Most Popular
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Korean labor force to shrink by 10 million by 2044: report
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[AtoZ Korean Mind] Does your job define who you are? Should it?
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Allegations surrounding BTS resurface, enraged fans demand apology
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Students with history of violence will be barred from becoming teachers
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Probe of first lady on Dior bag allegations set to begin
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'Super Rich in Korea' will leave viewers appreciating Korea more: producers
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Top prosecutor pledges 'speedy, strict' probe into first lady's luxury bag allegations
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Medical feud leaves hospitals in financial crisis
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'Queen of Tears' riding high on Netflix chart
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Samsung mocks Apple over iPhone alarm glitch
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Providing good journalism isn’t complicated
My father used to say that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who do what they say they are going to do, and everybody else. I thought of that maxim when I heard that the Graham family was selling the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, the chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc. When Amazon went public in 1997, Bezos was the frontman, evangelizing his vision of not only the world’s biggest bookstore but also the world’s dominant retailer. This, from the CEO of a company that was lo
Aug. 11, 2013
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Meet the mysterious Mr. th3j35t3r
Major media outlets have featured him as representative of a new generation of “patriot hackers.” He sent an old laptop to the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., where it’s now on display. He claims to have launched hacking attacks on websites ranging from jihadist forums to WikiLeaks. Last week, a guest on the syndicated radio program “Coast to Coast AM” described the individual hiding behind “The Jester” moniker (or “th3j35t3r” in hacker lingo) as “not somebody in someone’s basement
Aug. 11, 2013
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Obama needs push to shake up higher education
President Barack Obama keeps declaring war on rising college costs. In a speech at Knox College last month, he vowed to unveil an “aggressive strategy to shake up the system, tackle rising costs and improve value.” He said something similar in his 2012 State of the Union address, so I’m a little skeptical that much will happen. As students get ready to go to college this month, let me suggest ways to “shake up the system” and “tackle rising costs.” In doing so, I would point out that two things
Aug. 11, 2013
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[Eli Park Sorensen] How the modern world undermines secrecy efforts
The French sociologist Luc Boltanski has argued that conspiracy theories and general public suspicion toward the state apparatus tend to thrive in bureaucratic societies where the information gap between those in power and those without increases. Now, since WikiLeaks set in motion a series of spectacular cases revealing the nature and extent of covert government operations, it would seem that the word “suspicion” hardly makes sense anymore, at least not in the way it used to. For with the acces
Aug. 11, 2013
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China’s worst nightmare is turning Japanese
Few words strike greater fear in the hearts of economists and politicians than “Japanization.” That specter of chronic malaise, deflation and bad debt has driven central bankers from Ben S. Bernanke in the U.S. to Mario Draghi in Europe to flood markets with liquidity in an effort to avert their own lost decades. It should worry China, then, that experts on this dreaded scenario are turning their attention to Beijing. Take Brian Reading, whose quest to understand what the world can learn from To
Aug. 9, 2013
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[David Ignatius] Hope for Arab democracy
WASHINGTON ― History tells us that revolution often triggers counterrevolution: The spontaneous, euphoric moments of liberation are eclipsed by the forces of repression ― with reaction often dressed in uniform. The counterrevolution is gathering momentum in the Arab world, two years after the uprisings that toppled rulers in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has fought back brutally to preserve his dictatorship; Egypt’s generals ousted the Muslim Brotherhood government
Aug. 9, 2013
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Pope’s view on women’s role in church
Last week, Pope Francis loosed a media tsunami by dropping a pebble of sanity into an ocean of religious angst. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he told reporters on the flight back to Rome after his trip to Brazil.What did it mean? Was he changing church teaching? And how might it affect 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide?Hundreds of news stories and thousands of blogs, tweets and commentaries later, most observers heard in Francis’ statem
Aug. 8, 2013
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[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Forced normality in Europe
NEWPORT BEACH ― August is traditionally Europe’s holiday month, with many government officials taking several weeks off. In the process, important initiatives are put on hold until the “great return” at the beginning of September.This year, there is another reason why Europe has pressed the pause button for August. With a looming election in Germany, few wish to undermine Chancellor Angela Merkel’s likely victory. After all, Germany is central to Europe’s well-being, and Merkel’s steady hand has
Aug. 8, 2013
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Uncle Sam can’t beat out the Chinese in Myanmar
With sanctions against Myanmar lifted, U.S. President Barack Obama is launching a new American charm offensive in that country to vie against the People’s Republic of China as chief economic benefactor. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe doesn’t want to be outdone. Both visited Naypyidaw and Yangon, promising help to Myanmar after President Thein Sein’s quasi-democratic change in government.Myanmar, known for hundreds of years as Burma, is a country very rich in oil and natural gas, which are wa
Aug. 8, 2013
