Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to India from April 7-10 is turning out to be perhaps her most important bilateral visit to a country that surrounds Bangladesh from three sides, making it the only neighbor in all but physical sense. It is now known that the Bangladeshi leader turned down the Indian request for a 25-year defense treaty. In its place there will likely be a memorandum of understanding on several related issues including purchase of equipment and weapons needed for UN peacekeeping, d

There’s something disturbing about recent stories about the ideological kinship between Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, and Marine Le Pen, the nationalist candidate running for French president. Isn’t nationalism supposed to travel badly across borders? Isn’t international solidarity the exclusive province of leftists crying “Workers of the world, unite!”? And aren’t anti-elite nationalist populists fighting a rootless, globalist elite that has grown fat on the border

Robert Park is a founding member of the nonpartisan Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, minister, musician and former prisoner of conscience. --Ed.In a 1991 interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, North Korea‘s former ambassador to East Germany -- who defected in 1959 -- clarified the circumstances of Godang Cho Man-sik’s assassination: “After retreating to Kanggye, North Pyeongan Province, I heard from the leadership that on the night of Oct. 18 while the People‘s Army fled from Pyon

Inside the courtrooms of the International Criminal Court and in local communities, we are hearing the voices of those who have survived some of the world’s most heinous crimes. Stories of tremendous loss. Stories of human suffering that could have – and should have – been prevented. “I lost my entire family.” “I have lost my dignity.” “The only hope I have left is for justice.” New ICC President Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi (Argentina) ©ICC-CPI​　In our own lifetimes, in conflicts unfoldin

As a U.N. committee assesses the policy ...

Namir says that returning to his home country of Sudan would mean a certain death sentence. His only crimes, he claims, were converting to Christianity from Islam and criticizing his government in writings on the Internet. He is just one of the more than 5,300 asylum seekers that have entered Korea since 1994, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice published in the Hankyoreh newspaper. “I was arrested and tortured many times, and based on Sharia laws that govern my country I wa

Like the country itself, Korea’s farming sector transformed completely in a matter of decades. But unlike so many other industries, agriculture’s trajectory in the face of industrialization has been characterized by decline. From contributing 27 percent of gross domestic product in 1970, agriculture was responsible for less than 3 percent of economic activity in 2010. The farming population similarly plummeted from about 14 million people to fewer than 3 million over the same period.As in other

With extramarital affairs capable of ending high-profile careers...

The firmly grounded train is rarely associated with the fear felt by nervous air travelers. But a string of minor accidents in recent years, including last month’s most recent three-way train collision in Daegu, has caused the public to question the safety of one of the country’s most popular modes of travel. In 2011, there were 130 incidents involving the high-speed KTX alone, according to the Board of Audit and Inspection. The BAI laid much of the blame for these incidents on rail operator KOR

As stigma remains ...