Most Popular
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
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Will tug-of-war between doctors, government end soon?
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Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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[Graphic News] More Koreans say they plan long-distance trips this year
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[KH Explains] Hyundai's full hybrid edge to pay off amid slow transition to pure EVs
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North Korea removes streetlights along cross-border roads with South
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Russia's denial of entry of S. Korean national unrelated to bilateral ties: Seoul official
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Farming households dip below 1m for first time in 2023
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[Editorial] Dwindling momentum
Japan's economy expanded 0.7 percent in the January-March quarter from the previous quarter. On an annualized basis the country expanded 2.7 percent, significantly higher than economists forecasted. Its growth was more than twice as high as South Korea’s 0.3 percent. If this trend continues all year around, Japan's growth is likely to outstrip South Korea’s for the first time in 25 years after the foreign exchange crisis of 1998. The Organization for Economic Cooperation an
EditorialJune 13, 2023
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[Richard Maude] All Talk, No Dialogue on Asian Security
The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest security conference, has wrapped up its 2023 meeting in Singapore. The context for this year’s summit was not propitious: Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine grinds on, while Chinese President Xi Jinping continues his uncompromising approach to global affairs. If one thing was obvious during the two days of defense diplomacy, it is that the Sino-American competition is far from being ma
ViewpointsJune 12, 2023
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[Adam Minter] PGA-LIV merger only the beginning
Human rights and golf were rarely mentioned in the same breath until the launch last year of LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed tour organized to challenge the PGA. Fans, sponsors, players and PGA executives claimed to be appalled at the involvement of a country connected to 9/11 and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, among other long-standing human rights concerns. Predictably, then, the news on Tuesday that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have agreed to a merger largely backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereig
ViewpointsJune 12, 2023
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[Editorial] China’s distorted view
In a photo taken on Thursday, Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming and Democratic Party of Korea leader Lee Jae-myung shake hands with big smiles on their faces at the envoy’s residence in Seoul, as if reaffirming friendly diplomatic relations between South Korea and China. What happened was far from a “diplomatic” gesture, as their meeting touched off a firestorm of criticism from the Yoon Suk Yeol administration and political circles here, while the Chinese government joined the d
EditorialJune 12, 2023
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[Serendipity] Dancers show we are one in humanity
Whether as innocent as a young child moving to her favorite Disney tune or as highly choreographed and tightly executed as the moves of a K-pop band, dancing is an elemental expression of the self and a universal form of communication. At the Busan International Dance Festival, which took place from June 2-4 in the southern port city, 40 dance teams from around the world communicated pure joy, whimsical caprice, despair and hope, human struggles and victory. Watching the dancers perform on an ou
ViewpointsJune 9, 2023
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[Editorial] Role of a public broadcaster
A dispute over the license fee for state broadcaster KBS took a strange turn Thursday following the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s recommendation that broadcasting authorities change the fee collection method in favor of a separate billing system. The presidential office said Monday it sent the recommendation to the Korea Communications Commission and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, asking them to revise related laws so that the license fee could be separated from electricity b
EditorialJune 9, 2023
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[Editorial] Clarify position
President Yoon Suk Yeol said in his Memorial Day address on Tuesday that it is the government's duty to remember and honor the uniformed heroes who sacrificed their lives to defend South Korea's liberal democracy. He awarded certificates to five surviving soldiers of the Cheonan corvette. This is the fair treatment that heroes who defended the country deserve. Recognizing and rewarding their patriotism is a value that should be respected and carried out regardless of partisanship. But
EditorialJune 8, 2023
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[J. Bradford DeLong] Can US escape its 2nd gilded age?
