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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[Lee Jae-min] Transboundary air pollution
China’s air pollution has been in the news for quite some time now, and the Chinese government is finally taking this issue seriously. Just recently, the City of Beijing declared a war against smog. The central government is also going to spend as much as $275 billion over the next five years to find a way to alleviate this chronic problem. And yet, the smog is now getting thicker and murkier with the increasing consumption of fossil fuels in the northern part of the country as the weather gets
Nov. 12, 2013
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My American son is still in North Korean prison
On the morning of Oct. 11, I woke up at 4 a.m. in Potonggang Hotel in Pyongyang, excited and nervous. I found myself repeating, “My son is here. I am going to see him today.” I could not believe I was there to visit my son, Kenneth Bae, who has been held prisoner in North Korea.Sunday, Nov. 3, was the anniversary of the day my son, a tour operator, was detained. He has now been in a North Korean prison for more than a year. He is the longest detained American prisoner in North Korea in recent hi
Nov. 12, 2013
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[Kim Seong-kon] Cultural dimension in translation
Since the Tower of Babel, humans have needed interpreters and translators to communicate across nations. Due to cultural differences, however, misunderstandings often arise, and sometimes things are inevitably lost in translation. That is why there is a saying that “every translator is a traitor.” A host of writers have contemplated and written about the innate problems of translation. For example, Yevgeny Yevtushenko humorously wrote, “Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not
Nov. 12, 2013
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What the Philippines can learn from 2004 tsunami
The reports coming out of the Philippines are all too familiar. Shattered villages, corpses strewn across battered beaches, dazed survivors picking through the wreckage of their former lives. As I write, Typhoon Haiyan (described in some news reports as a “supertyphoon”) appears to be the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history, and one of the worst ever in Asia ― a region that has known no shortage of calamities.Many of the survivors are talking about a “wall of water” ― most of the dama
Nov. 12, 2013
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Behind the scenes of Tokyo’s political soap opera
Shinzo Abe faces plenty of roadblocks in his quest to revive Japan’s sluggish economy. His mentor wasn’t supposed to be one of them.Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is easily the most popular Japanese politician of the last 20 years. Not since Yasuhiro Nakasone in the mid-1980s had a Japanese leader made such a splash domestically and globally. Not coincidentally, both were keen reformers ― as Abe, too, claims to be.After he left office in 2006, the now-71-year-old Koizumi seemed happy to
Nov. 12, 2013
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[Brahma Chellaney] Limits to arming the elephant
NEW DELHI ― The rise in U.S. arms sales to India is being widely cited as evidence of the two countries’ deepening defense relationship. But the long-term sustainability of the relationship, in which India is more a client than a partner, remains a deep concern for Indians. Does the recently issued Joint Declaration on Defense Cooperation, which establishes intent to move beyond weapons sales to the co-production of military hardware, mark a turning point, or is it merely a contrivance to placat
Nov. 11, 2013
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Jellyfish send a message to humankind
Are jellyfish massing against humankind? Not really; it just seems that way. They may be sending us a message, though.Enormous aggregations of the diaphanous sea creatures have been wreaking havoc from shore to shore ― clogging water intake valves on seaside power plants, destroying fish farms, crowding fishing nets and, yes, stinging people (sometimes fatally). It’s nothing personal. Jellyfish, lacking brains, do not wish us harm. They’re merely going about their lives as they have for more tha
Nov. 11, 2013
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[Dan Kaszeta] Send Syria’s chemical weapons to Albania
So far, the effort to strip Syria of its chemical weapons capacity has gone surprisingly well. In difficult circumstances, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons met a Nov. 1 deadline for disabling all the country’s declared production facilities and assembly plants.That, however, was always going to be the relatively easy part. A competent inspector will readily find the critical machinery for chemical weapons production, and with a sledgehammer and drill can put it out of com
Nov. 11, 2013
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The founders prayed, why can’t the city council?
