Most Popular
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Marine Corps commander summoned by CIO for questioning on alleged influence-peddling case
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Debate rages over ‘overly fatty’ samgyeopsal
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[Weekender] Korean psyche untangled: Musok
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40 flights canceled on Jeju Island due to bad weather
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[Eye Interview] 'If you live to 100, you might as well be happy,' says 88-year-old bestselling essayist
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From fake prostitution ring to nonexistent robber, prank calls hamper police
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N. Korea slams US, other countries for seeking alternative to UN sanctions monitoring panel
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Missing S. Korean traveler in Paris found safe after 2 weeks
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Defense chiefs of US, Australia, Japan decry NK-Russia military cooperation
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Pandemic left Korea more depressed than before: report
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[David Ignatius] Putin’s borrowed playbook
WASHINGTON ― The West has made NATO’s military alliance the heart of its response to Russia’s power grab in Ukraine. But we may be fighting the wrong battle: The weapons President Vladimir Putin has used in Crimea and eastern Ukraine look more like paramilitary “covert action” than conventional military force.Putin, the former KGB officer, may in fact be taking a page out of America’s playbook during the Ronald Reagan presidency, when the Soviet empire began to unravel thanks to a relentless U.S
April 9, 2014
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Microsoft plays on the small screen
Microsoft Corp. first tried to get into the television business in the 1990s. That effort failed, but the experience hasn’t stopped it from trying again with the help of heavyweights such as Steven Spielberg and former CBS Corp. film and entertainment boss Nancy Tellem. While the new plan might succeed, it illustrates why tech companies will have a hard time changing the way most Americans consume television.Microsoft’s latest foray into original content makes sense because its objectives are mo
April 9, 2014
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[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Cementing Europe’s recovery
BRUSSELS ― During my current trip to Europe, I have been encouraged by the hope and deeper sense of economic and financial calm that has arrived this spring. With risk spreads compressing markedly, the region’s financial crisis has been relegated to the history books, and the region is again attracting the interest of foreign investors. Consumer confidence is recovering as well, and businesses are again looking to expand, albeit cautiously. Economic growth has picked up and unemployment, while s
April 9, 2014
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Obamacare isn’t failing ― now what?
Imagine that someone had told you a year ago what Obamacare would look like in April 2014.Let’s say he predicted that the number of people with health insurance would rise, but by much less than the Congressional Budget Office was projecting. Much of this increase would come from putting more people on Medicaid rather than from the exchanges, which were supposed to be the centerpiece of the law.He went on to predict that President Barack Obama would feel compelled to let people stay in insurance
April 9, 2014
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Bright and dark sides of progress in Rwanda
KIGALI, Rwanda ― Twenty years ago, the state of Rwanda set about trying to hack itself out of existence. Starting on April 7, 1994, Hutu extremists, in a premeditated 100-day campaign, systematically butchered close to 1 million Tutsis ― three-quarters of all those in the country ― as well as moderate Hutus, driving countless more into exile.Yet two decades later, Rwanda is very much alive; indeed, in many respects, it’s thriving. But it remains a confounding place.Visit the country today and yo
April 9, 2014
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[Robert J. Fouser] There goes the neighborhood
Spring brings flowers, but in Seoul it also brings construction. Shops close suddenly, leaving a note on the door. Demolition starts that next day and a rush of activity creates something new. Often that something new is a cafe. Recent waves of construction are turning Seoul into a city of cafes, bars and restaurants. Small, local shops are slowly disappearing.The pace of change differs from place to place, but the pattern is the same: places that sell things are losing to places that sell food
April 8, 2014
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Sexist culture holds Korea Inc. back
The presidency of Park Geun-hye would appear to have settled South Korea’s gender debate. Just as some Americans like to believe racism ended the moment they elected a black leader, many Koreans figure their nation shed its sexist heritage the moment a woman became president.Neither is true, of course. In February, the same month Park marked her first anniversary in office, Korea received ominous news from the U.N.’s gender-equality office: The country ranked near the bottom yet again in the 34-
April 8, 2014
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Why Starbucks won’t recycle your cup
When you drop that used white paper cup into the bin next to the door at a Starbucks, have you done your part to save the planet? Starbucks has long hoped that you would think so. After all, there’s no better way to attract an affluent, eco-conscious clientele than to convince customers that your disposable product is “renewable.” So, in 2008 the coffee company announced that by 2015 it would offer recycling at all company-operated branches.That seemed like the least that Starbucks ― which sells
April 8, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] Ex-presidents and looking at things upside down
A few days ago, I went to the Korea National Diplomatic Academy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give a lecture on American culture to high-ranking government officials. Walking toward the lecture hall, I saw a huge world atlas hanging on the wall. Interestingly, the map was upside down, so Australia was up above and Russia was down under. The unconventional map provided me with a whole new perspective of perceiving the world. Below the map was an intriguing caption: “Looking at the world u
April 8, 2014
