Most Popular
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Court refuses injunction on medical school expansion
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Jimin of BTS, actor Song Da-eun suspected to be dating, again
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Police raid popera singer Kim Ho-joong's house over hit-and-run suspicions
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What's next for the government's push in quota hike?
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Trump may like to 'solve' N. Korean nuclear problem if reelected: ex-official
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Woman falls to death from acquaintance's home after exhibiting ‘unexplained' behaviors
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N. Korea slams planned S. Korea-US military drills, warns of 'catastrophic aftermath'
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N. Korea fires short-range ballistic missiles toward East Sea: JCS
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‘Malice should not undermine the system, social order,’ says Hybe's Bang
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[Robert J. Fouser] Social attitudes toward language proficiency
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Why poverty across world matters to Americans
A child starving in South Sudan should matter to Americans.That was the message delivered last week by Nancy Lindborg, whose job at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is to lead a federal bureau spreading democracy and humanitarian assistance across the world.That world has reached a critical danger zone, with three high-level crises combining military conflict with humanitarian catastrophes affecting millions of innocents in Syria, the South Sudan and the Central African Repu
April 17, 2014
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Just what to do after work in Singapore?
The global financial crash of 2008 not only diminished the savings of workers nearing retirement, but it also altered mindsets about the work cycle. In America, most people have to work their way back to the point where they originally had been ready to call it a day. With welfarism squeezed after the Clinton reforms and European workers being put on notice of a tightening of benefits, retirement is becoming a misnomer in the West. Workers are bracing themselves to continue on the job for as lon
April 17, 2014
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[Kor Kian Beng] Xi still needs Deng’s approach
Capping a year of high-profile and at times provocative diplomatic moves that have stirred unease in Asia and beyond, Chinese President Xi Jinping recently described China as “a lion that has awakened.”That remark, which referenced Napoleon’s description of China as a sleeping lion, has prompted many to wonder if Xi intends to end late strongman Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy strategy of taoguang yanghui or “hiding one’s capabilities and biding one’s time.” Some even think he has already done so
April 17, 2014
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We must stop using Songkran as an excuse
Think of Songkran and two things immediately come to mind: water-splashing fun and deadly road accidents. Midway through the “Seven Dangerous Days,” dozens have been killed in auto accidents, snuffing caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s hopes for “seven days of happiness.”Worse, the number of road accidents has risen. The first three days of the festival, Friday through Sunday, saw 1,539 accidents, compared with 1,446 last year. No surprise, then, that injuries rose from 1,526 in 2013
April 17, 2014
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Taiwan can’t count on the U.S. navy
A lot of noise was made in December after China sent its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, on a jaunt through the South China Sea. The deployment, termed a “training exercise” by the mainland government, caused great concern in Taiwan and Japan, coming shortly after Beijing’s controversial expansion of its Air Defense Identification Zone to include islands administered by Japan and claimed by China. The Liaoning, which is not fully operational yet, clipped Taiwan’s own ADIZ and one of its es
April 17, 2014
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[William Pesek] Japan’s backward reform drive
For Abenomics bulls who still hold out hope that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to make good on his pledges to revitalize Japan, the past week must have been at least a little disconcerting.In that span, Abe unveiled a “new” energy plan, which in fact put to rest any notion that he might use the Fukushima nuclear accident as a spur to invest in renewables. Unveiled on April 11, Abe’s strategy instead promotes an unimaginative mix of nuclear and coal. Then, on Monday, the Japan Exchange Group
April 16, 2014
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Chernobyl factor in Ukraine crisis
LOS ANGELES ― Twenty-eight years after its Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded, Ukraine confronts a nuclear specter of a different kind: the possibility that the country’s reactors could become military targets in the event of a Russian invasion. Speaking at the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague in March, Andrii Deshchytsia, Ukraine’s acting foreign minister, cited the “potential threat to many nuclear facilities” should events deteriorate into open warfare.Earlier in the month, Ihor Prokopchuk,
April 16, 2014
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Nudging taxpayers to do the right thing
Most Americans comply with the tax laws, but every year many of our fellow citizens don’t. The result is the “tax gap” ― the amount of revenue that the government loses because people are cheating. In one recent year, for example, the tax gap was $450 billion. That’s a lot of money ― more than 10 times the budget of the State Department.What can be done to increase compliance? Remarkably, a short letter to delinquent taxpayers ― based on the findings of behavioral science ― can have large effect
April 16, 2014
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[Kim Myong-sik] Reports on North fail to exhibit good journalism
“Any report on the North is either a scoop or a fiction.” This is the sub-headline of an article in Kwanhun Journal 2014-Spring. The quarterly, published by the Kwanhun Club, a fraternity of senior journalists, devoted its latest issue to the problem of reporting on North Korea.We noticed yet another example of undesirable media practices ahead of the latest session of the North Korean legislature. Prior to the opening of the first session of the 13th term of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly i
