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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[KH Explains] No more 'Michael' at Kakao Games
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Rapper jailed after public street fight with another rapper
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Woman gets suspended term for injuring boyfriend with knife
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Samsung chief bolsters ties with Germany’s Zeiss
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[Grace Kao] Hybe vs. Ador: Inspiration, imitation and plagiarism
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NewJeans pops out ‘Bubble Gum’ video amid troubles at agency
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Med schools expect 1,500+ new admission slots next year
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Nominee for chief of anti-corruption body pledges 'independence, effectiveness'
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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
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China’s sex crackdown is doomed to fail
My last visit to Dongguan, China’s widely acknowledged and often acclaimed prostitution capital, was in 2011 (for a factory visit), and included a breakfast meeting at a well-known U.S. chain hotel, in view of the elevators that whisk customers to their rooms. It was a memorable meal: Over eggs, my companions and I watched as those elevators discharged a flood of young women, one after the other, yawning and rubbing their eyes, clad in last night’s high-cut dresses. Not one stopped for breakfast
Feb. 20, 2014
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[Kavi Chongkittavorn] U.S. strategic clarity helps build confidence
In a time like today of rapid power shifts, the world’s heavyweights are no longer occupying themselves with the usual strategic ambivalence ― their mantra over the past three decades. Such a mindset was the right attitude to have in the past, but somehow this noncommittal behavior is no longer the norm. Friends and foes want to make sure they are on the right side. It’s time to speak out. In the past weeks, top U.S. policymakers have made clear one very important fact: that the U.S. would defen
Feb. 20, 2014
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Will Japan’s economy grow as steadily as government expects?
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic policy package, dubbed Abenomics, is being put to the test in terms of whether it will achieve stable and sustainable growth.The nation’s real-term gross domestic product for the October-December period of last year edged up 0.3 percent over the previous quarter, according to the Cabinet Office, marking the fourth straight quarterly growth and a growth of 1 percent on an annualized basis.Personal consumption saw significant expansion as the demand fo
Feb. 20, 2014
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ASEAN still fiddling as Sumatra burns
Haze is spreading across the region once again as companies slash and burn to create plantations; we need collective action to snuff out this annual problem.It arrives every year around this time, when dry weather prompts people in Indonesia’s Sumatra to burn forest and scrub to make way for plantations. Fires send plumes of smoke into the air, where wind ― sometimes storm force ― blows it across the region. Neighboring Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand are blanketed in a choking haze th
Feb. 20, 2014
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Thailand mired in sticky rice predicament
Thailand has ample company in the use of agricultural subsidies as a partisan tool in politics, by distorting international commodity trade to favor home producers. But unfortunately, it has chosen strange company to keep, given the high costs of such programs.In Japan, the farm vote is a pillar in the Liberal Democratic Party’s longevity. In the United States, targeted price supports in farm states influence presidential and congressional elections.Principal Bric nations China and Brazil have j
Feb. 20, 2014
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[William Pesek] China deeper into dollar trap
Reading Eswar Prasad’s new book, it’s easy to picture the entire global economy as a giant bird cage, with Jack Lew and Janet Yellen standing outside waving at all the unwitting creatures inside.In “The Dollar Trap,” the Cornell University economist doesn’t paint the U.S. treasury secretary or Federal Reserve chairman in sinister terms. Prasad’s argument is that for all the worries about U.S. policies and debt, and the many efforts to build up an alternative, the dollar’s linchpin role is only s
Feb. 19, 2014
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[Kim Myong-sik] An uncomfortable look at a best-selling novel
I have decided not to read “Jungle Malli,” the best-selling three-volume novel by Cho Chong-nae. The reason: too much advertising. When a publishing house spends billions of won in advertising a book, you certainly have little to expect from it. Soon after the novel was published in July last year, it clinched the No. 1 spot on the bestseller list in the poetry-fiction-drama category and has continued to hold the spot, a rare feat in the local publishing market. It even won a brief competition a
Feb. 19, 2014
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Could it be that the tea party is growing up?
Ever since a wave of conservative insurgents arrived in Washington after the congressional election of 2010, Congress has careened from one tea party-inspired fiscal crisis to another, from the debt-ceiling showdown of 2011 to last year’s 16-day government shutdown.But last week, when the debt ceiling needed to be raised again, conservative Republicans decided not to fight. They still voted no, but they meekly stood aside to let the ceiling rise.“You’ve got to know when to hold them and when to
Feb. 19, 2014
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Voyager, the space triumph that nearly wasn’t
The Voyager 1 spacecraft is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. Even if defined only by distance, the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory twin Voyagers are America’s greatest space adventure. They’ve been flying successfully for more than 36 years and are billions of miles from home. What isn’t widely known is that they almost never made it out there.The first proposed mission in the late 1960s was for four spacecraft to take advantage of a rare alignment of the four outer
Feb. 19, 2014
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From Moscow Olympics in 1980 to Sochi
NEW YORK ― The Winter Olympics in Sochi are the first to be hosted by Russia since the Cold War-era Moscow Summer Games in 1980. Obviously, much has changed politically in the interim. But today’s games also create an opportune moment to look back at Russia’s recent economic history ― and to peer forward as well.Many people who remember the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and its tumultuous aftermath believe that Russia’s economy today must be impoverished and unstable ― and far behind boom
Feb. 19, 2014
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[Lee Jae-min] Judgment and diplomacy
Picture the following: A treaty is negotiated and concluded by a duly authorized government representative. The treaty is then applied and implemented for the next five decades. In the interim, the government maintains a shared understanding and expresses a settled position about the meaning of the provisions of the treaty. Diplomacy is conducted and policies formulated therefrom. Five decades later, the judicial branch enters the scene and declares that the government’s interpretation is in fac
Feb. 18, 2014
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Obamacare and Christie have plenty in common
There were several reports this month about the Affordable Care Act, most of them positive: Participation is up; the so-called risk corridors, which critics call a giveaway to insurance companies, will make the government money; and the law will increase labor demand.But more attention has been lavished on the negative: Over a decade, the equivalent of 2.5 million workers will drop out of the labor force because there are alternative health-insurance options, and the employment mandate was postp
Feb. 18, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] The impending war between generations
With the number of senior citizens rapidly rising in Korean society due to an increasing average lifespan, conflict between the young and the old is brewing. Clashes occur daily because while the elderly expect deference from the young, the young no longer respect the elderly. In the eyes of the older generation, young people today are shockingly rude and offensive. On the contrary, young people seem to resent the older people’s sense of entitlement. Naturally, senior citizens lament the loss of
Feb. 18, 2014
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America’s drone program needs to keep flying
There is much we don’t know about the American citizen who is the target of a potential U.S. drone strike in Pakistan. He is believed to be associated with al-Qaida. He reportedly has been involved in plotting attacks against the United States. His name hasn’t been revealed, but we imagine he is avoiding rooftops and other open-air venues that have proven fatal to other terror chiefs.What we know is that U.S. government officials have been debating since last summer whether to authorize a strike
Feb. 18, 2014
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Population policy ― it all depends on age
Hong Kong is currently consulting the public on its population policy. The policy paper is a very informative and educational document. It is full of useful statistics and asks the citizens what they want in terms of quantity and quality. The Steering Committee on Population Policy, chaired by the chief secretary for administration, proposes that the objective of Hong Kong’s population policy should be “to develop and nurture a population that will continuously support and drive Hong Kong’s soci
Feb. 18, 2014