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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NewJeans pops out ‘Bubble Gum’ video amid troubles at agency
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Nominee for chief of anti-corruption body pledges 'independence, effectiveness'
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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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[J. Bradford DeLong] Economy on the long short run
BERKELEY, California ― Before 2008, I taught my students that the United States was a flexible economy. It had employers who were willing to gamble and hire when they saw unemployed workers who would be productive; and it had workers who were willing to move to opportunity, or to try something new in order to get a job. As bosses and entrepreneurial workers took a chance, supply would create its own demand.Yes, I used to say, adverse shocks to spending could indeed create mass unemployment and i
Dec. 2, 2013
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Germany’s lurch to the left may bog down Europe
If the U.S. is currently ruled by stalemate ― with polarized parties crippling its Founders’ checks and balances ― Germany has too much uniformity and too little contest, which is the lifeblood of democracy.Consider the numbers in last week’s deal creating a new “grand coalition” government. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, who once billed themselves as conservatives, and the Social Democrats, left of center, will control almost 80 percent of the seats in the German parliament. Im
Dec. 2, 2013
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Phones on planes to add to in-flight annoyances
Imagine Thanksgiving 2014: Travel is a breeze. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. The glut of American oil has prompted an unprecedented decline in airfares.As an experienced traveler, you’re tucked away happily in a window seat toward the front of the plane. Your bag fits neatly in the overhead bin. With the skill of a great actor, you have mastered the “don’t say a word to me” vibe. When your seatmate arrives, you look forward, or down at a book, or maybe even at your smartphone. (More on that in
Dec. 2, 2013
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Even the pope endures wait to meet with Putin
Being 50 minutes late for his first meeting with Pope Francis was nothing unusual for Russian President Vladimir Putin. That‘s just the way he is ― a character trait that provides some insight into his attitude toward power.When Putin arrived on time to an audience with Pope John Paul II in 2003, the punctuality was considered a newsworthy aberration: “The President Was Not Even a Second Late,” read the headline in the newspaper Izvestia. He had been 15 minutes late for a similar audience in 200
Dec. 2, 2013
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[David Ignatius] Moving to next stage on Iran
WASHINGTON ― Now that the Obama administration has won its breakthrough first-step nuclear deal with Iran, officials are planning strategy for the decisive second round that over the next six months will seek a broader and tougher comprehensive agreement. This “end state” negotiation, as officials describe it, promises to be more difficult because the U.S. and its negotiating partners will seek to dismantle parts of the Iranian program, rather than simply freeze them. Another complication is tha
Dec. 1, 2013
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Xi Jinping overreaches in the East China Sea
The Communist Party summit that recast Xi Jinping as a reformer extraordinaire has produced its first foreign-policy initiative: poking Japan in the eye. That seems to be the point of China’s declaration of a vast “air defense identification zone,” in which Beijing has essentially claimed the airspace around disputed islands administered by Japan. The provocation came just two weeks after the party called for a new national security council to coordinate military, domestic and intelligence opera
Dec. 1, 2013
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[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Cities must work toward sustainable development
NEW YORK ― Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of cities ― including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few ― pummeled in recent years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable developmen
Dec. 1, 2013
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Would you hold the mayo if the receipt suggested it?
Here is a famous finding from social psychology. If you want to encourage people to get vaccinated against some disease, it helps to educate them about the benefits of vaccination. But you’ll have a much bigger impact if you give people a map, showing them exactly where to go to get a shot.Elementary though it is, this finding is important, because it demonstrates that when people don’t respond to a suggestion, it may be because they need some help in identifying the specific steps they are bein
Dec. 1, 2013
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Swiss come to their senses on soak-the-rich vote
Some of my best friends are very rich ― people with condos on Central Park West and tastefully refurbished palazzi in Italy. The puzzle: Why do so many of them vote Democratic or praise the high-taxing European welfare state?How rich? When one of them had an art lover on the phone, who was offering to pay $30 million for a famous painting, he refused. Frustrated, the would-be buyer groaned: “Look, man, I just more than doubled the going price for this piece, and you still won’t take it. Why not?
