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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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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[Grace Kao] Hybe vs. Ador: Inspiration, imitation and plagiarism
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U.S. plan for Libyan military training is a mistake
PARIS ― The U.S. has accepted a proposal by Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan to train as many as 7,000 conventional Libyan soldiers plus counterterrorist forces. What an exceedingly bad idea. This could put the Obama administration’s Hope-and-Change bus on the road to a potential new fiasco in Libya. Think Benghazi ― except everywhere.Speaking at the Reagan Presidential Library in California last week, the man who led the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, Admiral William McRaven of the U.S. Speci
Nov. 21, 2013
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[Ravi Velloor] Asia must prepare for the next horror to come
“Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And universal Darkness buries All.”Thus concludes Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad.Written in the early 18th century, the three-book poem follows the progress of the goddess Dulness as her minions bring destruction, decay and bestiality to the land.Perhaps Dulness was in full cry over the predominantly Catholic Philippines last week. How else but allegory to make sense of the malevolent power that laid waste to several provinces in this Southeast Asian
Nov. 21, 2013
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China’s new family policy a beginning, not an end
China’s family planning policy is to be eased at long last. The Third Plenum resolution, released on Friday reveals that China is to allow families in which either of the parents is a single child to have a second child, together with other reform. The adjustment is considered to be a breakthrough in relaxing China’s family planning policy. However, this step should be a beginning, rather than the end, of family planning policy reform. Compared with the past overriding policy that required most
Nov. 21, 2013
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Welcoming the 3rd wave of Indonesian history
As the 2014 election nears, let us take a bird’s-eye view of the course of our history. The 2014 election is important not only because it signifies a power shift in government, but also because it serves as momentum for the third wave of Indonesian history.The first wave occurred from the 17th century to the mid-20th century, which I refer to as the process of “becoming Indonesia.” The second wave took place between proclamation of our independence in 1945 and today, as we have dealt with the i
Nov. 21, 2013
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[Editorial] Compensation disclosure
The revised law on executive compensation disclosure is taking effect Nov. 29 to improve corporate transparency and protect shareholders’ rights. But questions are being raised about its effectiveness as it has loopholes. The current compensation disclosure rule is too lax. Under it, a listed company is only obligated to disclose two things ― the total and average amount of compensation it pays to its “registered” directors. A registered director is an inside director who is also a board member.
Nov. 20, 2013
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[David Ignatius] Egypt looks for a way back
CAIRO ― Bassem Youssef, Egypt’s popular television comedian, expresses the irreverent confidence this country will need to regain stability. On air, he mocks the autocratic tendencies of both the Muslim Brotherhood leaders and the army generals who toppled them from power. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and his adoring supporters unfortunately seem to have lost the celebrated Egyptian sense of humor. Youssef presented a hilarious episode on Oct. 25 that showed footage of Sissi admonishing the nation
Nov. 20, 2013
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China’s bold reform plans don’t mean much yet
The world appeared to change on Nov. 15, the day bold and epochal reforms were unveiled that promised to overhaul one of the world’s biggest economies. Analysts, investors and historians alike rejoiced at the audacity of the plan.That was Japan. On Nov. 15, 2012, Shinzo Abe, then one month away from becoming prime minister, pledged “unlimited” stimulus and the kind of supply-side policies for which investors had long been clamoring. A year later, the buzz is gone, and not a single structural ref
Nov. 20, 2013
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New book suggests we owe the Beatles to luck
Are some people destined for success, or is the whole idea of destiny a myth, a comforting tale that we tell ourselves? When artists or political leaders become household names, are they just lucky?You might think that the Beatles, probably the most successful popular musicians in the last 50 years, were bound to succeed. But an astonishing new book, “Tune In,” by Mark Lewisohn, suggests otherwise. Without explicitly saying so, Lewisohn’s narrative raises the possibility that without breaks, coi
Nov. 20, 2013
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Kennedy’s legacy endures re-evaluations
As historians and journalists downgrade the legacy of President John F. Kennedy on the 50th anniversary of his death this week, ordinary citizens around the globe will remember a cherished figure.More than all but the greatest U.S. presidents ― George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt ― Kennedy is an icon of American political culture. Yet, as New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson observed recently, there has never been a major historical work on the Kennedy presidenc
Nov. 20, 2013
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[Park Sang-seek] In search of solutions to the Asian Paradox
President Park Geun-hye once again returned to her main foreign policy doctrine, the Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperation Initiative, and urged the leaders of the four powers and North Korea in Northeast Asia to join her initiative in her speech at the ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the Korean National Diplomatic Academy on Nov. 14. Few would dispute her characterization of the nature of the security environment in Northeast Asia: political and security relations and economic relations do
Nov. 20, 2013
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[Naomi Wolf] J.F. Kennedy’s women problem
NEW YORK ― The 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy provides an opportunity to consider the shifts in consciousness in the United States that have occurred in the half-century since his death. In particular, though Kennedy has entered the pantheon of American heroes, recent data show that women, especially, have been losing admiration for him as a leader. Why?In some ways, Kennedy’s legacy for women was as progressive as his legacy on race and poverty. One genuinely visionary
Nov. 19, 2013
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Will an asteroid destroy you before you finish this?
