Most Popular
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[Exclusive] Korean military set to ban iPhones over 'security' concerns
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Korean, Romanian leaders discuss defense tech, nuclear energy
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[Graphic News] 77% of young Koreans still financially dependent
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S. Korea calls on Japan to confront history amid Yasukuni Shrine visit
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Yoon’s jailed mother-in-law excluded from latest parole list
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Hybe and Min Hee-jin, CEO of Hybe sublabel Ador, lock horns
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[Pressure points] Leggings in public: Fashion statement or social faux pas?
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Yoo Jae-suk, Yoo Yeon-seok team up in 'Whenever Possible'
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Aging population to drive down Korea's housing prices from 2040: experts
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North Korea holds drills simulating nuclear counterattack against enemy
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[David Ignatius] Plotting a post-Assad road map
WASHINGTON ― As the Obama administration steps up its support for regime change in Syria, the Arab Spring is moving into what could be its hottest phase. The puzzle is how to help the Syrian opposition gain power without foreign military intervention ― and without triggering sectarian massacres inside the country. For months, as protests mounted in Syria, President Obama waited to see if Bashar al
July 22, 2011
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[Editorial] Burmese army’s licence to rape is region’s shame
In 1989, following the collapse of the Communist Party of Burma, a number of armed ethnic armies entered into a series of ceasefire agreements with Rangoon. The fighting stopped, to a degree, but deep down nobody believed it would last. It was just a matter of time before the various groups resumed fighting.For more than two decades, the so-called peace deals rested on shaky ground with little eff
July 22, 2011
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[Editorial] Again, justice for victims of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge rule
The wheels of justice turn slowly in Cambodia, but they grind nevertheless. Last month, a United Nations-backed tribunal began the second war crimes trials that attempt to hold accountable the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge. This trial is proving more contentious than its predecessor ― in which the defendant accepted both the legitimacy of the tribunal and the need for an accounting. This time,
July 22, 2011
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[Andrew Sheng] Globalization with constraints
The globalization issue is the most misunderstood and confusing topic today. In the last 20 years, there was a dominant view that globalization was good for everyone. But the Asian and global financial crises, caused in part by volatile global capital flows, have proved that there is what I called “global gain, local pain.” It does not mean that we reject globalization, but that there are risks th
July 22, 2011
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[Editorial] Japan’s electricity crisis will continue to deteriorate
Kansai Electric Power Co. manually shut down the No. 1 reactor at its Oi nuclear power plant in Oicho, Fukui Prefecture, on Saturday (July 16) to investigate what caused the pressure to drop inside a tank in the reactor’s emergency cooling system.The Oi nuclear plant is a major source of power, with an output capacity of nearly 1.2 million kilowatts. Kansai Electric, which depends on nuclear power
July 22, 2011
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[Editorial] Forced finale is fitting end for Murdoch’s Frankenstein
On July 7, News Corp, one of the world’s most powerful media organizations, announced that it was closing News of the World, Britain’s largest-selling newspaper. This decision was taken in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that first emerged in 2007, but which has deepened significantly over the past few weeks. Although Rupert Murdoch has claimed that News of the World was closed on moral grou
July 22, 2011
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[Franz Fischler] Right action to banish starvation
VIENNA ― Of the world’s almost seven billion people, about one billion are starving, owing to a long list of unfortunate local events and circumstances, together with steadily increasing demand, unpredictable weather patterns, and poor financial management. And food shortages could grow much worse, as world population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 or earlier.But, with the right programs,
July 21, 2011
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[Mike Hoyt] Britain’s phone-hacking scandal and newspapers
A few years ago my old boss, David Laventhol, had an extended conversation with Rupert Murdoch about newspapers. It was after some sort of big-deal journalism dinner, and they talked long after the tired waiters wished they’d go. David had a storied career in newspapers. He helped invent the Style section of the Washington Post when he was a young editor there. He was editor and publisher of Newsd
July 21, 2011
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[Omar Ashour] Libya after Gadhafi: Democratic transition not assured
BENGHAZI ― Middle Eastern autocrats routinely warn their people of rivers of blood, Western occupation, poverty, chaos, and Al Qaida if their regimes are toppled. Those threats were heard in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and ― rendered in black-comedy style ― in Libya. But there is a strong belief across the region that the costs of removing autocracies, as high as they might be, are low
