Most Popular
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1 in 3 Koreans live alone, family types becoming diverse
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Korea, Japan finance chiefs vow to tame rampant FX market volatility
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K-pop group's manager dismissed for setting up spycam in theater dressing room
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Korean Muslim YouTuber's plan to build mosque in Incheon goes viral
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Why is Apple Pay struggling to get purchase in Korea?
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Yoon's office denies considering liberal figures for key posts
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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[Today’s K-pop] BTS pop-up event to come to Seoul
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Will tug-of-war between doctors, government end soon?
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[Tim Rutten] Beware Islamists in the wings
From the American perspective, the transition now underway in Egypt confirms John Kenneth Galbraith’s famous appraisal of politics as a choice between “the disastrous and the unpalatable.”What the Obama administration must dread is not the prospect of Cairo repeating the disaster that was Tehran in 1979 but St. Petersburg in 1917, when one revolution ― its leadership democratic but hopelessly divi
Feb. 11, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Struggle is just beginning in Egypt
WASHINGTON ― Wael Ghonim, the charismatic young Google executive who helped launch the protests in Tahrir Square, sounded the trumpet in a first Twitter message Thursday afternoon: “Mission accomplished. Thanks to all the brave young Egyptians.” But he soon sent another message urging protesters to wait for official news ― and when President Hosni Mubarak finally made his speech late Thursday, it
Feb. 11, 2011
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[Editorial] New questions raised about death penalty
Imagine what was going through the mind of Taiwanese Air Force private Chiang Kuo-ching as he was being led to his execution in August 1997. What a horrifyingly surreal moment it must have been for the 21-year-old man to know he was about to die for a crime he did not commit. Stomachs knot and nerves shudder when we visualize the moment Chiang was escorted into the death chamber.The story broke ju
Feb. 11, 2011
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[Editorial] Temple of gloom
ASEAN unity is again under strain as Cambodian and Thai troops keep up their animus over an 11th-century temple astride their common border. Ownership of the Preah Vihear Hindu temple had been determined in Cambodia’s favor by the International Court of Justice in a 9-3 vote half a century ago. Why the border squabble should have persisted to this day tells vividly how the emotive weight of histor
Feb. 11, 2011
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[Editorial] War only means both countries stand to lose
There are people in both Thailand and Cambodia who want their soldiers to go all the way. The problem is, even though this might bring the territorial dispute to a conclusion, it would only be for the short term. In 10 or even five years, when one side gets weaker or stronger, the conflict will flare up once again. That is absolutely certain, if force is used to settle this conflict.Diplomacy can
Feb. 11, 2011
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[Andrew Sheng] Financial crisis: Out with the tiger, in with the rabbit
As the Year of the Tiger faded, a year of drama and change came to an end. The last Year of the Tiger was 1998, an unforgettable year because of the Asian financial crisis. As the tiger year faded, there was regime change in Tunisia and big demonstrations for change began in Egypt. The Year of the Wood Rabbit in a metal year means that some of the tiger volatility might remain. Surprisingly, from
Feb. 11, 2011
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Tunisian catalyst for Arab democracy
DAVOS ― The whole world celebrates Tunisia’s democratic revolution, which has set off a cascade of events elsewhere in the region ― particularly in Egypt ― with untold consequences. The eyes of the world are now set on this small country of 10 million, to learn the lessons of its recent experience and to see if the young people who overthrew a corrupt autocrat can create a stable, functioning demo
Feb. 10, 2011
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Women’s right to make reproductive choices
The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act” introduced Jan. 20 in the U.S. House of Representatives is a broad attack on women’s reproductive health care. The talk for the last couple of days has been the bill’s supposed attempt to redefine rape ― limiting a “rape” exemption to “forcible rape” ― but the potential harm to women is larger.The bill would prevent the use of taxpayer funds for abortion
Feb. 10, 2011
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[Matthew Lynn] Rich get richer when governments tout austerity
Remember all that stuff about how the credit crunch was going to usher in a new age of austerity? The financial industry would shrink; the gulf between the haves and the have-nots would close; and taxes would rise for the top earners, forcing them to contribute more to society.Well, guess what? It didn’t happen.In fact, we just had a “rich-get-richer” recession. U.K. data suggest the gap between t
Feb. 10, 2011
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[Charles King and Rajan Menon] Terrorism meets xenophobia in Russia
