There are things that we take for granted and thus do not appreciate until they are no longer there. In the restroom of Ground, a coffee shop in New London, New Hampshire, there is a sign that says, “You never know what you have until it’s gone. Toilet paper, for instance.” Indeed, we do not realize how important and indispensable it is to have toilet paper until it is gone. Of course, toilet paper is not alone in this. I know someone who has breathing problems due to severe

President Joe Biden has a politically risky itinerary for his scheduled trip to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia in mid-July. The question is, why he is doing this? The tour is scheduled to begin in Jerusalem, where the president plans “to meet with Israeli leaders to discuss security, prosperity and increasing integration into the great region.” All worthy topics, but not quite in sync with the moment. On Monday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced his resignation. Acco

“Beware the nested game.” It is one of the least-known but most useful adages to keep in mind when following international affairs, and it is especially relevant now that Lithuania has announced a blockade of sanctioned Russian goods. A nested game is what it sounds like -- a game within a game. It recognizes that the actors in most real-world settings are not unified and have conflicting motives. The classic example is the failure of a proposed Middle East peace deal because some h

To this day, I still vividly remember going to the Hollywood Bowl in the summer in Los Angeles. Since I majored in piano, when I think of summer, the first thing that comes to my mind are the kind of music festivals held in that venue. When I came to the United States for graduate school, I studied piano with deep sincerity. And part of that was going to various music camps and music festivals to learn more during my summer vacation. My favorites were the Aspen Music Festival and School in A

This weekend, we’ll again recall the beginning of the Korean War. For me, it is also the start of my memories. Not yet 3 years old, I was too young to fully grasp the magnitude of the conflict and contextualize my memories. So, the upheaval that began on June 25, 1950 still remains a disjointed sequence of scenes. Among them: A sister went out when Seoul was in North Korean hands -- and never returned; without warning, an American soldier awakened my family, waving a flashlight in our si

Austria and New Zealand may be far apart geographically, but we are connected by shared values and principles. Particularly relevant today is our longstanding opposition to nuclear weapons and our shared concern about the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament. While the threat of nuclear weapons never went away after the end of the Cold War, steep cuts to nuclear stockpiles in the early 1990s represented progress. But the trend toward disarmament stalled. Three decades on, nine nuclear-armed

The 72nd anniversary of the Korean War is just around the corner, meaning that those born in the unforgettable year of 1950 are now 72 years old. It also means that few people in Korea will remember the war that utterly devastated the Korean Peninsula for three years or those who died in wartime. Americans call the Korean War the “forgotten war” because few people seem to remember it. For the Korean people, however, the Korean War must not be forgotten. Embarrassingly, we do not see

On June 17, Americans found ourselves at the convergence of two crises of shattering assaults on our democracy. They were crises of crimes and cover-ups, at opposite ends of history’s half-century arc. They were crimes committed by two very different sitting presidents -- Richard Nixon and Donald Trump -- who were determined to win reelection, no matter what. Both times, America’s true patriots faced challenges of proving the crimes and dealing with all wrongdoers so firmly that it

“The Miracle on the Han River” has been often used to describe South Korea’s rise and leapfrogging from one of the world’s poorest countries in 1950s to one of the richest today. In a single generation, Korea became a leader in technological innovation with global brands such as Samsung going head-to-head with Apple and other major companies. From “Squid Game” to Blackpink, Korean dramas, movies and music are showing no signs of slowing down, breaking new gro

It has been almost one year since the ugly US departure from Kabul. Yet tens of thousands of Afghans who were promised special immigrant visas (SIVs) -- meant for those who worked for US soldiers and civilians -- remain trapped under terrifying Taliban rule. Even for those eligible for SIVs, it could take years -- if ever -- to be issued one, given the glacial pace of the process. Hunted by name by the Taliban, many applicants may be dead or imprisoned long before their number comes up. As the

The United States appears to have entered a new cold war with both China and Russia. And US leaders’ portrayal of the confrontation as one between democracy and authoritarianism fails the smell test, especially at a time when the same leaders are actively courting a systematic human-rights abuser like Saudi Arabia. Such hypocrisy suggests that it is at least partly global hegemony, not values, that is really at stake. For two decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the US was clearly

Russia’s growing engagement in Africa is gaining attention. The Wagner Group, a shady mercenary organization, is the centerpiece of this activity. Since 2015, it has become an important security player in at least a half-dozen countries across the continent. The Russian government denies any connection, but Wagner is widely believed to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and doing Russia’s bidding. The US government and European partners have been quick to condemn African g

After barely winning the presidency in March this year, the People Power Party won a landslide victory over the Democratic Party of Korea in the June 1 local elections. The People Power Party won 12 of the 17 metropolitan mayor and provincial governor seats, including Seoul, which marked a gain of 10 local chief executives. The People Power Party won substantial victories on ballot elections, giving it control of a majority of metropolitan and provincial legislatures and local district, city, an

In New York City, a woman opens her laptop to a bar graph showing the number of COVID-19 deaths nationwide each month in 2021 and fixes her gaze on April. She tells a researcher, “My mother is one of them.” The graph helps her see that her mother is “part of something bigger happening to the country,” she says. In the nation’s capital, a man kneels on a patch of grass near the Washington Monument to place a white flag in honor of his brother. He gestures to the fie

Last week, I had a pleasant walk with friends along a short trekking course that opened recently around the former presidential mansion. My smartphone walking counter app tracked about 15,000 paces in the two-hour trip, which included a snack of makgeolli and a sundae on the wooden floor of the Okhojeong pavilion near the eastern end of the route. I have to wait to the end of this month to go inside Cheong Wa Dae because I could not make an earlier online reservation. The view of Seoul from the