Most Popular
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[Exclusive] Korean military set to ban iPhones over 'security' concerns
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Korean, Romanian leaders discuss defense tech, nuclear energy
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S. Korea calls on Japan to confront history amid Yasukuni Shrine visit
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Yoon’s jailed mother-in-law excluded from latest parole list
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Hybe and Min Hee-jin, CEO of Hybe sublabel Ador, lock horns
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[Herald Interview] 'Amid aging population, Korea to invite more young professionals from overseas'
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[Pressure points] Leggings in public: Fashion statement or social faux pas?
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Korea’s homegrown nanosatellite successfully launches into space
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Nicaragua shuts down Seoul embassy
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Rocket engine expert, ex-NASA exec to lead Korea's new space agency
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‘First Laddie Issue’ could impede Hillary in 2016
You probably won’t believe this, but I aim to help Hillary Clinton fulfill her destiny and rule the world.But the thing is, she has a problem.You wouldn’t know it from reading or watching the news. That’s because in most newsrooms across America ― and perhaps even in some place called “real life” ― the inevitability of Hillary Clinton as president is a given.Yet even as the great tide of her inevitability swells and rises to 2016, there is an issue. Sadly, it remains hidden to most of her champi
Feb. 26, 2014
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[William Pesek] Is Abe behind Japan’s nut jobs?
There’s a reason the nuns in Queens had me and my classmates read Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” several times ― the same reason that’s made the book required reading around the globe. The 15-year-old’s account of hiding from the Nazis is impervious to nut jobs who argue the Holocaust is fiction.Shockingly, in recent days at least 282 copies of Frank’s memoirs have been vandalized at 36 libraries across Tokyo ― their pages torn or defaced. No one knows who did it, or why. But it requir
Feb. 25, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] Is Korea still a ‘No Action, Talk Only’ nation?
Americans are well-known to be law-abiding people. However, when they find a rule inconvenient and unreasonable, they do not seem to hesitate to bend or change it. Americans are also famous for acting quickly. One good example of this is the self-defense law implemented right after the Homestead Act. Upon learning that Native Americans and outlaws were frequently invading the territory of the homesteaders and killing them, the U.S. Congress immediately took action, passing the famous self-defens
Feb. 25, 2014
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Obama’s cold feet on gay marriage
Three federal judges have now ruled that state bans on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution’s “equal protection” clause. President Barack Obama seems to disagree.He has repeatedly stated that, while he personally supports same-sex marriage, the issue should be left to the states. In other words, the nation’s first black president holds a states-rights position on what has shaped up to be the civil-rights issue of this generation.Most states ban same-sex marriage. And if they are left to wo
Feb. 25, 2014
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Cut off Harvard and save America
College endowments totaled $448.6 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013, an increase of 11.7 percent compared with a year earlier, according to recently released data.As we know, this wealth is concentrated among a privileged few. Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities all have almost $2 million in endowment funds for every student.We’ve heard the argument that what these institutions do with their privately raised money is their business and that they provide a lot of financial aid o
Feb. 25, 2014
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Republican schism engulfs protections for disabled
Any suspicion that the political right, after suffering a defeat on the debt ceiling and facing threats from business donors, is losing its clout can be dismissed by the fight over the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.The treaty has been ratified by 141 countries. It is backed by the White House, former President George H.W. Bush, the major U.S. disability and veterans advocacy groups, and American businesses.Senate Republicans, however, already defeated the t
Feb. 25, 2014
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[David Ignatius] Heartland’s internationalism
WASHINGTON ― Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, was trying to explain recently why her state has remained “internationalist” in its soul, even as it shares the national anger about Iraq and Afghanistan. In Minnesota, she says, “internationalism is not just tolerated, it’s embraced.” But Klobuchar warns that among her Senate colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, there are growing doubts about global engagement. Too many politicians, she told me, are moving toward “the idea that you shoul
Feb. 24, 2014
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Goodbye, Sochi slush. Hello, China smog?
