Most Popular
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Court refuses injunction on medical school expansion
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Why Korean crime stories typically feature nameless, faceless perpetrators
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Debate on 'no-seniors zones' heats up
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Is NewJeans headed for a long 'break'?
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S. Korea, Cambodia forge strategic partnership
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[KH Explains] Hyundai-backed Motional’s struggles deepen as Tesla eyes August robotaxi debut
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Police raid popera singer Kim Ho-joong's house over hit-and-run suspicions
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Trump may like to 'solve' N. Korean nuclear problem if reelected: ex-official
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New Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office chief vows full-fledged probe into first lady
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Kepco to raise electricity prices as total debt soars past W200tr
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[David Ignatius] Confronting a new enemy
WASHINGTON ― When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his terrorist Islamic State, he ignored a warning from Osama bin Laden that jihadists should be cautious about establishing a caliphate too quickly. In torching a firestorm in Iraq and Syria, Baghdadi has united his enemies and given them a target to attack, just as bin Laden predicted.Baghdadi’s bloodbath has achieved the impossible: He has provided a common adversary for Saudis and Iranians, Turks and Kurds. He has united many of Iraq’s Sunni, Sh
Aug. 14, 2014
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Are the Philippines worth fighting for?
Nothing tells the story of where the Philippines was before Benigno Aquino and now better than Transparency International’s rankings. When he rose to the presidency in 2010 pledging to attack graft, his country was rated 134th, trailing Nigeria. Now, it’s 94th and boasts the investment-grade credit ratings to prove it.But what if Aquino’s good-governance revolution is over? What if the bad old days of predecessors Gloria Arroyo and Joseph Estrada return once Aquino’s term ends in 2016?These risk
Aug. 14, 2014
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When the pressure is on, ASEAN falls apart
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations badly needs to pay more attention to new challenges in the security landscape of both this and more far-flung regions of the globe, addressing them with intensive collective discussion. Though a few commercial airliners have been shot down over the past decades, the downing in Eastern Europe last month of a passenger jet belonging to a national flag carrier from Southeast Asia was especially shocking for our region. On board the Malaysia Airlines flight
Aug. 14, 2014
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International cooperation crucial for Ebola
A widespread infection with Ebola virus has been reported in West Africa. International cooperation is essential to prevent the expansion of this terrible disease.The deadly virus has been spreading from Guinea since February. The death toll from the epidemic has topped 900 in Guinea and its two neighboring countries, Sierra Leone and Liberia, marking the largest number of victims since the first patient with Ebola virus was confirmed in 1976.Deaths from the virus have been also confirmed in Nig
Aug. 14, 2014
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[Nayan Chanda] An opportunity that India let go
Foreign pressure often provides governments with a handy lever with which to overcome domestic vested interests and push through long-overdue reforms. The rules on agricultural subsidies set by the World Trade Organisation are one such tool. A reform-minded Narendra Modi government should have taken advantage of them to make it easier to dismantle the nation’s populist and financially ruinous policy of providing food subsidies as well as free water and electricity.Instead, New Delhi stood alone
Aug. 14, 2014
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Dangers of equating reform with stricter control
Siam Cement Group’s latest TV commercial is worth watching.Featuring children from all 10 ASEAN nations, it shows what our younger generation expects from technology. A Vietnamese boy hopes that one day a house will be able to generate electricity on its own. A Thai girl foresees medical advancements. A Myanmar girl dreams of clean food. Yes, all this requires technological development ― which fits SCG’s vision of itself as an innovative organisation. Importantly, it also fits its ambition to be
Aug. 14, 2014
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[Chun Sung-woo] Learn from Yi’s leadership
The popularity of “Roaring Currents,” a period movie on Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s (1545-1598) great victory over a much larger Japanese invading fleet in 1597, continues its sweeping upturn. The film broke another box-office record on Sunday, passing the 10 million viewer mark at the fastest pace for a flick screened in Korea, a nation of about 50 million people. It took just 12 days from its premiere to pass the milestone and the number of movie goers is still rising.At first, few expected the movie
Aug. 13, 2014
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[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Responding to Ebola epidemic
NEW YORK ― The horrific Ebola epidemic in at least four West African countries (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria) demands not only an emergency response to halt the outbreak; it also calls for re-thinking some basic assumptions of global public health. We live in an age of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that can spread quickly through global networks. We therefore need a global disease-control system commensurate with that reality. Fortunately, such a system is within rea
Aug. 13, 2014
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How to fight Islamic State jihadists
About a century ago, after World War I, British and French leaders carved up the Middle East and set the modern borders of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.Now a growing force of Sunni extremists fighting under the banner of the Islamic State are creating a new nation in the same region ... at gunpoint. Its boundaries are not yet set in ink on a map. But the jihadists have seized vast chunks of Syria and Iraq with a clear goal: Establish a new “caliphate,” an Islamic state led by a supreme religi
Aug. 13, 2014
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Japan needs more Jim Beam
Two things caught my eye last week: the Bank of Japan, which decided to lay off the monetary stimulus, and Jim Beam ― the latter not for reasons you might think.BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda is a smart and battle-tested policymaker. By now, he has to know that pumping more money into the econony won’t end Japan’s deflation. Falling prices are as much about the aging population as anything else, and only structural change can arrest the trend. Kuroda seemed to admit as much by taking no new action as
Aug. 13, 2014
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Corrections come on regular basis
Last month, we discussed how we might be on the verge of a correction. We also noted the futility of trying to time the start and finish of such events. What actually matters is how you react ― or overreact. As my colleague Josh Brown has observed, “since the end of World War II (1945), there have been 27 corrections of 10 percent or more, versus only 12 full-blown bear markets (20 percent or worse).”However, the data show that the distribution of corrections isn’t smooth. Indeed, almost half (4
Aug. 13, 2014
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[Robert J. Fouser] What’s in your bibimbap?
