Most Popular
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
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Will tug-of-war between doctors, government end soon?
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Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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[Graphic News] More Koreans say they plan long-distance trips this year
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[KH Explains] Hyundai's full hybrid edge to pay off amid slow transition to pure EVs
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North Korea removes streetlights along cross-border roads with South
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Russia's denial of entry of S. Korean national unrelated to bilateral ties: Seoul official
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Farming households dip below 1m for first time in 2023
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[Daniel Fiedler] How to live in a democracy
In 1987 the Sixth Republic of Korea was established as a democratic government and Roh Tae-woo was elected as the first president; however, it was not until 1998 that the first peaceful transfer of power between opposing parties under a democratic process occurred when Kim Dae-jung became president. Prior to that event, the Korean people had lived under various forms of authoritarian government since time immemorial. While some of those past regimes, such as the Joseon dynasty, are viewed throug
Dec. 6, 2011
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A nuclear wake-up call from Iran, N. Korea
Western nations are hurriedly collaborating to tighten sanctions on Iran after the United Nations released documents that left little doubt the country is trying to produce nuclear weapons.American diplomats are pushing North Korea to shut down its uranium-enrichment plants so that nuclear-disarmament talks can resume. And as Pakistan grows less stable with every passing week, the U.S. is urgently devising plans to secure that state’s nuclear weapons, should the government lose control.Meantime,
Dec. 6, 2011
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Toward a peaceful Asia-Pacific region
MELBOURNE ― The Western Pacific is currently facing a difficult problem: how to accommodate China’s rising aspirations in a region where the United States has held primacy since the Cold War’s end. Is the U.S. determined to maintain dominance in the Asia/Pacific region? Or is it willing to operate through multilateral forums that allow all involved parties to help set the rules? The way this issue unfolds will determine whether peace will continue to prevail across the Pacific.It is hard to see
Dec. 6, 2011
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[Kim Seong-kon] In pursuit of a third possibility
Once again, South Korea is in political turmoil. One of our lawmakers recently became a lawbreaker by detonating tear gas in the National Assembly to protest the free trade agreement between Korea and the United States. Newspaper reports say that this lawbreaker declared himself a patriot who tried to save his country from the evil hands of national traitors, who are selling out their nation to American commercialism. He seemed to believe that the world is divided into two camps: patriots and tr
Dec. 6, 2011
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Record of brinksmanship shows Merkel’s mettle
During the financial crisis of 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Nicolas Sarkozy for a private lunch in the Paris house of Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni. This gesture of friendship didn’t keep the French president from using a news conference shortly thereafter to harangue Merkel for refusing to supplement a 130 billion euro ($175 billion) spending program proposed by the European Union with an additional German spending program. When asked how their countries were reacting to the crisis,
Dec. 5, 2011
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Climate change: A matter of justice
DURBAN ― Before the Copenhagen climate-change summit two years ago, the two of us sat together in Cape Town to listen to five African farmers from different countries, four of whom were women, tell us how climate change was undermining their livelihoods. Each explained how floods and drought, and the lack of regular seasons to sow and reap, were outside their normal experience. Their fears are shared by subsistence farmers and indigenous people worldwide ― the people bearing the brunt of climate
Dec. 5, 2011
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Fed should stand ready for third round of stimulus
The Federal Reserve’s efforts to help dollar-starved European banks have pleased global investors, but the central bank’s moves can only temporarily distract attention from a dilemma back home: what to do about the exceedingly weak U.S. recovery. Lately, the patient has shown tentative signs of improvement. Today, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest since March 2009. Nonfarm employers added 120,000 jobs. Pending home sales are up.
Dec. 5, 2011
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Next president of KAIST should be a woman
KAIST plays a critical role in Korea as a trendsetter for the nation in the sciences. Innovations at KAIST quickly become innovations throughout Korea. It was a tremendous breakthrough when Professor Robert Laughlin of Stanford was appointed president of KAIST, bringing a new international emphasis to the institution. KAIST set a precedent through that appointment of hiring foreign faculty that impacted the entire nation. The decision by President Suh Nam-pyo of KAIST to employ English as the pr
Dec. 5, 2011
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Dudley should resign as New York Fed president
A major financial crisis is brewing, brought on by a toxic combination of failing European sovereign governments and highly leveraged international banks, which could be affected by a breakup of the euro area. In the weeks and months ahead, a major U.S. financial institution may face serious trouble, and government officials will have to decide whether that trouble is just a temporary lack of liquidity ― or a far more serious question of solvency. In the original lender-of-last-resort formulatio
Dec. 5, 2011
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[J. Bradford DeLong] The right tax rate for the rich
BERKELEY ― Via a circuitous Internet chain ― Paul Krugman of Princeton University quoting Mark Thoma of the University of Oregon reading the Journal of Economic Perspectives ― I got a copy of an article written by Emmanuel Saez, whose office is 50 feet from mine, on the same corridor, and the Nobel laureate economist Peter Diamond. Saez and Diamond argue that the right marginal tax rate for North Atlantic societies to impose on their richest citizens is 70 percent.It is an arresting assertion, g
Dec. 5, 2011
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Politicians of America: Can you smell the coffee?