July 21, 2011
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[Steven J. Davis] Why employers are slow to fill empty positions
Bill Clinton put his finger on a distressing aspect of the U.S. jobs situation in a recent television interview. The former president remarked that openings are being filled at only half the rate of previous recessions, even though current unemployment is much higher. He stressed the bleak outlook for job-seeking construction workers and the need for retraining and skills development.He has a poin
July 21, 2011
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[William Pesek] Joke is on China as U.S.’s ‘AAA’ becomes laughable
Suddenly that $3 trillion of currency reserves looks like a bad idea. Make that very bad for China, as investors display an obvious preference for yen over dollars. That the IOUs of a debt-ridden, aging, politically adrift nation smarting from a huge earthquake and nuclear crisis seem safer than U.S. Treasuries says it all. Many investors still see China’s monster currency stash as a strength. The
July 21, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Obama’s communications gap
WASHINGTON ― A prominent Bush administration official was talking privately about Barack Obama last week: He’s probably going to win in 2012, this Republican said. He deserves credit for “going big” in the budget talks and capturing the center of the debate. But why isn’t he projecting his goals and philosophy more clearly to the country? Why does he so often seem to react, rather than lead? Given
July 20, 2011
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[Jeffrey Goldberg] Michele Bachmann’s hazardous love for Israel
Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman and Republican candidate for president, is making a muscular showing in the polls. She is telegenic. She is clever. Some of her Republican opponents worry she may be unstoppable. But never fear, oh Republican opponents of Michele Bachmann: I’ve devised a fail-safe way to bring her to a state of cognitive paralysis. This method will require some travel
July 20, 2011
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[Kim Jong-han] A national leader should have vision
Although the presidential election in South Korea is more than a year away and a field of politicians vying to succeed current President Lee Myung-bak includes more than a dozen candidates, one name surfaces repeatedly as the likely winner. Rarely in modern Korean presidential politics has one unannounced candidate become so dominant over the rest of the competition more than a year before the ele
July 20, 2011
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[Sheril Kirshenbaum] Facebook might be to blame for your divorce
In the 1960s, young Americans questioned social traditions one after another, ringing in the feminist movement and celebrating sexual freedom. Today they have become the divorced generation. While the overall divorce rate in the U.S. has declined over the past 20 years, it has doubled for Americans aged 50 and over. Today, more than one in three in this category has ended a marriage. No doubt, the
July 20, 2011
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[Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff] Too much debt means the economy can’t grow
As public debt in advanced countries reaches levels not seen since the end of World War II, there is considerable debate about the urgency of taming deficits with the aim of stabilizing and ultimately reducing debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. Our empirical research on the history of financial crises and the relationship between growth and public liabilities supports the view that cu
July 20, 2011
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[Glyn Ford] EU’s food aid for North Koreans
The European Union announced on the July 4 that it was to provide 10 million euros ($14.3 million) of emergency food aid to North Korea to be distributed through the World Food Program over the next three months ― until the end of September, just prior to the arrival of this year’s harvest. This aid represents a much delayed response to an initial request for humanitarian assistance sent by Foreig
July 19, 2011
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[Simon Johnson] Contagion in three forms now has grip on Europe
There are three types of contagion in a financial crisis, when the potential collapse of a firm, bank or country threatens to spiral out of control. The European Union today has all three. The first type is purely psychological ― the panic of herd behavior. The second comes from thinking through the real effects that a collapse would have, as the potential spillovers dawn on people. The third, and
July 19, 2011
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[Kim Seong-kon] Unstoppable heart, soft generation
The other day while walking on the campus of Seoul National University, I saw a big poster put up by the College of Humanities Student Association. The poster harshly criticized the incorporation plan of the university scheduled to be effective as of 2012, asserting that students do not want any radical change on campus.Then I found an amusingly contradictory signature at the bottom of the poster:
July 19, 2011
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[Khaled Diab] Arab Spring stops short of gender revolution
JERUSALEM ― In the early days of the Egyptian revolution, Tahrir Square provided a tantalizing glimpse of what the new Egypt might look like if differences of class, religion, gender and age melted into insignificance. Muslims and Christians mingled; the old followed the young’s lead; men and women became comrades.“The social problems that have plagued Egypt for years seem to have dissolved in the
July 19, 2011