Over the past month, people from different walks of life have told me that much of the kimchi served in restaurants is imported from China. A chef friend at a local restaurant told me that most of the ingredients in bibimbap come from China. The same holds true for vegetable side dishes. Imported food from China costs less than growing it and preparing it in Korea because of the cost of labor. This is particularly true of vegetables that require time-consuming preparation.Much imported food cont
Aug. 12, 2014
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Another Apple alibi sours
Complacency is a sin in business in general and a deadly one in technology; now that devices with the Android operating system have surpassed Apple’s iOS in web-browsing share, the iPhone maker is guilty of hubris. The day is coming when Apple will either need more aggressive pricing, or a qualitative jump echoing the one that first made it a leader in mobile.Few remember now that in 2009, the year Samsung introduced its first Galaxy smartphone running Google’s Android OS, the South Korean compa
Aug. 12, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] Korea needs colorless and color-free men
We know those who subscribe to political correctness prefer the term “a man of color” to “a colored man,” which they believe is tainted with racial bias. Indeed, “a man of color” sounds more positive and attractive since it implies that the person has a unique charm and personality. Even in Korean, “a man of color” (saekal itneun namja) has good connotations and refers to a man of charming and inimitable character. In Korean society, however, we certainly need colorless or color-free men because
Aug. 12, 2014
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Ebola provides a painful lesson on Liberia
Dr. Elinor Graham and her friend, Dr. Roseda Marshall, are two remarkable doctors united by their concern for the well-being of the Liberian people. In recent weeks they have been gathering medical supplies and raising awareness about Liberia among Americans.Liberia is one of several West African countries struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak that as of late last week had taken almost 900 lives. And it is one of the three most affected countries, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau, non
Aug. 12, 2014
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How U.S. can avoid the next housing bust
The boom-and-bust in the housing market has ruined lives, wiped out vast amounts of wealth and taught some hard lessons ― including at least one that Congress has seen fit to ignore: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have got to go.These huge, government-sponsored companies buy mortgages from lenders and bundle the loans into securities for sale to investors. They guarantee the underlying loans, and their guarantee is backed, in effect, by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury.Fannie and Fredd
Aug. 12, 2014
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[Sanjeev Sanyal] The last pagans standing in Iraq
SINGAPORE ― With U.S. President Barack Obama belatedly ordering air strikes and humanitarian airdrops of food and relief supplies to refugees in northern Iraq, the world is finally taking action against the Islamic State. Within a few months, the jihadist group, which until recently called itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has taken control of large parts of both countries, where it has proclaimed a new “Caliphate.” But the real reason to fear the Islamic State is not its lust for powe
Aug. 11, 2014
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Can Obama rise to the moment in Iraq?
To many, President Barack Obama’s authorization of airstrikes in Iraq ― and their commencement a few hours ago ― appears to be a major shift in U.S. posture. Certainly, this is the hope of millions of Kurds, tens of thousands of Yezidis, and countless other Iraqis desperate to stave off further gains by the radical fighters of the Islamic State in the Levant. Undoubtedly, it was a tough decision for the president, who has long been reluctant to use force in the Middle East and has prided himself
Aug. 11, 2014
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[Christine M. Flowers] Standardized tests valuable in measuring aptitudes
I always felt like a little bit of an imposter in college.It wasn’t that I was straight and a significant percentage of the Bryn Mawr population loved both Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson (take whatever inference you want from that ...)It wasn’t that I was pro-life and most of my sister students were busy protecting their ovaries from my rosaries.It wasn’t that I loved football, and the only Eagles they were interested in were the ones on the endangered species list.The real reason I felt as
Aug. 11, 2014
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The damaging legacy of Nixon and Watergate
On Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon went on national TV to announce his resignation effective at noon Aug. 9. No president had ever been forced from the White House, because no political scandal had ever destroyed a president’s ability to lead the nation. Nixon’s Watergate scandal did.This week, the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s departure, is a good time for reflection, because many Americans interested in political issues are too young to have experienced the shocking realization that their
Aug. 11, 2014