-and-entertainment powerhouse over the last decade, South Korea has turned its ability to get the job done in a bewilderingly short time into a national hallmark.But amid grief, recriminations and breathless news coverage, the investigation into the tragic sinkin
April 22, 2014
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Obama’s good news isn’t getting across
Here‘s a bit of good news for nervous Democrats: President Barack Obama’s health-care law isn‘t going to be the albatross many feared it would be in this year’s congressional elections. Enrollment has soared, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the program will cost less than initially projected and that premiums will rise only slightly this year.House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid aren‘t popping the Champagne, however. The economy could clobbe
April 22, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] To young students under the sea
Dear young students under the sea, please forgive us for not being able to rescue you from the ill-fated ferry Sewol. As you have found out by now, we adults are so incredibly incompetent and irresponsible that you cannot count on us in times of emergency. When the disaster happened, we were hopelessly sloppy in the rescue mission, press releases and broadcasting. And we were flustered by the wrong information about the passengers. To your disappointment, we were incredibly slow to act as well,
April 22, 2014
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The most important book ever is all wrong
It’s hard to think of another book on economics published in the past several decades that’s been praised as lavishly as Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century.” The adulation tells you something, though not mainly about the book’s qualities. Its defects, in my view, are greater than its strengths ― but the rapturous reception proves that the book, one way or another, meets a need.Martin Wolf of the Financial Times calls it “extraordinarily important.” Paul Krugman, writing in the New Yor
April 22, 2014
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[Thomas Klassen] Danger of ‘hurry, hurry’ culture
The tragic, but apparently preventable, sinking of the Sewol ferry highlights the danger of South Korea’s “hurry, hurry” culture.Korean culture is exceptional in the emphasis it places on speed: finishing projects on time, or rushing a new consumer product onto the market. Korean workers are both envied and feared by international competitors for their willingness to work long hours.The culture of haste starts with children, as primary school children are rushed from school to a variety of daily
April 21, 2014
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China’s water is worse than its air
In recent months, Chinese leaders have pledged drastic steps to clear their nation’s smog-choked air. The bigger question, though, may be how far they’re willing to go to clean up its water.Say one thing for the lung-burning pollution that regularly blankets Beijing and other cities: At least everyone can see the problem. In contrast, a recent benzene spill that poisoned the water supply of Lanzhou ― a city of more than 2 million people ― was terrifyingly odorless and colorless. If anything, pol
April 21, 2014
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Is Moldova next on Putin’s list of targets?
The newly appointed defense minister of Moldova ― the charming but intermittently hapless ex-Soviet Republic stuck between Ukraine and Romania ― is a sturdy-looking ex-prison official named Valeriu Troenco. He seemed, from a slight distance, to be an affable fellow, but he was deeply, dismissively uninterested in answering a question that I asked him after his swearing-in ceremony.The ceremony was held in the presidential offices. While on a trip to Moldova and Ukraine earlier this month, I was
April 21, 2014
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[Park Sang-seek] The inherent instability of the nation-state system
In the post-Cold War era an absolute majority of states are nation-states. In the Cold War period, the Western empires collapsed and reverted to their old nation-state status. Their colonies gained independence also to become nation-states. In the case of the Soviet Union, it consolidated its old empire and even expanded into Eastern Europe during the Cold War period but later disintegrated into 15 separate nation-states. Why do modern states want to become nation-states even if most are not wel
April 21, 2014
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Whether it’s bikes or bytes, teens are teens
If you’re like most middle-class parents, you’ve probably gotten annoyed with your daughter for constantly checking her Instagram feed or with your son for his two-thumbed texting at the dinner table. But before you rage against technology and start unfavorably comparing your children’s lives to your less-wired childhood, ask yourself this: Do you let your 10-year-old roam the neighborhood on her bicycle as long as she’s back by dinner? Are you comfortable, for hours at a time, not knowing your
April 21, 2014
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A moment of truth for India’s women
“The Power of 49”: That’s how Indian activists have started describing the potential influence of women, who make up just under 50 percent of the population, in the country’s ongoing elections. Political parties are courting women for the first time as a bloc, a transformative force that could upend both caste-based voting patterns and the conventional wisdom in New Delhi if they cast their ballots along gender lines.Unfortunately, campaign pledges on women’s issues and advertising blitzes targe
April 20, 2014
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[Thomas Klassen] Foundation of American power
The relative power and influence of the United States is in decline. America commands a smaller role in the world economy than at any time in almost a century, and its sway will decrease in the years to come. America’s military might is constrained as illustrated in Crimea and Syria, not to mention Iran and North Korea. Yet the United States will continue to dominate the global arena for decades, if not centuries, because it has one feature that its competitors lack: incomparable internal cohesi
April 20, 2014