Wake up, America, you are being exploited, duped and brainwashed. Though political analysts ― left and right ― differ on their prescriptions on how to save America from decline, there is one thing they seem to agree on: The vast majority of Americans spend most of their lives politically asleep.Crossroads GPS, an advocacy group founded by Republican operative Karl Rove, recently produced a commercial called “Wake Up,” an anti-Obama attack ad that portrays a woman tossing and turning in the middl
Dec. 4, 2011
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[Yuriko Koike] Could Burma turn democratic?
TOKYO ― Historic transformations often happen when least expected. Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalizing policies of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union emerged at one of the Cold War’s darkest hours, with U.S. President Ronald Reagan pushing for strategic missile defense and the two sides fighting proxy wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Deng Xiaoping’s economic opening followed China’s bloody ― and failed ― invasion of Vietnam in 1978. And South Africa’s last apartheid leader, F. W. de Kle
Dec. 4, 2011
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Cost of educational zeal more than just money
“Mom, I really want to go to the costume play this weekend, you know I am really, really into it. Until now I hung around just watching the festival but this is my first time ever joining it. I’ve bought everything for that day, a violet wig, pink dress, kill-heels. Mom, can I go? Please...”“No.”Last week when I caught a glimpse of the evening news, I instantly froze on the spot. The anchor told a story about a murder case, which may be something that we are usually immune to, but it hit home in
Dec. 4, 2011
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Bright prospects for Korea-India relations
A recent trip to New Delhi and Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) for a meeting of the executive committee of the World Federation of U.N. Associations served as a reminder to me that India is developing at a breathtaking pace economically, politically, and socially, and is becoming one of the most influential powers in the world. Its economy is growing at more than 7 percent annually; it has an advanced IT sector, a long cultural history and democratic strength. That development has been reflected in
Dec. 4, 2011
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[Naomi Wolf] The American hangover brings survivalist sense of style
NEW YORK ― As turmoil stalks America’s financial markets and protests fill its streets, Americans’ lifestyle choices are evolving in a telling way: once seen by the rest of the world as an exuberant teenager ― the globe’s extrovert, exporter of rock ‘n’ roll and flashy Hollywood movies ― Americans are now becoming decidedly withdrawn, or at least inward-looking. Trends in leisure activities reflect that change: frugality and making do are in; gaudy consumerism is out.This change is due to the fr
Dec. 4, 2011
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U.S. must clean up the foreclosure mess now
About one in every five families with a mortgage in this country is “underwater” ― owing more on the loan than the home is worth. That’s part of a slow rot that is spreading through our economy. (None of which is helped, by the way, by the failure members of the congressional supercommittee to do anything but blame each other for doing nothing.)In the four years since the housing bubble burst, the banks, the Wall Street “packagers,” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal government have don
Dec. 2, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Openness all the world can see
WASHINGTON ― In the early days of the Arab revolutions, it seemed as if a smartphone might be enough to break the power of repressive governments. These little devices could gather crowds, yes, but even more important, their cameras could document the violence that regimes used to suppress their people. The smartphone changed the balance of intimidation. The rulers and their henchmen were suddenly at risk of being prosecuted, like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, or hunted and killed, like Moammar Gaddaf
Dec. 2, 2011
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U.S. should mend ties with Pakistan
The latest friendly fire incident in Pakistan has plunged the already strained relationship between the United States and Pakistan to a new low. The feud between the United States and Pakistan over the U.S.-led NATO cross-border air strikes that killed at least 24 Pakistani troops on Sunday, should prompt Washington to reflect upon its relationship with Islamabad and its anti-terror strategy in South Asia. While the U.S. has offered its condolences to Pakistan and the families of those killed, t
Dec. 2, 2011
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Big emitters should join a new, post-Kyoto pact
What kind of greenhouse gas emissions rules should be made after the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012?The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change opened in South Africa on Monday.The Kyoto Protocol is a set of international rules that is riddled with defects, as it obliges only advanced nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Japanese government needs to maintain its stance of opposing extension of the protocol.Emerging na
Dec. 2, 2011
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Welfare recipients hit new high in Japan
The health and welfare ministry announced on Nov. 9 that the number of people on welfare receiving livelihood assistance known as seikatsu hogo (literally livelihood protection) reached 2,050,495 nationwide as of July 2011, topping the monthly average record of 2,046,646 marked in fiscal 1951, when Japan was in the midst of postwar social and economic confusion. Behind this is an increase in the number of elderly people and prolonging economic stagnation.Especially worrisome is the fact that the
Dec. 2, 2011