Most Popular
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Opposition-led Assembly unilaterally passes bill to probe Marine's death
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Inflation eases in April, continues bumpy ride
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Golden chance to liquidate babies’ gold rings?
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Seoul to more than double military drones by 2026 to counter NK threats
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Russia sent more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to N. Korea in March: White House
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Seoul alerts overseas missions to NK terror threats
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Over 60% of S. Koreans support W100m childbirth incentive: survey
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‘Inside Out 2’ adds four new emotions, explores teenage life
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Questions raised over fair promotion of RM, NewJeans
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Key suspects grilled over alleged abuse of power in Marine death inquiry
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How to overthrow the Iranian regime without war or sanctions
PARIS ― It seems the “success” of the Libyan campaign has again whetted the appetite of Western powers to intervene more aggressively in Iranian affairs. However, the threat of military intervention and the use of economic sanctions that bring suffering for ordinary Iranians only strengthens the grip of Iran’s mafia regime on its power. Any leader who implicitly or explicitly advocates such policies therefore, in effect, plays into the hands of a fragile regime that can only sustain itself throu
Nov. 14, 2011
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[Joel Brinkley] China obsessed with Occupy Wall Street movement
Right now, China is obsessed with the Occupy Wall Street movement, deathly afraid that it will spread there. How can I tell?The China Daily recently ran a column headlined: “U.S. Media Blackout of Protest is Shameful.” The Lexis-Nexis news service shows that on the very day that column ran, the American news media carried 282 stories about the movement, and in the weeks before, the total was 631.So I called the author, Chen Weihua, deputy editor of China Daily USA. He’s based in New York.“Well,
Nov. 14, 2011
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Looking for a bride? Tajiks turn to kidnapping
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan ― Kidnapping the woman you want to marry is a well-known, if illegal, tradition in parts of Central Asia. Until recently, such abductions occurred mainly among ethnic Kyrgyzs and Kazaks.But now the idea seems to be catching on among Tajiks as well.“Our neighbor was abducted on her wedding day by the guy who was in love with her,” said Qaisiddin, a resident of the Jirgatal district in Tajikistan. “No one knows where he took her.”According to the resident of this district with
Nov. 13, 2011
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Energy markets or governance?
MADRID ― This month, the International Energy Agency will publish its annual report, the internationally definitive World Energy Outlook, which will confirm that we are not on the right track to reduce global warming. If the current trend in energy production continues, the earth’s average temperature will be more than 2 degrees Celsius higher in 2100 than it was in 1990, irreversibly harming the planet and conditions for human life.Other, more immediate crises are occupying the world’s attentio
Nov. 13, 2011
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Global eye: The Busan International Film Festival
It is no coincidence that the Busan International Film Festival flaunted a political montage this year, among the rubble of fallen empires, worldwide revolutions in the name of freedom and nuclear-born tensions. And it is no coincidence that these films were once again epiphanous with the same historical motifs that have been at the heart of human storytelling since its dawn. But there is something different each year ― and that is, that we are brought into new parts of ourselves and given new e
Nov. 13, 2011
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[Peter Orszag] Winds of change blow away value of college degrees
Many parents in the U.S. are legitimately concerned about the prospects for their college-age children. After all, today’s students face three overlapping challenges: a long-term structural shift as the world’s effective labor supply expands; rising tuition and growing concerns about the quality of public higher education; and the misfortune of graduating into a weak labor market. The first challenge arises from rapid shifting of the tectonic plates that underlie the world labor market. Over the
Nov. 13, 2011
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Corzine downfall is teachable moment for Japan
The contrast couldn’t be bigger between the downfalls of Jon Corzine and Tsuyoshi Kikukawa. As Corzine left MF Global Holdings Ltd., all anyone could talk about was $633 million. That’s how much regulators initially said was unaccounted for as the New York futures broker went bust and spooked markets. In the case of Kikukawa, the former chairman of Tokyo-based Olympus Corp., a similar figure cropped up: $687 million. That’s how much vanished in mysterious fees paid to advisers in an acquisition.
Nov. 11, 2011
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Globalization of social protest
NEW YORK ― The protest movement that began in Tunisia in January, subsequently spreading to Egypt, and then to Spain, has now become global, with the protests engulfing Wall Street and cities across America. Globalization and modern technology now enables social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the “system” has failed, and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things
Nov. 11, 2011
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The Group of 20 stumbles as crisis worsens
The Group of 20 was launched from the embers of the 2008 global economic meltdown, a recognition that the world needed a new mechanism to manage economic affairs. The Group of Eight, which had played the role since the 1980s, was considered outdated and incapable of dealing with emerging economic concerns, primarily because its membership did not reflect economic strength and influence.Yet since its initial meeting at which leaders agreed to staunch the hemorrhaging that threatened to create a n
Nov. 11, 2011
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When politics and law collide
The decision by the Law and Human Rights Ministry last week to issue a moratorium on sentence remissions for graft convicts while observing frequent cases of controversial sentence reductions for convicted corruptors deserves the full support of us all, for better or worse.Such a policy will expectedly ensure justice is served and eventually improve the image of the country’s judicial system, which has been repeatedly tarnished by cases of irregularities and violations of laws and regulations.De
Nov. 11, 2011
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[Kavi Chongkittavorn] Can ASEAN centrality be kept at East Asia Summit?