If current demographic trends continue, within the next half-century Muslims will constitute a sizable part, perhaps even a plurality, of Russia’s population; indeed, Moscow currently has more Muslim inhabitants than any other European city. And unlike those in Amsterdam or Paris, most of Moscow’s Muslims are citizens, not immigrants ― products of the Russian Empire’s 19th century southward expans
Feb. 10, 2011
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[Shahira Amin] Death is small price to pay for Egyptian freedom
“The army is the people’s army and Mubarak is no longer our president!”On the 13th day of the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the anti-regime protesters’ chants still ring loud.I walk briskly toward the square, past the long queues of people impatiently waiting to get in, and join the protesters who have now set up makeshift camps. Today’s “newcomers” have to pass several security checkpoints b
Feb. 10, 2011
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[Shlomo Ben-Ami] The perils of new Palestinian strategy for independence
TEL AVIV ― It should be clear to all by now that talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot produce a peace agreement. Yet it would be wrong to dwell excessively on current leaders’ weaknesses, for to do so presupposes that with different leaders at the helm, an Israeli-Palestinian agreement could be reached through bilateral negotiations
Feb. 10, 2011
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Egypt is the next Iran? Utter, total nonsense
Events in Egypt are seesawing so quickly it is difficult to assess if the current trajectory points toward gradually escalating violence or a more orderly transition that will end President’s Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.Yet here is what is clearly not happening ― an Iranian-style Islamic Revolution.As anyone watching television can see, the demonstrators filling Tahrir Square are not Islamic radi
Feb. 9, 2011
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Battle lines between ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ energy
During the State of the Union address, President Barack Obama challenged the nation to invest in clean-energy technologies so the U.S. would “out-compete” and “out-innovate” the rest of the world.Indisputably, this country needs less polluting and more efficient energy sources to make the critical transition from fossil fuels to the 21st-century technologies needed to keep the nation economically
Feb. 9, 2011
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[William Pesek] ‘Goldman Sachs with guns’ joins sumo on ropes
Events in Egypt have journalists around the world asking: Hmmm, could that happen here?In Tokyo, the answer is no. The student riots of 1968 remind us never to say never. The thought of today’s youths congregating at Shibuya Crossing, tossing Molotov cocktails and demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, though, is a colossal reach. Mass protests in Japan are a rare, rare thing.Yet there
Feb. 9, 2011
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[Shashi Tharoor] The Arabs and the democratic choice
NEW DELHI ― Egypt’s fate has had the world riveted in recent days to newspapers and televisions, as the unfolding consequences of Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” seem to portend a wave like the liberal revolutions of 1848 for the Arab world. Amateur historians ask breathlessly whether this could be the year of decisive change in the Middle East, the year when regime after regime falls prey to risin
Feb. 9, 2011
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[Frida Ghitis] Where’s the revolution’s silver lining?
The revolution unfolding in Egypt and other Arab lands has set Israeli hearts racing with anxiety. There are so many ways in which regime change in Egypt could prove calamitous for Israel that it’s hard to know where to begin. And yet, the very fact that Israelis have to spend their nights worrying about what comes tomorrow in a country with which they signed a peace treaty more than 30 years ago,
Feb. 9, 2011
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[Kevin Hassett] M.E. freedom carries cost we all might pay
For the most part, economic markets have shrugged while the turmoil in Egypt has escalated. If President George W. Bush was right about the long-term impact of the Iraq War, that might change.We may all have to share in economic hardship as the price for a freer world.There are sound arguments, to be sure, that the economy will remain calm. On its own, the uprising in Egypt seems unlikely to cause
Feb. 9, 2011
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[Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Michel D.Kazatchkine] Withdrawing from the war on drugs
GENEVA ― Switzerland’s direct democracy allows citizens who have gathered enough petition signatures to challenge government policies and laws in nationwide referenda. After a spate of AIDS deaths during the 1980s, the Swiss came face to face with a problem that has destroyed millions of lives in the United States, Russia, Latin America, the European Union, southern Asia, and other regions. Intrav
Feb. 9, 2011
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Japan needs social security reform proposals
The government and the ruling coalition parties on Saturday launched a new panel of experts chaired by Prime Minister Naoto Kan to discuss social security reform.We will wait and see how detailed a picture the panel can paint of the future of the nation’s social security system.The de facto leader of the panel is the assistant to the chairman, Kaoru Yosano, state minister in charge of economic and
Feb. 8, 2011