Most Popular
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Russia sent more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to N. Korea in March: White House
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Key suspects grilled over alleged abuse of power in Marine death inquiry
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S. Korean children, teens grow taller, mature faster than before: study
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Army takes group action against Hybe for neglecting BTS
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Marine Corps commander summoned by CIO for questioning on alleged influence-peddling case
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[Graphic News] Number of coffee franchises in S. Korea rises 13%
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Some junior doctors are returning: Health Ministry
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[Robert J. Fouser] AI changes rationale for learning languages
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Ador CEO's request for exclusive right to terminate NewJeans' contract with Hybe refused in February
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Woman dangling from power lines rescued by residents holding blanket
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[Robert B. Reich] Significance of WhatsApp deal
If you ever wonder what’s fueling America’s staggering inequality, ponder Facebook’s acquisition of the mobile messaging company WhatsApp.Facebook is buying WhatsApp for $19 billion. That’s the highest price paid for a startup in history. It’s $3 billion more than Facebook raised when it was first listed, and more than twice what Microsoft paid for Skype.(To be precise, $12 billion of the $19 billion will be in the form of shares in Facebook, $4 billion will be in cash, and $3 billion in restric
Feb. 28, 2014
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Crimean tension and Putin’s stupidity
MOSCOW ― In his 1979 novel “The Island of Crimea,” Vasily Aksyonov imagined the region’s flourishing independence from the Soviet Union. Aksyonov, a dissident writer who emigrated to America shortly after the book’s samizdat (underground) publication, is now lauded as a prophet. But his prophecy has been turned on its head: Today’s Crimea does not want independence from Ukraine; it wants continued dependence on Russia.Traditionally the gem in the imperial crown, a lavish playground of czars and
Feb. 28, 2014
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[David Ignatius] Rising tensions in the Pacific
SHANGHAI ― A Chinese military expert is explaining to a conference here what he sees as the benign inevitability of Beijing’s rising power in the Pacific. “You should trust China,” he says cheerily. “In 10 years, we will be much stronger, and you will feel safer.” This Chinese prediction did not appear to reassure most of the several dozen European and American experts gathered for discussions last weekend. Instead, there was a consensus, even among most of the Chinese participants, that Beijing
Feb. 27, 2014
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[Rajinder Puri] India must act if it wants to restrain China
After hearing the warning of Narendra Modi to China over its repeated claims on Arunachal Pradesh, the Chinese must be laughing their heads off. Making an election speech in the north-east, Modi ― Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate ― advised China to give up its expansionist attitude.He said: “No power on earth can take away even an inch from India. Moreover, the present world does not accept an expansionist attitude. Times have changed. China should give up its expansionist atti
Feb. 27, 2014
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Ukrainian uprising is a rebellion, not a revolution
PARIS ― Ceding to protestors’ demands, Ukrainian parliament members voted last week to impeach President Viktor Yanukovych and hold early elections, which have been set for May 25. Online “slacktivists,” keyboard warriors and various media outlets responded by breathlessly declaring the situation a “revolution” ― and in some cases even proclaiming it a successful one. Except that it isn’t at this point. Far from it.Proponents of freedom and democracy would love nothing more than for Ukrainian ci
Feb. 27, 2014
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Reconciliation is the way forward for Malaysia
Malaysians are increasingly polarized ― especially over race and religion.At the same time we’ve also lost our sense of humor. We’ve become dour, over-sensitive killjoys. The spirit of Lat, Harith Iskandar and Jo Kukuthas has disappeared.Now, everyone has the right to be proud of their culture and identity.But we’re suffering today because we all think of ourselves as being “Malay,” “Chinese” or “Indian” before being Malaysian. So how do we move forward?To me, “national reconciliation” must begi
Feb. 27, 2014
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Can protests fix inequality in Thailand?
The events unfolding in Bangkok have all the elements of a slow-motion finale to Thailand’s political drama: The civil court has banned the caretaker government from dispersing street protesters who have been joined by armed men. Angry rice farmers are demanding overdue payments from a government that cannot sell stockpiled rice fast enough. And Premier Yingluck Shinawatra stands to be relieved of her duties after an unusually snappy investigation into her alleged negligence.Protest leaders tout
Feb. 27, 2014
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[Marc Champion] Don’t count out Tymoshenko
Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s most famous political prisoner, cut a frail and diminished figure when she emerged from jail last weekend to address the crowd on Kiev’s Independence Square from a wheelchair. They were less than ecstatic, but don’t count her out. She is one of the world’s truly tough women.What to do about Tymoshenko will be one of many difficult questions for Ukraine, assuming the country doesn’t first descend into civil war. On her release, she told Ukrainian reporters she would ru
Feb. 26, 2014
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Putin won the games, but he lost Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted the Olympics to showcase his New Russia ― strong, competent, self-assured, like him. The Sochi Olympics ended peacefully and the games unfolded without any significant problem. Better yet, Russian athletes topped the medal count. Bravo!And yet, you can be sure that Putin is not in a celebratory mood. The way things stood during the closing ceremonies, Russia won the Olympics, but it lost Ukraine. That is a losing bargain.The Ukrainian people launched their
Feb. 26, 2014
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[Cass R. Sunstein] Enduring lessons of the film ‘12 Years a Slave’
The success of the film “12 Years a Slave,” which is up for the best picture Oscar at Sunday’s Academy Awards, has made an unexpected best-seller of the book on which it is based. Solomon Northup’s memoir, published in 1853, reads a bit like the best science fiction, in the sense that the world it depicts is fully recognizable, but with an odd twist that gives it a constant sense of being off-kilter.Of course, the twist is slavery, so we are dealing with neither science nor fiction.A recurring p
Feb. 26, 2014
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‘First Laddie Issue’ could impede Hillary in 2016
You probably won’t believe this, but I aim to help Hillary Clinton fulfill her destiny and rule the world.But the thing is, she has a problem.You wouldn’t know it from reading or watching the news. That’s because in most newsrooms across America ― and perhaps even in some place called “real life” ― the inevitability of Hillary Clinton as president is a given.Yet even as the great tide of her inevitability swells and rises to 2016, there is an issue. Sadly, it remains hidden to most of her champi
Feb. 26, 2014
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[William Pesek] Is Abe behind Japan’s nut jobs?
