Most Popular
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[Weekender] Geeks have never been so chic in Korea
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N. Korea says it test-fired tactical ballistic missile with new guidance technology
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NewJeans members submit petitions over court injunction in Hybe-Ador conflict
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[News Focus] Mystery deepens after hundreds of cat deaths in S. Korea
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S. Korea's exports of instant noodles surpass $100m for 1st time in April: data
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[Herald Interview] Byun Yo-han's 'unlikable' character is result of calculated acting
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US military commander in S. Korea during Gwangju uprising dies
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[Photo News] Seoul seeks 'best sleeper'
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US expert says N. Korea might ignore Trump if he returns to White House
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Yoon vows to advance freedom, welfare to uphold spirit of 1980 pro-democracy uprising
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Is it time to ban cosmetic surgery?
The faulty breast implants made by the French company Poly Implants Protheses, or PIP, have grabbed headlines around the world in recent weeks, and it’s no wonder. The prostheses are more prone to rupture than other models, and they contain an industrial grade of silicone never intended for use in a medical device. The scandal is also global in scope. Sold in 65 countries, the implants were re-branded by a Dutch company registered in Cyprus, offered on credit in Venezuela and smuggled into Boliv
ViewpointsJan. 8, 2012
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[David Ignatius] Eastward foreign-policy pivot in U.S.
WASHINGTON ― When you ask Obama administration officials to explain their foreign policy agenda for 2012, they point first to the defense budget. That’s where they want to make a “pivot” in U.S. strategy ― away from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and toward the 21st-century priority of China and the Pacific. To underline the importance of this rebalancing, President Obama went to the Pentagon Thursday for the budget announcement. He began by declaring victory in what used to be known as “the l
ViewpointsJan. 8, 2012
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Improving Korea-Japan relations is possible: look at the Germany-Poland example
During the last two decades, relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea starkly improved in the economic and cultural dimensions while political cooperation still shows a Cold War scheme. For a real normalization process to start, the two countries should follow the example set by two former foes turned friends: Germany and Poland.Look at the dynamics of bilateral trade and normalization that Tokyo and Seoul seem to have achieved. In 2010 total volume of trade was more than $92 billion ―
ViewpointsJan. 8, 2012
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Police leave victims in the dark
As I look over my 2011, I not only appreciate the good experiences of the year, but revisit the difficulties, foremost of which was a cyber crime I suffered while living in Korea. As a foreigner, dealing with law enforcement was more complex, and in my case, as damaging as suffering the cyber attack.Months have passed and time has given me perspective so that I can look at the experience objectively and offer suggestions to help others. As I’d lived in Korea for many years, I had a number of bil
ViewpointsJan. 8, 2012
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Internet ill-equipped to discuss the God particle
A couple of weeks ago, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced that they’d made “significant progress” in the search for a subatomic particle called the Higgs boson ― the so-called God particle.Two teams of physicists conducting separate analyses of data collected by the Hadron supercollider outside of Geneva, Switzerland, noticed a similar rise in indication of particle decay in approximately the same range ― 125 gigaelectronvolts.I have no idea how much a
ViewpointsJan. 8, 2012
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[Javier Solana] Peril or promise in North Korea?
MADRID ― Two days after Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s leader, died in a train in his country, South Korean authorities still knew nothing about it. Meanwhile, American officials seemed at a loss, with the State Department at first merely acknowledging that press reports had mentioned his death.The South Korean and U.S. intelligence services’ inability to pick up any sign of what had happened attests to the North Korean regime’s opaque character, but also to their own deficiencies. American planes a
ViewpointsJan. 8, 2012
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[Editorial] Lee’s China visit
President Lee Myung-bak will embark on a three-day visit to China on Monday. His visit, coming several months ahead of the 20th anniversary of Seoul-Beijing diplomatic relations, will surely provide an opportunity for Lee and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to review past achievements and map out the future course of action.South Korea and China, the only military ally of North Korea, have come a long way since they established diplomatic ties in August 1992. A retired Chinese diplomat, who
EditorialJan. 6, 2012
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[Editorial] Cash in envelopes
When the ruling Grand National Party was holding a national convention to select its leader, rumors that candidates distributed envelopes containing cash invariably made the rounds. None of them had been vetted until recently, and few came out to acknowledge they had been offered cash during the convention.But some of the rumors are most likely to be checked out this time, with one first-term lawmaker having said in public that he received an envelope containing 3 million won from a person close
EditorialJan. 6, 2012
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The Roma is Europe’s squandered minority
BUDAPEST ― Today, millions of Europeans are afraid and frustrated as they face unemployment, loss of savings and pensions, radically reduced social benefits, and other economic hardships. Their fears are warranted, because the current financial crisis is undermining the very union that was established to heal Europe’s wounds at the end of World War II. But, in the midst of the general suffering, one group ― the Roma ― has been ignored. Europe’s largest and most disadvantaged ethnic minority, wit
