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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Medical feud leaves hospitals in financial crisis
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Top prosecutor pledges 'speedy, strict' probe into first lady's luxury bag allegations
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Samsung mocks Apple over iPhone alarm glitch
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Chip up cycle won’t stay long: SK chief
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'Queen of Tears' riding high on Netflix chart
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Speaker floats dual citizenship as solution to falling births
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[Elisabeth Gwee] K-pop is my escape from treadmill
Last week, my colleague Adeline Chia wrote a controversial article dissing K-pop. It resulted in more than 800 comments on her Facebook page from outraged fans and her name trending as the No.1 topic on Twitter for two days.Some friends jokingly asked me if I had signed an online petition demanding that she apologize to everyone she had offended. I’m not surprised they did.Those who know me know that I am crazy about K-pop. I could cite numerous examples of mad fangirl behavior (queuing five hou
Dec. 16, 2011
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Obama sides with the 99% ahead of election
Conservatives were quick to accuse President Obama of embracing class warfare in his speech last week in Osawatomie, Kan. And liberal Democrats were thrilled to see a hint of the populist president they had hoped they were voting for in 2008.The polarized reactions suggest that Obama’s speech succeeded in one of its goals: to frame the 2012 election as a clear choice between two philosophies, a contest he might be able to win, instead of a referendum on his own unhappy economic record.But electi
Dec. 15, 2011
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[David Ignatius] In Iraq, a man of the shadows
WASHINGTON ― Is Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ― suspicious eyes, wary demeanor, brows furrowed by years living in the underground ― really the face of today’s Iraq? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, and America helped make it that way. Maliki’s visit to Washington this week has been a time for taking stock of Iraq eight years after the U.S. invasion. What did America achieve in overthrowing Saddam Hussein and battling a stubborn insurgency? It brought a democracy, yes, but one shaped by the mos
Dec. 15, 2011
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[Meghan Daum] Republicans grooving to ‘We Are the GOP’
Is it just me, or does the GOP candidate pool remind you of “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity single made under the name USA for Africa that featured dozens of pop artists singing about how to “make a brighter day” and “stand together as one”? I’m not talking about the message itself ― though, admittedly, both the “We Are the World” lyrics and most of the Republican talking points lean more toward platitude than poetry ― but rather about the way nearly every candidate has had a chance to grab
Dec. 15, 2011
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Chongqing rising as lab of policy innovation
CHONGQING ― A quiet revolution is happening in China’s hinterland.Breakneck growth spurred by government-led economic reforms has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and transformed a poor agrarian society into a global industrial powerhouse in one generation. Yet, the second-largest economy in the world is now at a crossroads. Its spectacular success has brought about byproducts such as a large wealth gap and widespread corruption that threaten the sustainability of its develop
Dec. 15, 2011
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[Nathan Gardels] Germany as Europe’s anchor
More than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, a sense of dj vu is raising anew issues once thought settled. In Moscow, demonstrators are once again filling the streets, calling for an end to authoritarian rule ― this time aimed at Vladimir Putin instead of the Communist Party. In Europe, resolution of the sovereign debt crisis on Berlin’s terms has retrieved the “German question” from the ash can of history.What happens next in Russia’s version of the Facebook-driven Arab Spring will take so
Dec. 15, 2011
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Mr. Corzine goes to Washington, with no pull
When it comes to shining a light on the cozy relationships between Wall Street and Washington, and how the rich and powerful get access to things the rest of us don’t, there can never be too many juicy examples. Last month, thanks to Bloomberg Markets magazine, we were treated to the excellent story about how former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with a bunch of bankers and hedge fund managers in New York during the summer of 2008 and shared with them some of his early thinking on the futu
Dec. 14, 2011
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[Robert Reich] The rebirth of Social Darwinism
Listen carefully to the Republican debates and you get a view of the kind of society many Republicans seek. The last time we had it was in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.It was an era when the nation was mesmerized by the doctrine of free enterprise. It was also a time when the ideas of William Graham Sumner, a professor of political and social science at Yale, dominated American social thought. Sumner brought Charles Darwin to America and twisted him into a theory to fit the times.Few
Dec. 14, 2011
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U.S. universities feast on federal student aid
The public is in a foul mood over increasing college costs and student debt burdens. Talk of a “higher education bubble” is common on the contrarian right, while the Occupy Wall Street crowd is calling for a strike in which ex-students refuse to pay off their loans. This week, President Barack Obama held a summit with a dozen higher-education leaders “to discuss rising college costs and strategies to reduce these costs while improving quality.” The administration plans to introduce some policy p
Dec. 14, 2011
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Icebreakers needed to protect interests in the Arctic