There’s a reason the nuns in Queens had me and my classmates read Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” several times ― the same reason that’s made the book required reading around the globe. The 15-year-old’s account of hiding from the Nazis is impervious to nut jobs who argue the Holocaust is fiction.Shockingly, in recent days at least 282 copies of Frank’s memoirs have been vandalized at 36 libraries across Tokyo ― their pages torn or defaced. No one knows who did it, or why. But it requir
Feb. 25, 2014
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[Kim Seong-kon] Is Korea still a ‘No Action, Talk Only’ nation?
Americans are well-known to be law-abiding people. However, when they find a rule inconvenient and unreasonable, they do not seem to hesitate to bend or change it. Americans are also famous for acting quickly. One good example of this is the self-defense law implemented right after the Homestead Act. Upon learning that Native Americans and outlaws were frequently invading the territory of the homesteaders and killing them, the U.S. Congress immediately took action, passing the famous self-defens
Feb. 25, 2014
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Obama’s cold feet on gay marriage
Three federal judges have now ruled that state bans on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution’s “equal protection” clause. President Barack Obama seems to disagree.He has repeatedly stated that, while he personally supports same-sex marriage, the issue should be left to the states. In other words, the nation’s first black president holds a states-rights position on what has shaped up to be the civil-rights issue of this generation.Most states ban same-sex marriage. And if they are left to wo
Feb. 25, 2014
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Cut off Harvard and save America
College endowments totaled $448.6 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013, an increase of 11.7 percent compared with a year earlier, according to recently released data.As we know, this wealth is concentrated among a privileged few. Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities all have almost $2 million in endowment funds for every student.We’ve heard the argument that what these institutions do with their privately raised money is their business and that they provide a lot of financial aid o
Feb. 25, 2014
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Republican schism engulfs protections for disabled
Any suspicion that the political right, after suffering a defeat on the debt ceiling and facing threats from business donors, is losing its clout can be dismissed by the fight over the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.The treaty has been ratified by 141 countries. It is backed by the White House, former President George H.W. Bush, the major U.S. disability and veterans advocacy groups, and American businesses.Senate Republicans, however, already defeated the t
Feb. 25, 2014
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[David Ignatius] Heartland’s internationalism
WASHINGTON ― Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, was trying to explain recently why her state has remained “internationalist” in its soul, even as it shares the national anger about Iraq and Afghanistan. In Minnesota, she says, “internationalism is not just tolerated, it’s embraced.” But Klobuchar warns that among her Senate colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, there are growing doubts about global engagement. Too many politicians, she told me, are moving toward “the idea that you shoul
Feb. 24, 2014
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Goodbye, Sochi slush. Hello, China smog?
What’s worse than a snowless, subtropical Winter Olympics like the one that wrapped up in palm-tree-lined Sochi, Russia, this weekend? How about an opening ceremony on an arid, smog-choked plain and skiing events in the mountains of the most polluted province in all of China?That’s what Beijing and Zhangjiakou, a nearby mountain town, have proposed to the International Olympic Committee as an ideal site for the 2022 Winter Games. While athletes have been competing on Sochi’s slopes, the Chinese
Feb. 24, 2014
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[George Weidenfeld] Europe’s Middle East mission
LONDON ― America’s gradual withdrawal from the Middle East puts increasing pressure on Europe to help foster peace in the region. With complex and heated wars threatening to bring about the collapse of states like Syria and Iraq, and the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Palestine seemingly as far from resolution as ever, it is almost easier to ask what Europe should avoid than what it should do.The starting point must be a simple, fundamental principle: Europe should not take sides. Al
Feb. 24, 2014
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The nightmare that is North Korea
It’s one thing to know that third-generation strongman Kim Jong-un maintains an iron grip on North Korea’s 25 million people. It’s another thing to read the horrifying particulars of how his regime wields its control ― through starvation, torture, rape, summary executions and the disappearance of tens of thousands of citizens into an extralegal prison labor-camp system.The details are contained in a report compiled by an international team of investigators led by respected Australian jurist Mich
Feb. 24, 2014