Most Popular
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Key suspects grilled over alleged abuse of power in Marine death inquiry
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Marine Corps commander summoned by CIO for questioning on alleged influence-peddling case
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Army takes group action against Hybe for neglecting BTS
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Debate rages over ‘overly fatty’ samgyeopsal
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Some junior doctors are returning: Health Ministry
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Ador CEO's request for exclusive right to terminate NewJeans' contract with Hybe refused in February
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[Weekender] Korean psyche untangled: Musok
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Naver will consider company benefits in deciding on selling Line shares: CEO
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Woman dangling from power lines rescued by residents holding blanket
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Hankook Tire takes over control of Hanon Systems
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Let markets decide legal migration rights
The last time Congress tried to fix the U.S. immigration system, an overly stringent guest-worker program led to the legislation’s demise. Labor unions, fearing a wave of unskilled foreign workers who might depress wages and take jobs from Americans, backed the measure. Business groups, worried they wouldn’t be able to find qualified engineers or low-skilled janitors, opposed it. The coalition needed to pass a bill splintered. This time, President Barack Obama, who as a senator in 2007 voted for
Feb. 20, 2013
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A meditation on horsemeat lasagna
One of the many reasons America is the greatest country on Earth and European nations are not is that Americans don’t have to eat horsemeat lasagna.No, our frozen lasagna generally contains beef, which differs from horsemeat in many ways, such as horsemeat is said to be sweeter than beef, and usually leaner, too, meaning it has about half the calories. On the other hand, Mr. Ed and Seabiscuit were not beef cattle, if you get my drift.Europe has been aghast and agog since horse DNA was found last
Feb. 20, 2013
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Keyboard jockeys can out-decorate heroes
PARIS ― U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced last week that the Pentagon has created a new military award for keyboard cyber-warriors and drone joystick jockeys.The Distinguished Warfare Medal will recognize those whose ability to incinerate a designated target from the comfort of an office chair wasn’t prohibitively affected by a jumpy trigger finger on the joystick from a mid-shift java jolt. Or, as Panetta put it: “The medal provides distinct, department-wide recognition for the extr
Feb. 20, 2013
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[Kim Myong-sik] Appointment ruckus sheds light on social decay
As a “vertical” change of government is now taking place in Korea with power being transferred within the same party, change of policies cannot be too phenomenal. The eyes and ears of the nation are drawn to the names of people who will lead the country together with the new president.The transition period is a great time for voyeurism. All sorts of personal matters of the appointees are exposed not only to the National Assemblymen in confirmation hearings but for the whole nation anxious to mak
Feb. 20, 2013
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China’s leader needs grip on wacko next door
Few news items over the past year had more entertainment value than one concerning the Onion and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It was funny enough that the faux-news website named the double-chinned Kim the sexiest man of 2012. More entertaining still was that the People’s Daily, the stern mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, fell for it. Last week, another joke came at China’s expense, one straight from Kim. His nuclear test left his economic benefactors in Beijing flustered and the world
Feb. 19, 2013
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[Lee Jae-min] Evolutionary text interpretation
Evolution does not take place only in nature. Nor is it just confined to human societies. Evolution also takes place in words and their meaning, in particular when we attempt to apply all kinds of noble covenants ― whether constitutions, laws or international agreements ― to specific situations at hand. Once codified, texts are set in stone, but the world we live in continues to change. A critical question then is, should words in these texts be understood as they were agreed upon at the time of
Feb. 19, 2013
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Honoring the ‘courage’ to bring up children
The smallest and most fundamental form of government is the family and it is falling apart. Americans across the political spectrum are beginning to recognize it.President Obama, in this year’s State of the Union address, said he wanted to work to “strengthen families by removing the financial deterrents to marriage for low-income couples, and doing more to encourage fatherhood ― because what makes you a man isn’t the ability to conceive a child; it’s having the courage to raise one.”He is exact
Feb. 19, 2013
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Obama states case for an educated union
Reviving the American economy means deepening efforts to broaden access to education and improve our public schools.President Obama’s blueprint for a second term in office, outlined in his State of the Union address Tuesday, connects a revamped educational system with a strong economy.Obama proposes expanding federal support for preschool to all 4-year-olds from moderate- and low-income families. The idea is supported by considerable research showing quality early learning boosts graduation rate
Feb. 19, 2013
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The most important legal philosopher of our time
Ronald Dworkin, a professor at New York University and the University of Oxford who died this week, was one of the most important legal philosophers of the last 100 years. He may well head the list. He made countless enduring contributions to philosophy and legal theory. Among his greatest is a distinctive answer to a longstanding question: Do judges find law, or do they make it? His answer is a huge improvement over the crude alternatives that dominate public debates. Consider a question about
Feb. 19, 2013
