Most Popular
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Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
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S. Korea votes in favor of Palestinian bid for UN membership
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Russia's denial of entry of S. Korean national unrelated to bilateral ties: Seoul official
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Bae Doo-na shares portraying Korean identity in Hollywood's 'Rebel Moon'
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[From the Scene] Monks, Buddhists hail return of remains of Buddhas
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Medical schools granted enrollment quota flexibility for next year
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Yoon offers first one-on-one meeting with opposition leader next week
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Iran fires air defense batteries in provinces as sound of explosions heard near Isfahan
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France rejects opening Paris flight routes to T'way Air, deals blow to Korean Air merger
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Police find more evidence of murder-suicide in Paju hotel death case
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[Editorial] No more demagoguery
For many years, political news in South Korea has been awash with unpleasant or horrible things politicians said or did, either recently or years ago. Especially ahead of elections, parties with political interests go all out to dig dirt on their opponents in an apparent bid to take them down. The past two weeks were no exception, and sadly, it seems to get worse each year. It is a wonder how some people with such lack of conscience or decency could win major political parties’ nomination
EditorialApril 10, 2024
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[Grace Kao] Manners and morals for everyday idols
K-pop group BTS debuted in June 2013, and the rest is history. But did you ever wonder about the other boy groups that debuted that year? Maybe it’s because I’m a sociologist, but I believe we can learn more about social phenomena when we talk to the average rather than exceptional person, or idol in this case. There are thousands of former idols or trainees that didn’t “make it big.” Some have even managed to stay in the K-pop music industry. For people who becam
ViewpointsApril 9, 2024
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[Andrew Sheng] Tech giants and social inequality
The Kennedy era guru on capitalism, John Kenneth Galbraith, presciently proclaimed in the “New Industrial State” (1967) that “the imperatives of technology and organization, not the images of ideology, are what determine the shape of economic society." The cacophony of ideology, including religious fervor, is what is killing people in Ukraine, Gaza and other warring states. In the meantime, investors worldwide are chasing tech stocks like Nvidia while the rest of the wor
ViewpointsApril 9, 2024
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[Editorial] ‘Blind period’ in elections
With a single day left to go to the general election, a record turnout in early voting is being interpreted in various ways by political parties as well as media outlets. Although the high participation rate of voters in elections is generally a positive development, there is an issue linked to early voting that policymakers and election authorities have to address for future elections: the lack of real-time information about voter trends. There was no restriction in publicizing data about the t
EditorialApril 9, 2024
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[Yoo Choon-sik] Shaky export prospects and weak domestic demand
South Korea posted a sixth consecutive month of growth in exports during March over a year earlier, official data showed last week, led by a surge in sales abroad of big-ticket items such as semiconductors and ships. This fueled the projection that the country’s economic growth would pick up this year after suffering a below-trend reading last year. Exports in March rose 3.1 percent from a year earlier to $56.5 billion, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry an
ViewpointsApril 8, 2024
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[Gernot Wagner, Shang-Jin Wei] Responding to China's EV subsidies
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s nearly weeklong visit to China, now underway, will most likely focus on US concerns about Chinese subsidies to producers of electric vehicles and other clean-tech goods. While the availability of cheap EVs is good news for the planet and for consumers everywhere, it is bad news for shareholders and employees of Western car companies, and both the United States and the European Union are considering imposing import tariffs on Chinese EVs. But tariffs are
ViewpointsApril 8, 2024
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[Editorial] Bigger role in world
To tackle potential security threats amid deepening defense cooperation among North Korea, China and Russia, the US and its allies committed to maintaining a rules-based international order face a growing need to band together. Hence, there have been repeated calls from Washington that the Group of Seven should be expanded to include Australia and South Korea. The Center for Strategic and International Studies proposed in its recent report that the US and Japan should consider G7 expansion to in
EditorialApril 8, 2024
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[Robert J. Fouser] South Korea’s generational happiness gap
Happiness popped back in the news recently with the release of the “2024 World Happiness Report.” The report made waves in the US because of a sharp drop in happiness, particularly among people under the age of 30, which fell to 62nd. The country ranked 23rd, marking the first time that the US dropped out of the top 20, out of 143 countries surveyed. The report made fewer waves in South Korea because it confirmed the established media narrative, both domestic and international, that
ViewpointsApril 5, 2024
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[Editorial] Worrisome inflation data
South Korea’s consumer prices, a key gauge of inflation, rose 3.1 percent on-year for the second-straight month in March, driven by skyrocketing prices of fruits and strong oil prices, Statistic Korea data showed. More important than the headline figures is that a growing number of consumers are feeling a far stronger pinch in their pockets, especially when they browse the lofty price tags of grocery store items. It may not be such a shocking development that consumer prices stayed above 3
EditorialApril 5, 2024