Dec. 1, 2013
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[Brahma Chellaney] China’s territorial creep in Asia
NEW DELHI ― China’s growing geopolitical heft is emboldening its territorial creep in Asia. After laying claim to 80 percent of the South China Sea, it has just established a so-called air defense identification zone in the East China Sea, raising the odds of armed conflict with Japan and threatening the principle of freedom of navigation of the seas and skies. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic continues to nibble furtively at territory across the long, disputed Himalayan border with India.Few se
Nov. 29, 2013
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China will miss Amb. Locke when he’s gone
The Communist Party can’t wait to see the back of Gary Locke, the outgoing U.S. ambassador who ruffled many a feather during his two-plus years in Beijing. The 1.2 billion Chinese who aren’t party members should be begging him to stay.After Locke’s Nov. 20 resignation announcement, online commentators claimed Beijing’s toxic air was forcing the ambassador back to Seattle, where his family relocated earlier this year. Locke’s denial that he was fleeing to bluer skies couldn’t quell the rumors, wh
Nov. 29, 2013
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[Robert B. Reich] Three truths about Care Act
Having failed to defeat the Affordable Care Act every other way, Republicans are now hell-bent on destroying it in Americans’ minds.Every Republican in Washington has been programmed to use the word “disaster” whenever mentioning the act. The idea is to make it so detestable it becomes the fearsome centerpiece of the midterm elections of 2014.Admittedly, the president provided Republicans ammunition by botching the Affordable Care Act’s rollout. But the president and other Democrats should be st
Nov. 28, 2013
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Grisly news coming out of North Korea
According to one of South Korea’s largest newspapers, JoongAng Ilbo, the Pyongyang regime executed 80 North Korean citizens in one day, for crimes including watching smuggled videos or owning a Bible.The report is shocking, and nearly impossible to verify. Some experts are skeptical, but a number of North Korea watchers tell me it is completely consistent with other information and quite credible.If true, the multiple executions by squads of machine gun-firing soldiers ― reportedly carried out b
Nov. 28, 2013
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[M. Nirmala] Tapping South Asia’s diaspora
South Asian countries have had the potential to do well for more than 40 years. But they have yet to deliver results in many areas.What has gone wrong? What needs to be done? And by whom?Setting a cat among the pigeons at a recent convention, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, the dean of the Singapore Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the gap between India’s potential and its actual performance is huge.If India’s population of over 1 billion could achieve only half of the per capita income o
Nov. 28, 2013
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A reason to hope for Yolanda victims
Philippine Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla has put his job on the line with the promise to restore by Christmas Eve power supply in vast areas in Eastern Visayas ravaged by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” Restoring electricity to the region will be more than just symbolic. “Energizing” far-flung communities is a life-changing event for the people living there. With electricity comes progress. On the other hand, living literally in the dark is quite tragic. Darkness has come to be associated with crimin
Nov. 28, 2013
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Time to reconcile, before it’s too late
Though Thailand’s economy has been expanding since 2006, it is worth noting that we would almost certainly be far more prosperous without our seemingly endless series of protests.According to World Bank data, Thailand’s gross domestic product of $366 billion is up 76.8 percent on our $207 GDP of 2006. It sounds impressive, until you compare it with our neighbors’ growth. Singapore showed a 97.8 percent GDP increase during the same period (from $139 billion to $275 billion), while Malaysia showed
Nov. 28, 2013
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[David Ignatius] Secret diplomacy that worked
WASHINGTON ― Count the Iran nuclear deal as a rare win for President Barack Obama’s secretive, cerebral style of governing. His careful, closeted approach has produced many setbacks over the past five years, but it was at the heart of last weekend’s breakthrough deal with Tehran. This was secret diplomacy that a Henry Kissinger could appreciate. Obama began by authorizing carefully concealed meetings back in March, through Oman, the most opaque and discreet nation in the Persian Gulf. The presid
Nov. 27, 2013
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China’s one-child policy unlikely to end soon
The Chinese Communist Party announced grand plans for “reform” at the end of its third plenum meeting in November, including a promise to end its disastrous one child per family policy.Don’t bet on it.That one-child law leads to ugly forced abortions and sterilizations ― as well as rampant cheating. Wealthy people have been having as many children as they want. No one tries to stop them, as long as the parents are willing to pay a fine of $50,000 or more.All of that is bad enough. But the larger
Nov. 27, 2013
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[Kim Myong-sik] Park needs more natural, open communication
The use of a teleprompter in making a public address must take some getting used to. President Park Geun-hye uses a teleprompter (consisting of two transparent panels facing the speaker obliquely on the left and right) quite often and quite well. When the president delivered the 2014 budget address to the plenary session of the National Assembly last week, she moved her glance anxiously across the rows of lawmakers of the ruling and opposition parties, appealing for their speedy action on a host
Nov. 27, 2013
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Xi is not cut from the same mold as Gorbachev
Western analysts have been scratching their heads trying to figure out if China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, can properly be labeled a “reformer.”His new policies promise to end labor camps, ease the one-child policy and migrant-residency requirement in cities, grant property rights to farmers, and open up many new areas to a “decisive” role for the market. At the same time, he has strengthened the grip of the Communist Party, accumulated more power at the center, asserted ideological orthodoxy and
Nov. 27, 2013