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[Kim Seong-kon] Learning to laugh at adversity
In the past, Koreans were generally known as a humorless, stern people who seldom smiled or joked. In fact, Koreans traditionally do not respect jokesters who tell funny stories or pull pranks. Koreans call a humorous man “a man without substance” or “a silly talker,” and tend to dismiss such individuals. Indeed, we think that humor should be reserved for comedians and clowns, not men of dignity and prudence. Thirty years ago, when I returned from the States and began teaching at Seoul National
Feb. 19, 2013
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Don’t let the Rajapaksas ruin Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka was for decades an example of how sectarian conflict can wreck an otherwise fortunate country. It has had three years to show how devolving power to an ethnic minority can bring about lasting peace. Now it looks as if the opportunity will be lost. Sri Lanka paid an enormous price to bring 26 years of civil war to an end. An estimated 40,000 people died in the last months of fighting in 2009, bringing the conflict’s final toll to more than 100,000. This includes a sitting president, Ran
Feb. 18, 2013
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[Mario Margiocco] Reform prospects dim in Italy
MILAN ― A winter election is not to Italian tastes. But, on Feb. 24-25, up to 50 million voters will go to the polls to elect a new parliament, delivering Italy’s 62nd government in the last 65 years.Since November 2011, Italy has been led not by a politician, but by an academic economist and a former European Union commissioner, Mario Monti. His emergency technocratic government, supported by the left and right, was a masterstroke of outgoing President Giorgio Napolitano.Napolitano’s move was c
Feb. 18, 2013
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Singapore’s addiction to population growth
Singaporeans are raring to do something extraordinary: protest. That might not seem like a big deal with the Arab Spring uprisings; Chinese journalists taking to the streets; and thousands of typically docile Japanese rallying against government policies. But tropical Singapore is the land of quiet brooding, where mass street demonstrations are as common as snowstorms. What has people so riled up? Well, people. The impetus for the Feb. 16 march is a report that the tiny island’s population may r
Feb. 18, 2013
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North Korea’s nuclear test: Opportunity for regional paradigm shift
North Korea has conducted its anticipated nuclear test. Unfortunately, our deterrent policy failed again. It was more than a simple provocation. The test should be seen as a diplomatic and military challenge targeting new leaders in Korea, China and Japan, and the second Obama administration. Now it is time to decide how to respond, taking into account the possibility that North Korea could take further actions after our response. While considering appropriate sanctions, we need to realize that
Feb. 18, 2013
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[Shashi Tharoor] Coping with a ceaseless barrage of information
NEW DELHI ― A half-century before the invention of e-mail, T. S. Eliot asked, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” If he were alive today, contemplating an electronic inbox on a flickering computer, he might well have added, “Where is the information that has been lost in trivia?”It is one of the paradoxes of our times that inventions meant to make our lives easier inevitably end up slowing us down. When e-mail first entered my life
Feb. 18, 2013
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Strategies to revive manufacturing in the U.S.
It’s debatable whether President Barack Obama can revive U.S. manufacturing, as he proposed in his State of the Union address. It isn’t debatable whether he should try. The U.S. can already go toe-to-toe with (or beat) other countries on energy costs, workforce quality, supply networks and legal rights ― even if it can’t (and shouldn’t) compete over wages and environmental controls. If Congress cherry-picked just a handful of ideas from Obama’s long list of proposals, the U.S. could jump the com
Feb. 17, 2013
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[Peter Singer] A new year of hope for animals
PRINCETON ― The moral progress of a society, it has often been said, can be judged by how it treats its weakest members. Individual chimpanzees are much stronger than human beings, but as a species, we can, and do, hold them captive, and essentially helpless, in zoos and laboratories. Equally subject to human power are the animals that we raise for food, among them sows confined for their entire pregnancies ― four months per pregnancy, two pregnancies per year ― in stalls too narrow for them eve
Feb. 17, 2013
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‘They deserve a vote’ can be more than rhetoric
State of the Union addresses are traditionally laundry lists of policy proposals. U.S. President Barack Obama’s this week started that way, but it ended as the most emotional speech before a joint session of Congress in modern memory. The theatrics of the event also introduced a new approach to framing the public debate that could yield unexpected victories for the president in the next year or two. Obama made liberal use of what in Washington are sometimes called “Skutniks.” This is a reference
Feb. 17, 2013
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Hopes, fears in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan ― It was one of the most emotional moments in Sunday’s handoff ceremony, as Gen. John Allen passed command of U.S. troops in Afghanistan over to Gen. Joe Dunford. To loud applause, Allen recognized two Afghan students sitting in the front row, saying they were like his children, and they represented the future for which U.S. and Afghan troops fought.Allen was correct. The fate of Mustafa and Somaya, two orphans who attend the extraordinary Marefat School in Kabul, will reveal
Feb. 17, 2013
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[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Egypt’s economic siren sounds need for cooperation
NEWPORT BEACH ― Facing a turbulent political situation and recurrent street protests, Egypt’s political elite would be well advised to focus on the economic implications of the current turmoil, whether they are in government or in opposition. Doing so would lead them to recognize seven compelling reasons why a more collaborative approach to solving Egypt’s problems is in the country’s collective interest, as well as in their own individual interests.First, if the social and political disorder pe
Feb. 17, 2013