Do you say a little prayer (for the markets, maybe) before you get down to work?Since 1999, the wonderfully named town of Greece, New York, has been doing that. At town council meetings, a volunteer chaplain ― generally but not invariably Christian ― prays before the opening of business. The U.S. Supreme Court now must decide whether these prayers, which frequently invoke Jesus Christ by name, violate the constitutional ban against establishing religion.Begin with the easy part: The Founders wou
Nov. 11, 2013
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Korea’s jury system needs improvement
It has been more than five years since the Korean courts adopted a working prototype of the American style jury trial system. During the period, there have been a series of legislative efforts to develop a sustainable system in Korea. Recently, there were a couple of non-guilty verdict cases which caused a media frenzy on the particulars of the current legal framework. Both were mainly related to defamation under the Election Law: one for spreading groundless rumors against then-candidate Park G
Nov. 11, 2013
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[David Ignatius] The U.S. and foreigners’ privacy
WASHINGTON ― A sad irony of Barack Obama’s presidency is that a man who wanted to repair U.S. relations abroad has instead had to cope with damaging new strains with allies, following Edward Snowden’s revelations about National Security Agency surveillance overseas. For the White House, the NSA disclosures have been a bottomless pit. Officials don’t know how much information Snowden took from classified files, or how much he may have stashed in encrypted “cloud” storage. They can inventory the d
Nov. 10, 2013
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Amnesty failure won’t end Thailand’s family affair
“Welcome to the Republic of Thaksin.” You won’t see these words displayed in the customs hall when arriving in Thailand, but the Land of Smiles has indeed morphed into the land of Thaksin Shinawatra. That should be giving Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy plenty to frown about. Seven years after the former prime minister was ousted in a coup, Thaksin’s long shadow continues to dominate Thai politics. Since then, the country has seen six prime ministers, the most recent one being Thaksin’s
Nov. 10, 2013
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] South Africa joins investment pact rebellion
NEW YORK ― International investment agreements are once again in the news. The United States is trying to impose a strong investment pact within the two big so-called “partnership” agreements, one bridging the Atlantic, the other the Pacific, that are now being negotiated. But there is growing opposition to such moves.South Africa has decided to stop the automatic renewal of investment agreements that it signed in the early post-apartheid period, and has announced that some will be terminated. E
Nov. 10, 2013
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Economics still science, despite its flaws
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut ― I am one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which makes me acutely aware of criticism of the prize by those who claim that economics ― unlike chemistry, physics, or medicine, for which Nobel Prizes are also awarded ― is not a science. Are they right?One problem with economics is that it is necessarily focused on policy, rather than discovery of fundamentals. Nobody really cares much about economic data except as a guide to policy: ec
Nov. 10, 2013
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Whittaker Chambers versus Ayn Rand
Whittaker Chambers and Ayn Rand are two of the most important American conservative icons. Both abhorred collectivism and spoke on behalf of individual freedom. Chambers’ autobiography, “Witness,” is one of the defining conservative documents of the 20th century. Rand’s most influential novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” continues to inspire and orient conservative and libertarian thought.Here’s what history has largely forgotten: Chambers utterly despised Rand’s novel. Their differences were fundamental,
Nov. 10, 2013
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[Robert B. Reich] Recession victims forlorn
How to explain this paradox?Starting Nov. 1, more than 47 million Americans lost some or all of their food stamp benefits. House Republicans are pushing for further cuts. If the sequester isn’t stopped, everything else poor and working-class Americans depend on will be further squeezed.We’re not talking about a small sliver of America here. Half of all children get food stamps at some point during their childhood. Half of all adults get them sometime between ages 18 and 65. Many employers ― incl
Nov. 8, 2013
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History will judge Obama on actions, not words
PARIS ― History judges a leader exclusively through his actions and their ultimate results rather than through fleeting words. It appears that U.S. President Barack Obama is finally putting the brakes on his mouth after flooring it down Hope-and-Change Highway for most of his tenure.Remember the Syrian crisis that dominated chatter for months before all but vanishing? Recall how critics were talking about grievous incompetence and even possible impeachment? Fast-forward to today, and just try to
Nov. 8, 2013
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[William Pesek] China is choking on its success
Walking through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last week, a German family of five surrounded me, all wearing large face masks and sunglasses. They weren’t robbing me, just asking me to take their photo. When I yelled the customary “Say ‘cheese,’” the dad joked: “We are smiling under here.”Only China’s pollution bubble is no laughing matter, and tourists tell the story. Thanks to extreme air pollution, foreign arrivals plunged by roughly 50 percent in the first three-quarters of the year. Beijing cou
Nov. 7, 2013
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Middle East turmoil finally catches up with Tunisia
While nearly every one of the nations caught up in the Arab Spring since 2011 still suffered and seethed, for a long time Tunisia, the birthplace of the revolts, stood head and shoulders above the rest with a moderate leader and a relatively peaceful, prosperous state.Middle East experts lauded Tunisia as an example for its neighbors. A Foreign Affairs magazine article early this fall carried the headline: “Tunisia’s Lessons for the Middle East.” Another magazine article last summer called Tunis
Nov. 7, 2013
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[Salim Osman] Why political dynasties persist in Indonesia
During Indonesia’s Suharto years from 1966 to 1998, a joke making the rounds in Jakarta had it that the most important qualification to become president was having past experience as a president.Since the only person with presidential experience was the incumbent Suharto, he was re-elected without challenge at every election during the New Order. No one dared step forward to offer himself as candidate. Political power remained concentrated in the hands of one man for three decades.The sheer leng
Nov. 7, 2013