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[Editorial] Trainee doctors
President Yoon Suk Yeol wishes to meet with trainee doctors to hear them out, Yoon’s office said Tuesday, but the Korea Intern Resident Association has not officially responded. The presidential office made the statement hours after Cho Yoon-jeong, public relations committee chief of the Medical Professors Association of Korea, implored KIRA leader Park Dan to meet with Yoon “without any conditions” if the president extended the invitation. Yoon said Monday the medical communit
EditorialApril 4, 2024
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[Wang Son-taek] A tale of two ambassadors
Korean Ambassador to Australia Lee Jong-sup resigned only 25 days after his appointment. Chung Jae-ho, the ambassador to China, is under investigation after an embassy staffer reported the abuse of power. It might be better to avoid such shameful stories, but the stories of the two ambassadors dramatically show the critical vulnerabilities of Korean diplomacy. It might be worth a detailed review in that they undermine -- not maximize -- the national interests of Korea. Ex-Ambassador Lee Jong-sup
ViewpointsApril 4, 2024
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[Ana Palacio] Germany’s weakness is bad for Europe
Once the “sick man of Europe,” Germany seems to be under the weather once again. That might be putting it mildly: much as it did in the late 1990s, Germany is staring down the barrel of “stagflation” -- high inflation and unemployment combined with stagnant demand and low growth. A lack of effective political leadership further darkens the outlook for Germany -- and for the European Union that depends on it. France might be the EU’s second-largest economy, a nuclear
ViewpointsApril 4, 2024
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[Editorial] Protect voting stations
It is not only shocking but also deeply unsettling that police detained a YouTuber last week on suspicion of installing spy cameras in two cities, just ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections. On Sunday, an Incheon court issued a warrant to arrest the YouTuber in his 40s for allegedly placing spy cameras at around 40 polling stations in several regions including Seoul, Busan and Daegu. On Monday, police sought arrest warrants for two suspected accomplices who helped the YouTuber install th
EditorialApril 3, 2024
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[Kim Seong-kon] Waiting for Aquaman who bridges land and sea
While I was watching the 2018 American superhero films, “Aquaman” and its 2023 sequel, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” I realized that South Korea desperately needed political leaders like Aquaman. In the movie, Aquaman bridges two radically different worlds: the land and the sea. Aquaman can thus be seen as a symbol of the ideal political leader: one who can quench our thirst for peace and harmony by mediating other binary oppositions, such as progressivism and conservat
ViewpointsApril 3, 2024
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[Mark Jones] The Hitler trial‘s lessons in the Trump era
On April 1, 1924, Adolf Hitler should have been terrified. Four and a half months earlier, the Nazi leader had led a failed coup d’etat in Munich, the Bavarian capital. Inspired by the Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini, Hitler had planned to march his supporters on to Berlin, where they would destroy the democratic Weimar Republic. The insurrection began just after 8 p.m. on Nov. 8, 1923, when Hitler and his followers burst into a political rally and held the crowd hostage. During the drunk
ViewpointsApril 2, 2024
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[Noah Feldman] Flimsy abortion pill argument in US
Abortion is back at the Supreme Court. The case contests decisions by the Food and Drug Administration to make the drug mifepristone available by mail and via telemedicine. But at oral argument on Monday, the court that overturned Roe v. Wade seemed poised to reject the arguments of the pro-life Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. No, the conservative justices haven’t suddenly discovered a new sympathy for the right to choose. Rather, several of the conservatives, alongside the court’
ViewpointsApril 2, 2024
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[Alison L. LaCroix] Texas and the perpetual crisis of American federalism
By claiming that it has the power to enforce its own immigration policy, even when that policy conflicts with federal law, Texas has reignited a debate about federalism that is as old as the United States itself. But with so many commentators invoking the past to justify their positions, it is crucial to get the history right. Many cite the Civil War as an analogy to -- and a cautionary tale for -- the current moment. But the more accurate benchmark is not the war itself; it is the five decades
ViewpointsApril 2, 2024
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[Editorial] Yoon's speech
President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Monday the medical community should present a unified plan based on scientific grounds if it wants the government to revise its policy for medical reform. In a televised speech that lasted for 50 minutes, Yoon reiterated the need for increasing medical school enrollment by 2,000 starting next year, and said that the government’s policy can always change for the better if better ideas based on reasonable grounds are presented. "The number 2,000 is the mi
EditorialApril 2, 2024
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[Yoo Choon-sik] Economic challenges and April election
South Korea entered into full-scale election mode late last week, with political parties launching their official campaigns to stretch until the April 10 poll to elect all 300 members of parliament. The election is held as the country struggles to overcome daunting challenges from virtually all fronts at home and abroad. Even before the official campaign period started, major parties and their candidates had already been engaged in various events across the country to meet and directly appeal to
ViewpointsApril 1, 2024
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[Howard Davies] Are global capital rules possible?
What’s in a name? The final proposals for bank-capital rules were dubbed Basel 3.1, as if to suggest a minor tidying-up exercise – just a few grace notes added to a melody composed long ago. But banks, concerned that the implications would be more severe, spoke of Basel 4, implying not grace notes, but a reworking of the entire composition, now in a major key. That name didn’t stick. Regulators insisted that it was not a new tune, and that anyone who could sing Basel 3 would ha
ViewpointsApril 1, 2024