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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Korea’s homegrown nanosatellite successfully launches into space
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Aging population to drive down Korea's housing prices from 2040: experts
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[Andrew Sheng] Economic impact of disaster in Japan
I was at an IMF conference on capital flows in Bali when the Japanese earthquake and tsunami occurred. As the tragedy unfolded over the weekend, it became clear that the crisis was complicated by nuclear considerations. All of our sympathies and condolences go with our Japanese friends as they go through this terrible natural disaster, possibly larger than the Kobe earthquake. When the Year of the
March 20, 2011
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[Craig D. Turner] New technology seduces us when death beckons
The decision to opt for medical care that relies on the most costly technology is often based on blind faith that newer, elaborate and expensive must be better.The sentiment is understandable. We look to the miracles of medical technology to solve all sorts of problems, from weight loss to wrinkle removal. We place even greater faith in this technology when engaged in life’s inevitable losing batt
March 20, 2011
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[Meghan Daum] NPR needs a backbone
Oh, NPR, won’t you please state your game? Are you liberal? Are you neutral? Are your employees secret socialists? Do their screensavers feature slideshows of Noam Chomsky? Do your office Christmas parties serve only free-range eggnog? Do your parking lots offer preferred spaces for vehicles with “Free Tibet” bumper stickers?Yes? No? Tell us, NPR!Was former fundraising executive Ron Schiller repea
March 20, 2011
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Embarrassing times for al-Qaida in Middle East
Al-Qaida’s leaders languishing in their lairs are probably taking Valium right now ― if not something stronger. Watching the revolutions spreading across the Middle East, they look like utter fools.The most obvious point of ridicule is Egypt, where thousands of youths accomplished in a few weeks a feat that Al-Qaida had been pursuing for 20 years: throwing Hosni Mubarak out of office.Worse, howeve
March 20, 2011
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Hoping for an early end to Japan’s crucible
In every natural disaster, there is an arc to the story, the narrative. Earthquakes open with surprise. Scientists can’t predict them with the precision of hurricanes, can’t track them on radar, can’t provide much if any warning. Buildings ― rooms ― start to sway sickeningly, dishes crash. That’s how you know.Tsunamis are more predictable. There’s warning, as there was in Japan last week. Resident
March 18, 2011
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[William Pesek] Tokyo remains stoic amid over-the-top news reports
Of all the things I expected to experience in Tokyo, hugging three Japanese female strangers in their 70s was never part of the plan.This city is no-public-display-of-affection central. The anti-Paris when it comes to spontaneous gestures of intimacy. When the ground begins to shake, protocol is the first casualty. So, when a big aftershock hit Shinjuku train station, we four panicked strangers jo
March 18, 2011
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[David Ignatius] A witch’s brew in the Persian Gulf
WASHINGTON ― The Obama administration and its support for democratic change in the Middle East has been on a collision course with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other traditional monarchies of the Persian Gulf. The crunch finally came this week with a sharp break over how to deal with protest in Bahrain. The stakes in this latest crisis are high, even by Middle East standards, for it
March 18, 2011
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[Editorial] Japanese people will remain calm and overcome
The catastrophe that has happened in Japan over the past few days will not prevent the Japanese people from recovering. It will take a bit longer in comparison to the Kobe earthquake of 1995, but recover they will. Japan is unfortunate to be situated in an area that is prone to natural disasters whether they be earthquakes or tsunamis. The fact that tsunami is a Japanese word is testimony to the f
March 18, 2011
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[Editorial] Philippine officials lack sense of urgency
The principal lesson from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan is that even the richest and most disaster-ready country in the world cannot have enough of disaster preparedness. Historically earthquake-prone and -battered, Japan is also temblor-hardened and -geared-up. But despite its legendary obsessive-compulsive ways that would leave no stone unturned as far as priming up for disasters
March 18, 2011
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[Editorial] But nuke power will still prevail
The disabling of a nuclear power plant in Japan after an earthquake struck is certain to bring new thinking on the issue. This has been flagged by the extreme measures the Japanese authorities have used at the Fukushima Daiichi plant ― pumping in impure sea water that will ruin the reactor core so as to reduce heat buildup and prevent a meltdown. Although this reactor, which dates back 40 years, w
