Last week, in an unscripted moment, President Joe Biden warned bluntly that if China invades Taiwan, the United States will come to the island’s defense. “We’ve made a commitment,” Biden told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo. Including military action? “Yes,” he replied. That isn’t what US policy on Taiwan says -- not officially, at least. The White House and State Department hurriedl...

The economic situation in Europe is truly disconcerting. Annual inflation in the eurozone has reached a record-high 7.4 percent, yet banks still lend to each other at negative rates. In April, year-on-year inflation in Estonia was a hair’s breadth shy of 20 percent, but only 5.4 percent in Malta. Public debt as a share of GDP is at unprecedented levels, yet German bond yields remain significantly...

For the past few years, there has been derision and contempt between the young and the old in Korean society. Politicians, who have often instigated such hostility to get votes, are primarily responsible for the generation war. Nevertheless, both generations have problems of their own. As for the young, they tend to think that they know everything. They believe they know love, life, and the worl...

Since Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, mass murders in the name of white replacement theory (WRT) have become prevalent. Many of these killers, including Breivik; Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter; and Payton Gendron, the suspect in the massacre in Buffalo, New York, are self-identified as fascists. And yet, it’s easy to miss or even downplay WRT’s fascist origins and i...

When the plane touched down in Chicago, I sighed with relief. After meticulous planning, we were returning from a two-week trip to Lima, Peru. We hadn’t seen my partner’s sister -- soon to turn 91 years old -- for five years and felt that with thorough precautions, we could keep ourselves and our loved ones safe while in Peru during the pandemic. That sigh of relief soon turned to alarm as we de...

The US dollar is up 12 percent against the euro over the past year and, at 0.93 euros, is approaching parity. If prices of oil and other commodities now seem high in dollar terms, they look even higher in euros. With the greenback surging, and inflation in many countries currently at multi-decade highs, we may be entering so-called “reverse currency wars” -- in which countries compete to strength...

This is the most exciting -- and promising -- moment for the nation’s labor movement in decades thanks to the landmark union victories at Starbucks and Amazon, as well as the spread of union drives to well-known companies like Trader Joe’s and Apple. To find similar excitement about unions, one would have to go back to the 1930s and the victorious Flint sit-down strike against General Motors, whi...

“Sewing Sisters,” a full-length documentary released this year, transports viewers to Seoul Peace Market in the 1970s. It unmasks the fate of garment workers galvanized by a suicide-protest against their harsh working conditions. And, when layered over what we see today, it illuminates how much has not changed, despite the new president’s claim that structural gender inequality no longer exists i...

As the new government has launched, the season of National Assembly hearings for Cabinet members has come again. As expected, controversial issues such as plagiarism, aggressive real estate investment and income sources are at the forefront of the discussion. The most contentious issue is what Koreans call “parent chance,” which refers to advantages that children receive from parents in influent...