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Keeping it real on jobs and competition
A survey by The Straits Times, which shows that six in 10 people think their jobs are good, reveals a high degree of job satisfaction in Singapore. The finding helps place in perspective social chatter that tends to focus on stress at work and unfair employment practices. While those concerns are not to be brushed aside, it is clear that a maturing Singapore economy has produced confident and positive workers who can work well as a team. The definition of a good job ― one which offers satisfacto
Aug. 8, 2013
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Japan’s option in face of increasing nuclear threat
On Tuesday, Hiroshima marked the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. Nagasaki will do the same Friday.As the only nation ever to have been attacked with atomic weapons, how will Japan pass on the accounts of the terrible devastation wrought by the bombings and entreat the world to prevent nuclear weapons, which are inhumane by themselves, from being used again? The average age of atomic-bomb survivors has already passed 78.In a declaration of peace announced Tuesday at a peace me
Aug. 8, 2013
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[Salman Haidar] Progress in India-U.S. relations
It is not so long since the India-U.S. nuclear deal ushered in a new era in relations between the two countries. The edginess that had so often intruded seemed to have been definitively set aside, to be replaced by a genuine spirit of goodwill and cooperation. The nuclear issue had been the most prominent among the differences between the two countries, a seemingly impermeable barrier between them. The U.S. felt obliged to impose sanctions on many types of nuclear-related transactions between th
Aug. 8, 2013
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Bo Xilai’s trial exposes truth about China
Almost 18 months after it roiled the Chinese political establishment, the Bo Xilai scandal is drawing to a close. The trial of the former Chongqing Communist Party chief could start as early as this week. If anything, the ignominious end of Bo ― once viewed as a shoo-in for a spot on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top decision-making body ― is an anticlimax. Even if the trial were public, we would witness no courtroom drama. Bo, who hasn’t appeared in public since March 2012,
Aug. 7, 2013
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[David Ignatius] The Grahams’ final gift to paper
WASHINGTON ― It’s easy to talk about how change is good, but when it actually happens it‘s a shock. It felt that way for hundreds of Washington Post employees on Monday when we heard our boss, Donald Graham, tell us that he was selling the newspaper. To appreciate what happened this week, you have to understand how personal the owner’s relationship was with the Post. This is a CEO who kept at the entry to his office an old wooden cart used to distribute the paper when it was called The Post and
Aug. 7, 2013
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[Kim Myong-sik] Top-level scandals weaken confidence in state
This year’s jangma is finally over after a record two-month stretch. While the rain front moved up and down the peninsula from mid-June, the nation had too much disturbing news that further annoyed people who were under nature’s merciless attack with floods, landslides, unbearable heat and humidity. Most saddening was the sacrifice of six workers ― three from China ― in the flooding of a piped water facility construction site in Seoul. Then we lost five high-school boys at a poorly supervised se
Aug. 7, 2013
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U.S. public don’t know what food stamps buy
The debate in Congress about cutting the food stamp program has sparked predictable clashes between those who want to help the poor and those who want to cut government spending. But strangely missing from the arguments is a shocking fact: The public, including Congress, knows almost nothing about how the program’s $80 billion is spent.What foods are being purchased by the 47 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (the official name for food stamps)?
Aug. 7, 2013
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Why homo economicus might actually be an idiot
Imagine yourself betting on the long-term survival of two types of people. One is the classic egoist, focused and ruthless. The other is more selfless, willing to help fellow humans without any evident gain. Who will be more successful? For anyone steeped in the prevailing thinking of our era, the obvious winner is the egoist. Darwinian evolution and the lore of modern capitalism tell us that only fierce competitors survive. Altruists, the game theorists teach us, are mathematically incapable of
Aug. 7, 2013
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Who does America’s banker wants as Fed chairman?
That 1999 Time magazine cover is finally catching up with Lawrence Summers. That was the year Summers was celebrated along with Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin as “The Committee to Save the World” for their free-market solutions to Asia’s financial crisis. The timing always struck Asians as odd, given that they were still picking up the pieces from a meltdown made worse by the trio’s ill-conceived and overbearing remedies. That baggage is but one reason many in Asia favor Janet Yellen over Summe
Aug. 6, 2013
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This is time to test new Iran leader’s bona fides
The same House of Representatives that just voted to speed up the end of U.S. combat missions in Afghanistan seems eager to embroil America in another war in the greater Mideast ― with Iran.In high dudgeon, House members voted, 400-20, last week for more harsh economic sanctions on Tehran ― just before the inauguration of Iran’s president-elect, Hassan Rouhani. The new Iranian leader says he wants to ease tensions with Washington, and has signaled he may be ready to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
Aug. 6, 2013
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Bulky words drive out short, simple, clear ones
In 16th-century England, Thomas Gresham formulated what is now known as Gresham’s law, which stipulates that bad money drives out good. Paper money tends to circulate more freely than silver, and silver more freely than gold, because people hoard whatever type of money is seen as best. It’s why we spend those torn dollar bills first. I have no problem with this. It might even be a good thing, because it expands the money supply and credit. But I do have a problem when a similar dynamic takes ove
Aug. 6, 2013