ViewpointsJan. 6, 2012
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[David Ignatius] History and imperiled middle class
WASHINGTON ― It’s a sign of these unsettled times that the analyst who famously announced “the end of history” in 1989, when the Soviet empire was crumbling and liberal, free-market democracy seemed inevitable, has just published a new essay with the provocative title “The Future of History.” Francis Fukuyama’s article appears in the January edition of the journal Foreign Affairs. It offers a good introduction to what may be the biggest political issue of 2012 ― the decline of the middle class i
ViewpointsJan. 6, 2012
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Collecting golden eggs from migrant labor
The persistent perception one gets from all the reports about our migrant labor is that we consistently welcome the billions in remittances from their blood, sweat and tears. Yet policies since the 1980s also display a superficial sense of urgency in ensuring the security and welfare of millions of our men and women working far from home, many of them in high-risk situations.The Malaysian news agency Bernama reported recently that Indonesian workers sent home $6.1 billion last year despite unres
ViewpointsJan. 6, 2012
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Tohoku reconstruction vital to nation as a whole
Getting post-disaster reconstruction efforts onto a steady track is a great task for Japan this year. We should consider the new year as “the first year of full-scale reconstruction” from the Great East Japan Earthquake.The March 11 quake and tsunami left many people bereft of their loved ones and deprived of their longtime homes, while also severing communities’ life-sustaining ties of mutual support.The number of people who were forced to evacuate, and saw out the old year while living in temp
ViewpointsJan. 6, 2012
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[Shashi Tharoor] Anti-corruption contest in India
NEW DELHI ― India ended 2011 amid political chaos, as the much-awaited “Lokpal Bill,” aimed at creating a strong, independent anti-corruption agency, collapsed amid a welter of recrimination in the parliament’s upper house, after having passed the lower house two days earlier. The episode, which leaves the bill in suspended animation until its possible revival at the next session, raises fundamental issues for Indian politics which will need to be addressed in the New Year.The need for the bill
ViewpointsJan. 6, 2012
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[Editorial] Time to make sacrifices
Tensions are mounting in the ruling Grand National Party as the party’s emergency leadership council has started to discuss the highly sensitive issue of overhauling the process to pick candidates for parliamentary elections.Changing the nomination process is at the top of the reform agenda pushed by the emergency council, which was launched last month with the mandate to thoroughly reinvent the embattled party before the April general election.The task is basically about establishing a fair, tr
EditorialJan. 5, 2012
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[Editorial] Lesson in curbing inflation
President Lee Myung-bak has renewed efforts to curb inflation ― again resorting to a strong-arm approach. In the first Cabinet meeting of the year Tuesday, Lee instructed officials to introduce a system in which an official is appointed for each of the major daily goods to monitor and manage its prices. Under the system, a section chief of, for instance, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance would be made responsible for checking the price movements of, say, napa cabbage. If cabbage prices are fo
EditorialJan. 5, 2012
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Did psychopaths take over Wall Street asylum?
It took a relatively obscure former British academic to propagate a theory of the financial crisis that would confirm what many people suspected all along: The “corporate psychopaths” at the helm of our financial institutions are to blame. Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of “people who, perhaps due to physical factors to do with abnormal brain connectivity and chemistry” lack a “conscie
ViewpointsJan. 5, 2012
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[Dominique Moisi] A Russian Spring in the making?
PARIS ― Russia is not Egypt. And Moscow is not on the eve of revolution as Cairo was less than a year ago. Indeed, Russia’s powerful have at their disposal assets that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime lacked.As an energy superpower, Russia can open its coffers to appease, at least in part, the humiliation that it has inflicted on its citizens by falsifying the country’s recent legislative election results. And not all Russians are in the streets. We should beware of the “zoom eff
Jan. 5, 2012
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Foreign Koreanness captured in the movies
With the recent release of the first two trailers for “Papa,” it looks like mainstream Korean cinema will continue to wrestle with the issue of immigration and multiculturalism into the new year. As new as this theme may seem for Korean film, “Papa” actually follows in the footsteps of last year’s very successful “Wandeuki” (English title: “Punch”) and 2010’s almost equally successful “Banga Banga” (English title: “He’s on Duty”), as well as a string of independent films that addressed the same
ViewpointsJan. 5, 2012
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Malcolm Gladwell test has Japan turning Chinese
If you want to silence a room filled with Japanese politicians, suggest they should learn from China. The conventional wisdom favors the flip side of this dynamic: China should be studying Japan’s playbook. Japan, after all, is an example of both what China needs to do (create a vibrant domestic economy and high living standards) and what it mustn’t (slide into bad-loan crises and deflation). Yet I have one word for Japanese policy makers who dismiss the idea they should heed China’s example: Sh
ViewpointsJan. 5, 2012
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[Naomi Wolf] The prospects for global protest movements in 2012
NEW YORK ― What does the New Year hold for the global wave of protest that erupted in 2011? Did the surge of anger that began in Tunisia crest in lower Manhattan, or is 2012 likely to see an escalation of the politics of dissent?The answers are alarming but quite predictable: we are likely to see much greater centralization of top-down suppression ― and a rash of laws around the developed and developing world that restrict human rights. But we are also likely to see significant grassroots reacti
ViewpointsJan. 5, 2012