March 18, 2011
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[Zhang Monan] Global response to natural disasters
The devastation caused by the disastrous 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan and the potential risks from radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant once again highlight the urgent need to establish a global disaster emergency relief mechanism.The frequent incidence of natural disasters worldwide, with many engendered by greenhouse gas emissions, environmental deterioration and ecologica
March 18, 2011
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[William Pfaff] Intervention in Libya should not fly
PARIS ― To intervene in another country’s internal conflict has always posed a prudential judgment, weighing one’s own national interest, alliances, treaty obligations, the global balance and international law. The 20th century has greatly complicated the matter by adding to this combination humanitarian convictions and considerations, mainly inspired by the modern experience of deliberate atrocit
March 17, 2011
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Crisis bolsters resolve for safe nuclear energy
Entire towns vanished.Simply gone.Thousands dead, thousands more missing and feared dead.Simply gone.And as individual families in Japan and the world as a whole begin to grieve last week’s horrific earthquake and tsunami, we are also learning firsthand about the vulnerability of nuclear energy.The technology that resource-scarce Japan harnessed to become an industrial powerhouse is now becoming a
March 17, 2011
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Nuclear power fails the safety test for U.S.
Pity President Obama: Every time he tries to compromise with Republicans on energy reform by backing dirty or dangerous forms of power generation, a disaster occurs to demonstrate why pursuing such strategies is a bad idea. It happened a year ago when a BP oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico after Obama had been talking up the advantages of expanded offshore drilling, and it’s happening again t
March 17, 2011
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Don’t blame nature; we need to live responsibly
The New York Times characterizes the tsunami that struck coastal Japan as “murderous,” while a friend writes that “Planet Earth is an unfriendly place.” I rode out the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in my seventh-floor apartment in San Francisco, which experience instilled in me an appropriate terror and respect for the fluidity of so-called terra firma. The epicenter of that 6.1 earthquake was locat
March 17, 2011
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[William Pesek] Dogs show how earthquake will bring us closer
Japan’s domestic nuclear crisis is going global in a hurry.Just ask Christine Lagarde, France’s finance minister, who wants to convene Group of Seven talks on a response to Japan’s earthquake. “I’ve asked for a G7 meeting at the level of finance ministers and central bankers to see how we can purchase their bonds and how to respond on the financial level,” she said.The internationalization of this
March 17, 2011
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Keep Gaeseong goods out of S. Korea-U.S. FTA
Supporters of the proposed free-trade agreement between the United States and South Korea argue that we should approve the pact to improve our economy and to reward an ally in a troubled region for its strong security relationship with the United States, and to solidify these strong security ties with a stronger trade relationship. Though there is no doubt South Korea is a close ally, we need to e
March 17, 2011
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Japan case looms over global economy
Count me among those who believe that the latest statement from the Federal Open Market Committee upgraded the outlook for both growth and inflation in the U.S. Yet, what may prove much more significant about the statement lies in what it didn’t cover: namely, Japan.In its usual concise manner, the FOMC informed us this week that America’s economic recovery “is on a firmer footing” and that inflat
March 17, 2011
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Read this column, or Big Bird takes a bullet
A famous 1973 cover of National Lampoon showed a dog with a revolver held to its head, with the caption, “If you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog.” To hear defenders of publicly subsidized media, Republican efforts to cut funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System puts a gun to the head of Big Bird. That doesn’t have to be the case. The Corporation for Public B
March 16, 2011
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Japan crisis raises concerns over nuclear plants
The 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan’s northeastern coast on Friday (March 11) ― the fourth largest in the world since 1900 ― has dwarfed all other headlines. The ensuing 23-foot tsunami traveled miles inland before receding and leaving in its wake a swampy wasteland of debris, buildings set ablaze and over 120 aftershocks.The disaster was brought to the global consciousness through bird
March 16, 2011