When the Association of Southeast Asian Nations decided to invite the United States and Russia to join the premium leader-led East Asia Summit in July 2010, it had no idea that their presence would impact on the overall pattern of engagement with other dialog partners.As it turns out, the desire to construct an expansive ASEAN-led regional architecture is being challenged fervently by other non-ASEAN EAS members. They have already collectively demanded to be treated as equal, as the sixth EAS sc
Nov. 11, 2011
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A horrible sea change for game fishermen
The sea has been exceedingly good to my family. Back in my grandfather’s day, the fish were bigger and the tales of catching them biggest of all. One of the largest problems for an angler after hooking an elusive marlin or sailfish was reeling it in before sharks robbed you of your prize ― a frenzied race against these tireless hunters of the deep.These experiences, facing off against nature in the wide-open ocean, were a key inspiration for “Papa’s” Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Old Man an
Nov. 10, 2011
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[Robert Reich] Wall Street is back to its old tricks
This week, President Obama travels to Wall Street, where he’ll demand ― in light of the Street’s continuing antics since the bailout, as well as its role in watering down the Volcker rule ― that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected and big banks be broken up.I’m kidding. But it would be a smart move.Americans of whatever stripe ― from Tea Partiers on the right to Occupiers on the left ― continue to hold Wall Street at least partly responsible for the nation’s continuing misery. With good reason
Nov. 10, 2011
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‘Old enough to be friends’
In these luminous days of high skies and fat horses, as Koreans describe their crisp autumn season, I feel I have come home ― to a place I hardly recognize.Forty-one years ago I left Korea, after working here for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English at a women’s college. Recently, as I stood in Gwanghwamun Plaza, gawking at the skyscrapers soaring above the renovated heart of this ancient Joseon capital, the techno-bling of the new century looked more like Abu Dhabi than the Se
Nov. 10, 2011
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America now more keen on its civil service than Russia
Russian’s non-Putin President Dmitry Medvedev (a.k.a. President Placeholder) met with a group of small businessmen in Moscow over the summer to discuss their challenges. One can only imagine where to start. So Medvedev, according to state news agency RIA Novosti, offered some direction: “The youth believe that (the civil service) is an example of how to be successful quickly without the need to apply any effort.” He suggested that a bureaucratic career could lead to the kind of corrupt mentality
Nov. 10, 2011
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The Turkish model is unlikely to work in Egypt
CAIRO ― In mid-September, on a high-profile visit here, Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan received a hero’s welcome at the airport from a Muslim Brotherhood delegation.No wonder. Erdogan is a pious Muslim whose AKP political party has Islamic roots; his party has scored great success in a country with secular traditions and a secular constitution. The Turkish experience is often cited as a model for Egypt, where Islamist parties are expected to win a big plurality in coming elections.Ye
Nov. 10, 2011
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[Joel Brinkley] Pity the children of Afghanistan
Hardly anyone noticed, but the Afghan government cut the budget for the state’s Independent Human Rights Commission by half this year, evidencing “the government’s lack of interest and political will in the promotion of human rights,” the commission said.Nowhere on earth is the work of a human-rights commission more important than in Afghanistan. Why is that? If you want to judge a country, the best measure in my view is how it treats its children.By that standard, the United States is hardly bl
Nov. 10, 2011
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Elections a Reagan-era redux with a twist
The results of presidential elections in Nicaragua and Guatemala on Sunday ― won, respectively, by a leftist revolutionary and a right-wing military man ― could almost lead one to think we’re back in the Reagan era. Well, yes and no. Some of the characters are the same, but the roles are reversed. Former liberators are turning into tyrants; once-threatening militaries have become potential rescuers. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista National Liberation Front leader who helped topple th
Nov. 9, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Egypt’s prolonged struggle ahead
CAIRO ― How has life changed in Egypt since the revolution, and what’s going to happen in the parliamentary elections that begin late this month? I recently asked those questions in a poor neighborhood of Cairo called Ain el-Sira, and the responses amounted to a warning: The new Egypt must give these people a sense of security and progress soon, or it’s in trouble. “It’s worse since the revolution ― there is no safety, no security, no police,” says Nashwa Mustafa, a simple woman garbed in black
Nov. 9, 2011
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Why Obama might save Israel from nuclear Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency is set to release a report today offering further proof that the Iranian regime is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. No intelligence is entirely dispositive, but the evidence on hand about Iran’s nuclear activities, even before the release of the latest report, is fairly persuasive, and the IAEA isn’t known to be a den of neoconservative war-plotting. It isn’t interested in giving Israel a pretext for a preemptive attack on Iran unless it has to. The quest
Nov. 9, 2011