April 16, 2014
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What Greece could tell us about Ukraine
As tensions escalate in the eastern part of Ukraine, the country’s officials are in Washington looking to put the finishing touches on an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that provides immediate financial relief and opens the doors to help from others. Given the situation on the ground, these already-complex negotiations must find a way to balance economic, political, security and social considerations. Also, the parties need to come up with a lot of money to cover the country’s fi
April 16, 2014
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[Lee Jae-min] The tale of two conflicting laws
With the completion of the domestic proceeding in Moscow to annex the Crimean peninsula after the referendum on March 16, the debates have now moved on to the realm of law. The United States and the EU claim that the annexation is in clear violation of international law. To which Russia counters that the annexation was consummated in compliance with international law and that instead it is Western states that are violating the legal norms. Here are a few details. Washington and Brussels point ou
April 15, 2014
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India’s election won’t be decided on old lines
Last week, India embarked on what has repeatedly been hailed as the biggest electoral exercise in history. But the bigger grinding noise seemed to come from hundreds of electoral pundits as they cranked up the machinery of received ideas. India’s future, these portentous commentators declared, would be decided by the winner of the three-way clash between Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal. Or the older battle between secularism and Hindu nationalism. Or the one between free-market c
April 15, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] Returning from the London Book Fair
Last week I went to London with some of Korea’s finest writers to participate in the 2014 London Book Fair, to which South Korea had been invited as the Market Focus country. Thanks to the recent popularity of hallyu and advanced Korean technology represented by Samsung, LG and Hyundai, South Korea has become widely and favorably known throughout the world. Accordingly, Korea has been the guest of honor at major international book fairs, including those of Frankfurt in 2005, Beijing in 2012 and
April 15, 2014
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China’s Tibet conundrum: How to conquer a myth
Beijing has no shortage of issues to confront. There’s the South China Sea, uncontrollable corruption, a slowing economy and factional disputes within the party and military. But Chinese officials also face one of the most difficult challenges in modern statecraft: how to conquer a myth.Despite China’s attempts to dislodge its mythic appeal, Tibet as Shangri-La seems firmly set in the world’s imagination. The once-independent nation, set high on a broad plateau adjacent to the Himalayas, is a wo
April 15, 2014
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Jesus may have had a wife, on paper at least
Was Jesus married? Trust me when I say I have no dog in the fight. But yesterday, when I read an academic article by a Harvard Divinity School professor arguing for the authentic antiquity of a papyrus fragment that includes the phrase “Jesus said, my wife,” I was filled with awe and wonder. How, exactly, could a respected scholar, Karen King, who holds my university’s oldest endowed professorship, be so confident that the Coptic fragment, first publicized two years ago, is indeed ancient? Almos
April 15, 2014
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[Shashi Tharoor] Gurus and governors in India
NEW DELHI ― The ongoing general election in India has brought to prominence not only the usual cast of political aspirants, campaign managers, publicists, and vote-brokers, but also an array of astrologers, numerologists, and pandits. Candidates have been flocking to such soothsayers in large numbers, seeking advice on everything from the precise minute to file their nomination forms to the appropriate alignment of the doors of their campaign offices. Indians, after all, manage to live in that r
April 14, 2014
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Teens trade naked selfies for mugshots
Will teenagers ever learn? You think yours will. Maybe so. But it’s likely that was also the hope of the parents of children who were so shamed by nude photos of themselves that went south ― how else can they go ― that they killed themselves.Sexting hasn’t ended, despite the misery it causes and the hope that easily bored teens will move on to something else. There were two fresh highly public outbreaks this month. The largest spread across six counties in Virginia, where more than 1,000 picture
April 14, 2014
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[Cass R. Sunstein] Why investors make bad choices
For many years, I have studied human behavior, including the mistakes occasionally made by fallible people, including investors.But a few years ago, I made a really dumb investment decision. In a single day, I hit the trifecta, committing at least three classic behavioral mistakes.The year was 2011. The stock market was recovering well from its terrible collapse during the Great Recession, but over a short period it had a series of stumbles. I got nervous. What if it collapsed again?At the time,
April 14, 2014
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Benefits of inter-Korean logistics cooperation
The Korean people expected that the Oct. 4 South-North Summit Declaration in 2007 would provide the Korean Peninsula with a blueprint for economic cooperation and act as a catalyst for the reunification of two Koreas.The declaration was largely composed of agreements on logistics cooperation between the South and the North, such as renovating the Gaeseong-Pyongyang highway and Gaeseong-Sinyeoju Railway, opening direct flights between Seoul and Mount Baekdusan, allowing railroad freight transport
April 14, 2014
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The court knows what it is doing, and its effects
The latest Supreme Court ruling ― defending the rights of billionaires to try to rent, if not buy, the gratitude and votes of unlimited numbers of politicians ― has just provided fresh evidence that helps us finally answer a central question that has divided the experts.It focuses on what the conservative justices are really up to in their activist judicial campaign to remake The Founders’ concept of free speech and democracy in today’s age of television and Internet.Some experts politely conten
April 14, 2014