What’s worse than a snowless, subtropical Winter Olympics like the one that wrapped up in palm-tree-lined Sochi, Russia, this weekend? How about an opening ceremony on an arid, smog-choked plain and skiing events in the mountains of the most polluted province in all of China?That’s what Beijing and Zhangjiakou, a nearby mountain town, have proposed to the International Olympic Committee as an ideal site for the 2022 Winter Games. While athletes have been competing on Sochi’s slopes, the Chinese
Feb. 24, 2014
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[George Weidenfeld] Europe’s Middle East mission
LONDON ― America’s gradual withdrawal from the Middle East puts increasing pressure on Europe to help foster peace in the region. With complex and heated wars threatening to bring about the collapse of states like Syria and Iraq, and the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Palestine seemingly as far from resolution as ever, it is almost easier to ask what Europe should avoid than what it should do.The starting point must be a simple, fundamental principle: Europe should not take sides. Al
Feb. 24, 2014
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The nightmare that is North Korea
It’s one thing to know that third-generation strongman Kim Jong-un maintains an iron grip on North Korea’s 25 million people. It’s another thing to read the horrifying particulars of how his regime wields its control ― through starvation, torture, rape, summary executions and the disappearance of tens of thousands of citizens into an extralegal prison labor-camp system.The details are contained in a report compiled by an international team of investigators led by respected Australian jurist Mich
Feb. 24, 2014
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Olympics can’t disguise Putin’s quest for dominion
With the Olympics in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped to rivet the world’s attention on the New and Improved Russia, a rising-again world power to be reckoned with, a country on the road to global glory.And why not? Things have been going Putin’s way. His brinkmanship forestalled a U.S. strike on Russia’s man in Damascus, President Bashar Assad. National Security Agency leaker in chief Edward Snowden is safely ensconced in Moscow, thumbing his nose at Washington. And long-downtrodde
Feb. 24, 2014
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Disruptions in world’s largest democracy
NEW DELHI ― India’s 15th Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament) passed into history ignominiously this month, following the least productive five years of any Indian parliament in six decades of functioning democracy. With entire sessions lost to opposition disruptions, and with frequent adjournments depriving legislators of time for deliberation, the MPs elected in May 2009 passed fewer bills and spent fewer hours in debate than any of their predecessors.As if that were not bad enough, the f
Feb. 24, 2014
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[Robert B.Reich] America’s ‘we’ problem
America has a serious “we” problem ― as in, “Why should we pay for them?”The question is popping up all over the place. It underlies the debate over extending unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed and providing food stamps to the poor.It’s found in the resistance of some young and healthy people to being required to buy health insurance in order to help pay for people with pre-existing health problems.It can be heard among the residents of upscale neighborhoods who don’t want their t
Feb. 23, 2014
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[Yu Kun-ha] Labor issues could make or break the economy
Amid hopes for a much-needed grand bargain, a parliamentary subcommittee aimed at addressing a host of pending labor issues through social dialogue held its first meeting at the National Assembly on Friday. The panel was launched by the National Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee to provide a forum for dialogue among the three social partners ― trade unions, employers and the government ― plus lawmakers from the two main political parties. Social dialogue among the three partners has bee
Feb. 23, 2014
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U.S. shouldn’t rescue socialist Venezuela
PARIS ― Here we go again. Yet another country full of voters who foolishly bought into the socialist pipe dream of endless nanny-state freebies is noticing the check coming due. Facing hyperinflation and shortages of necessities like toilet paper, Venezuelans are spilling into the streets, pleading for Captain America to rescue them from their own chronically poor voting choices. Sorry, amigos, but it’s not America’s problem.Venezuelan voters aren’t victims; they’re accomplices to their own pred
Feb. 23, 2014
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Sorry, Italy, you’re in China’s seat
China’s thought police have a new target in their sights: economists.The Communist Party’s assault on cyberspace and the international media is well known. But now, it’s turning on foreign researchers who dare challenge the official narrative that China can grow 7 percent forever and can’t crash. That’s the gist of a new effort detailed by the South China Morning Post, one that aims to discredit and blacklist overseas researchers. Expect the world’s biggest banks to start self-censoring themselv
Feb. 23, 2014
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Seven steps to surviving a disaster
Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines last fall, reminded us how much suffering and damage nature can cause, and how important it is to invest in resilience and be ready to respond.As climate change and booming urbanization leave more and more people exposed to hazard, governments worldwide want to make sure their roads, buildings and public services can withstand natural disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes.Here are seven lessons, culled from years o
Feb. 23, 2014
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[Peter Singer] A clear case for golden rice
MELBOURNE ― Greenpeace, the global environmental NGO, typically leads protests. Last month, it became the target.Patrick Moore, a spokesperson for the protesters ― and himself an early Greenpeace member ― accused the organization of complicity in the deaths of two million children per year. He was referring to deaths resulting from vitamin A deficiency, which is common among children for whom rice is the staple food.These deaths could be prevented, Moore claims, by the use of “golden rice,” a fo
Feb. 21, 2014
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Financial regulators are still flying blind
The recent turmoil in emerging markets raises an urgent question: If things get worse, if markets plunge or a government defaults, do regulators know which banks, hedge funds or other institutions are most at risk?Almost six years after the crash, with financial regulation overhauled in the U.S. and elsewhere, you’d expect the answer to be yes. Actually, the short answer is no. Regulators charged with overseeing the financial system have vastly more data than they did before the last crisis, but
Feb. 21, 2014
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[David Ignatius] Spymasters’ conclave on Syria
WASHINGTON ― Western and Arab intelligence services that support Syria’s struggling opposition gathered for a two-day strategy meeting in Washington last week that appears to signal a stronger effort to back the rebels.The spymasters’ conclave featured Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s minister of the interior, who will now supervise the kingdom’s leading role in the covert-action program. He replaces Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi intelligence chief, who has been suffering from a b
Feb. 20, 2014