On Feb. 15, a 13,000-ton rock plunged through the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia. It shone 30 times brighter than the sun, and hurtled at 68,000 kilometers per hour toward a city of more than a million people.As the rock broke apart during its fiery descent, it dispersed energy equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, shattering thousands of windows. Some 1,500 people were injured, and shock waves caused a ribbon of damage extending 88 kilometers on either side of the meteor’s path. Witnesses thought
Nov. 19, 2013
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[Kim Seong-kon] Three types of attempted murder in Korean society
In the legal arena, there are several different “types” of murder. If a person plans and prepares for a murder, the crime is called premeditated first-degree murder and comes with the maximum penalty. If a person accidentally kills another person, he or she will be charged with manslaughter and receive a lighter punishment since the killing was unintentional. If a person kills many people, he or she will be charged with mass murder. And if a person plots to kill someone but does not succeed, he
Nov. 19, 2013
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Xi Jinping’s bold, contradictory reform
Call it policy presentation with Chinese characteristics. After the meeting of its leadership last week, China’s Communist Party issued a muddled communique that aroused no great excitement. Then, on the weekend, well ahead of the usual schedule for such announcements, the party released a longer follow-up statement worth getting excited about.It’s radical stuff ― in principle, if not (yet) in policy. Maybe China’s new president, Xi Jinping, aspires to be another Deng Xiaoping after all.The “Dec
Nov. 19, 2013
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Gettysburg Address: Much noted, long remembered
The celebration of the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address offers an opportunity not simply to memorialize an extraordinary speech; it provides a model and a mirror for writing and speechmaking today.“It’s only words”: This phrase captures what many feel about writing today. After all, our casual, rapid-fire communiques are tossed off at the push of a “send” button.Within days of the battle of Gettysburg, plans were put in place to establish and dedicate the first national
Nov. 19, 2013
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[Shashi Tharoor] India’s historical hijacker
NEW DELHI ― As the political temperature heats up in India, with five state assembly elections this month and a general election due to be held by April, one might expect Indian leaders to be dueling over visions of the future. Instead, they have been engaged for weeks in an unseemly brawl about the past.The main opposition leader, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has moved aggressively to lay claim to the legacy of one of India’s most respected founders, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Li
Nov. 18, 2013
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Congress shouldn’t repeat Obama’s mistake
The idea is deceptively simple: Because President Barack Obama promised Americans they could keep their existing insurance under his new health-care-reform law, Congress should pass a law guaranteeing that they can.In reality, though, Obama was wrong to have made that promise ― and Congress would be compounding his foolishness by forcing insurance companies to keep it. The primary goal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is to make the health-care system more efficient and comprehe
Nov. 18, 2013
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[Kenneth Pollack] Kennedy era showed how to contain Iran
It may seem like a stretch, but the Cold War crises that President John F. Kennedy faced hold important lessons for the nuclear impasse with Iran. Newly released historical files on the confrontations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s can help us better understand what to expect if the current negotiations with Tehran fail and we are soon confronted with a nuclear-armed Iran. Kennedy faced an unpredictable, risk-taking and at times aggressive opponent in Soviet leader Niki
Nov. 18, 2013
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Turkey’s cleavage crackdown goes to college
I hate to admit it, but the paranoid secularists who for a decade have been saying Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan harbored a secret agenda are being proved right.For years I’ve been gently pointing out to those paranoid secularists that Erdogan has been in power a long time already, and if he was really hiding an Islamist master plan ― as opposed to his declared conservative agenda ― he was doing a good job.Besides, didn’t you hear the man tell Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood leaders the
Nov. 18, 2013
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America’s tallest building ― does it measure up?
It used to be the tallest building in America. It used to be the tallest in the world. It used to be the Sears Tower.Now Chicago’s Willis Tower is second, um, banana to New York’s not-yet-completed One World Trade Center, which was declared tallest in the nation Tuesday by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the official arbiter of disputes over the height of skyscrapers.Council members from all over the world huddled here last week to decide whether the tower rising from the rubble
Nov. 18, 2013