Dramatic climate change in the Arctic is rapidly diminishing the polar ice cover, exposing serious environmental, economic and security issues across the top of the world.Ecological upheaval is producing a long coveted Northwest Passage for shipping, with all its opportunities and complications.U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., is working to focus congressional attention on giving the U.S. Coast Guard the ability to protect America’s interests. As the ranking member of the House Transportation sub
Dec. 14, 2011
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[Shashi Tharoor] Opening Burma’s doors to world
NEW DELHI ― U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Myanmar (Burma), noted largely for a memorable photo opportunity with a wan but smiling Aung San Suu Kyi, signaled a significant change in the geopolitics surrounding a land that has faced decades of isolation, sanctions, and widespread condemnation for its human-rights violations.Twenty-one years ago, after Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) swept a general election, the results were annulled, the party’s leaders a
Dec. 14, 2011
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North Korea finds new course in ties with Beijing
The legacy of the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung’s decision in the early 1990s to pursue a strategic partnership with the United States has run its course. In its place, the focus of Pyongyang’s policies has decisively shifted to Beijing. However wary the North Koreans may be of their neighbor, the fact is that from Pyongyang’s viewpoint, the Chinese have delivered and the United States did not.Any shards remaining from the North’s previous, decades-long effort to normalize ties with the U
Dec. 13, 2011
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[Lee Jae-min] After $1tr in trade still much to do
The nationwide gold ring collection in Korea in November 1997 was an interesting phenomenon in the eyes of Westerners. Seeing the country undergoing unprecedented economic turmoil in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, ordinary people chipped in to rescue the country by donating gold rings that they kept at home.Of course, piles of gold rings themselves may have hardly made a dent in the total borrowing of Korea from the International Monetary Fund, but it was the spirit of collective e
Dec. 13, 2011
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Smartphones, dumb drivers
Can you safely talk on a cellphone ― or for that matter, check your email or scroll through Google Maps ― while driving? Well, of course you can. But those other folks with their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road are a public menace.Unfortunately, that sums up the attitude of many American motorists, who widely acknowledge using their phones while behind the wheel but insist they’re safe drivers. Meanwhile, the number of people worried about the other guy is soaring. When the state
Dec. 13, 2011
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The causes behind SlutWalk protest marches
Imagine walking down the street and on the other side of the road stands young women in provocative clothing holding up signs saying “I’m a slut.” What do you think would be the first thing that comes to your mind? This kind of movement is spreading all over the world, starting in Toronto. It first took place on April 3 when one police officer suggested that, in order not to be victimized, women “should avoid dressing like sluts.” Then what does this have to do with young women on the roads shou
Dec. 13, 2011
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Trade-pact plans may split Latin America into Pacific and Atlantic blocs
President Barack Obama’s recent announcement that he will seek to create what may be the world’s largest trading bloc along the Pacific rim raises an interesting question in this part of the world: whether we will see a de facto split of Latin America into a Pacific bloc and an Atlantic bloc.It may be already happening. Obama’s recent proclamation that “the United States is a Pacific country” and his announcement that Washington will seek to dramatically expand the nine-member Trans-Pacific Part
Dec. 13, 2011
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[Kim Seong-kon] The ‘Angry Generation’ in Korea
When they say there are two Koreas, it naturally means North and South Korea. These days, however, it also means the division of South Korea into two antagonizing groups like east and west, conservatives and progressives and left and right. It is lamentable that today’s South Korea is radically divided into two hostile extremes, tearing the already half-reduced country into two again.Perhaps the only comfort is that Korea is not alone in experiencing such a phenomenon; people say that there are
Dec. 13, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Receding U.S. global influence
WASHINGTON ― Is American power in decline, relative to the rest of the world? That question is at the center of a provocative study by the U.S. intelligence community exploring what the world might look like in 2030. The answer, judging by comments from a panel convened to discuss the topic, is that America faces serious trouble: The U.S. economy is slowing, relative to its Asian competitors, which will make it harder for the country to assert its traditional leadership role in decades ahead. Th
Dec. 12, 2011
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Carbon tax is best way to fight climate change
The Durban climate-change talks ended in what negotiators agreed to call a success. Governments, including China and India for the first time, said they would devise a new global system for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases and make it operational by 2020. This promise, however, has uncertain legal force, the form of any new regime is unclear, and the meeting failed to set any new binding targets. Don’t be too disappointed. The ambition to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a similar but truly
Dec. 12, 2011
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Palestinians’ next ‘invention’ will be a state
In November 1947, shortly after the United Nations voted for partition of the Holy Land into separate Arab and Jewish states, Chaim Weizmann was cited by the New York Times as saying that “the most important work now was to build Palestine.” What? To build Palestine? Yes, in 1947 the word “Palestinian” ― if it meant anything at all ― referred to Jews living in Palestine. The Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post) was the Jewish English-language newspaper. The Palestine Orchestra (now the Israel
Dec. 12, 2011