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How to unlock Africa’s economic potential
In the past year, I’ve visited Nigeria three times ― more than I’ve traveled to any other country except the U.S. I mentioned this to an audience on my most recent trip, saying I wasn’t sure what it meant: Am I a leading, coincident or lagging indicator? Maybe I was just there for the power outages ― they shield me from the latest news about Manchester United. (Don’t ask.)Of course I aspire to be a leading indicator ― and I’m hopeful Nigeria and much of the rest of Africa will demonstrate my far
April 8, 2014
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[Yuliya Tymoshenko] Resisting Yalta temptation
KIEV ― The quiet period between the declaration of war in September 1939 and the Nazi blitz on Belgium and France in May 1940 is often called “The Phony War.” Since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, and began massing troops and armored columns on our eastern border, we in Ukraine have been living through a “phony peace.”There is nothing phony, however, about the efforts we Ukrainians are now making to defend our country and our democracy. Our young men and women are volunteering for military se
April 7, 2014
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Putin’s rejection of the West, in writing
What kind of country is Vladimir Putin’s Russia? The third year of his third presidential term has offered plenty of clues: the Crimea invasion, the shuttering of uncensored media outlets, prison terms for protesters. Now, Putin is planning to put the intellectual and ideological foundations of the new regime into words.A document called “Foundations of the State Cultural Policy” has been under development since 2012. A special working group under Putin’s chief of staff Sergei Ivanov will soon r
April 7, 2014
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India’s voters deserve a better kind of politics
The elections that begin Monday in India and unfold over the following weeks will be unusually significant. It isn’t just that they’ll decide whether the controversial chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, will assume leadership of almost a fifth of humanity. The vote also marks a deep and potentially momentous change in the character of the Indian electorate.Unlike in previous polls, when huge blocks of voters could be counted on to support dubiously qualified candidates of their own caste
April 7, 2014
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Reforming state-market balance in China
BEIJING ― No country in recorded history has grown as fast ― and moved as many people out of poverty ― as China over the last thirty years. A hallmark of China’s success has been its leaders’ willingness to revise the country’s economic model when and as needed, despite opposition from powerful vested interests. And now, as China implements another series of fundamental reforms, such interests are already lining up to resist. Can the reformers triumph again?In answering that question, the crucia
April 7, 2014
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Scare tactics fail climate scientists, and everyone else
Why aren’t climate scientists winning the argument on climate policy? It sure isn’t for lack of effort.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just published another vast pile of material, this time focused on “impacts, adaptation and vulnerability.” The IPCC says that the new report’s “30 chapters, supported by a number of annexes and supplementary material” were produced by a “total of 243 Coordinating and Lead Authors and 66 review editors from 70 countries and 436 Contributing Authors
April 7, 2014
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[Robert Reich] Slouching toward oligarchy
America is not yet an oligarchy, but that’s where Charles and David Koch and a few other billionaires are taking us.American democracy used to depend on political parties that more or less represented most of us. Political scientists of the 1950s and 1960s marveled at American “pluralism,” by which they meant the capacities of parties and other membership groups to reflect the preferences of the vast majority of citizens.Then around a quarter century ago, as income and wealth began concentrating
April 6, 2014
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What Xi Jinping could learn from pope
Xi Jinping and Jorge Mario Bergoglio would seem like natural enemies. The Chinese president runs a government that squashes religious freedom, limits procreation and has a dismal human-rights record. Bergoglio ― better known as Pope Francis ― wants access to Xi’s many citizens in order to spread the Catholic Church’s teachings, challenge the Communist Party’s hold on dogma and even reach out to North Korea.Yet these world leaders should really be sharing notes. The tasks facing the two men who t
April 6, 2014
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[Yu Kun-ha] Time to end life support for zombie firms
Economists have shown that one way to spur productivity growth of an industrial sector is to clear it of “zombies” ― unproductive and unprofitable companies that need support from their creditors or the government to stay afloat. These nonviable firms hinder a more efficient allocation of resources. By continuing to operate, they use up financial, physical and human resources that could be allocated to more productive companies.Furthermore, they depress economic activity by making it difficult f
April 6, 2014
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Home run hitters of the U.S. Supreme Court
In the nation’s history, 112 people have served on the Supreme Court of the United States. Suppose that we were to select the all-time greats. Who would make the cut?To answer that question, we need a metric. It makes sense to consider two factors: historical significance and legal ability. It would be too contentious to include only those justices with whom one agrees, so let’s make this list ideology-free. We’ll also exclude the current justices, because it is too early to tell whether any wil
April 6, 2014
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Korea champions global safe cities campaign
Nine years after the United Nations’ General Assembly endorsed the Hyogo Framework for Action to reduce disaster losses the world is making progress in building more resilient communities, cities and nations.The Republic of Korea should be proud of its significant contributions to this global effort. The country’s National Emergency Management Agency has emerged as a leading advocate of stronger disaster risk management to protect and sustain the huge development gains of recent years.NEMA, alon
April 6, 2014