Some of us are more optimistic than others about the future. We optimists recognize that it is still possible to escape from the traps that America’s Second Gilded Age has laid. During a gilded age, productive capabilities are directed away from providing most people with necessities and conveniences, and toward exorbitant spending on status-seeking and other worthless activities. Inherited wealth typically plays a major role, and it is often deployed to block and delay any transformation
ViewpointsJune 8, 2023
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[Lee Kyong-hee] Fallout from Fukushima radioactive wastewater
This summer, Japan intends to begin releasing wastewater into the sea from the destroyed Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Japanese officials assure that the operation spanning decades will not endanger marine life or the environment. And to help convince skeptics, they have a willing neighbor, according to Japanese news reports. Quoting a diplomatic source, the reports say that President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to make all-out efforts to remove public concerns in Korea about the wastewater disch
ViewpointsJune 8, 2023
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[Martin Schram] The making of Trump's MAGA base
Today we will be exploring why Donald Trump’s little-understood MAGA Republican base has seemed so stunningly shatterproof -- despite being pounded by nonstop news revelations of potential prosecutions, more unsavory conduct and eruptions that sound unpatriotic to outsiders’ ears. Now this: The 2024 presidential campaign attacks are just getting started. Former Trump endorsers are now campaigning against him in the 2024 presidential primaries. No one knows what to expect. And there a
ViewpointsJune 7, 2023
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[Editorial] Misuse of state subsidies
“Finders, keepers” is an English adage that usually refers to a situation where whoever finds something by chance is entitled to keep it. As far as South Korea is concerned, the “whoever” in question are some civic organizations and the “something” is state subsidies. More importantly, those civic groups have not only kept the subsidies but also allegedly misused them by exploiting lax oversight and engaging in dirty embezzlement practices. According to a repo
EditorialJune 7, 2023
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[Kim Seong-kon] The crisis of liberal democracy in the era of 3 P's
In 1992, when Francis Fukuyama published his celebrated book “The End of History and the Last Man,” people thought that liberal democracy would be the predominant form of government on Earth after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Despite Fukuyama’s optimistic prediction, however, ideological evolution did not end even after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, and consequently, liberal democracy is in crisis today. In his article “Populism is a Symp
ViewpointsJune 7, 2023
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Western industrial policy and international law
With the enactment last year of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States fully joined the rest of the world’s advanced economies in combating climate change. The IRA authorizes a major increase in spending to support renewable energy, research and development and other priorities, and if estimates about its effects are anywhere near correct, the impact on the climate will be significant. True, the design of the law is not ideal. Any economist could have drafted a bill that woul
ViewpointsJune 6, 2023
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[Editorial] Trilateral cooperation
South Korea, the United States and Japan are accelerating military cooperation in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats. South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada met on Sunday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's top defense meeting, in Singapore, and agreed to activate a missile data sharing mechanism before the end of the year. Presently, South Korea and Japan each share
EditorialJune 6, 2023
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[James Stavridis] How will AI change modern warfare?
Artificial intelligence is, suddenly, everywhere. We are awash in ideas about how we can use AI productively -- from agriculture to climate change to engineering to software construction. And, equally, there are plenty of cautionary notes being struck about using AI to control societies, manipulate economies, defeat commercial opponents, and generally fulfill Arthur C. Clarke’s visions of machines dominating man in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Thus far, however, relatively little has
ViewpointsJune 5, 2023
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[Jean Pisani-Ferry] Europe‘s Climate Quandary
As Europe sets its sights on becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral continent, it must perform a delicate balancing act. Can the European Union transform its economy while enhancing its competitiveness? And can it achieve these goals while maintaining its status as a shaper of global standards and adhering to its principles of fiscal responsibility? The answer to these questions is a resounding no. Trade-offs are unavoidable, and identifying the concessions required to strike the ri
ViewpointsJune 5, 2023
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[Editorial] Election watchdog audit
Public criticism is mounting against the country’s election watchdog mired in nepotism allegations, especially after it refused the state auditor’s inspection, citing a Constitutional practice. The National Election Commission held a commissioners meeting Friday and decided to refuse the proposed audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection. The nine commission members, including its chief Roh Tae-ak, unanimously rejected the audit despite growing calls for a full investigation into th
EditorialJune 5, 2023
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[Robert J. Fouser] Japan remains stuck in 2019
A few weeks ago, I visited Japan for the first time in four years. I expected to find many changes but was surprised to find things almost the same as they were in 2019. Compared to South Korea and the US, where some pandemic era innovations have become the norm, Japan feels the most like 2019. As I traveled, I began to wonder why and came up with several possible answers. Compared to South Korea and the US, Japanese society changes more slowly. Japanese organizations are wary of sudden change a
ViewpointsJune 2, 2023
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[Editorial] Alert confusion
The mobile text alert that Seoul Metropolitan Government sent out to citizens on Wednesday morning when North Korea launched a rocket caused confusion as it was corrected a little later. At around 6:41 am, after the North’s launch, Seoul sent an alert message that read “Alert issued for Seoul at 6:32 am today. Citizens, please prepare to evacuate and allow children and the elderly to evacuate first.” Seoul citizens' mobile phones blared the alert alarm, but there was no in
EditorialJune 2, 2023
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[Michael O'Donnell] Novels to help remember pandemic
The pandemic is officially over. By federal declaration, the public health emergency expired on May 11. Yet COVID-19′s devastating effects are going nowhere. I recently attended a wedding where only one of the bride’s parents was there to see her take her vows because the coronavirus had claimed the other. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.1 million Americans and nearly 7 million people globally have died as a result of the disease. Nevertheless, three years after the wo
ViewpointsJune 1, 2023