Most Popular
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South Korea confirms North Korea’s latest spy satellite launch failed
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Financially active women bear fewer children, report finds
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Leaders agree to revive 3-way cooperation, reaffirm security efforts
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N. Korea notifies Japan of plan to launch satellite before June 4: Kyodo
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S. Korea's exports set to maintain growth in May: trade minister
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Aespa breaks silence on Hybe chairman’s remark to ‘crush’ them
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[Feature] Ignorance about Africa still rampant in Korea
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Korea ushers in new space era with KASA launch
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South Korea flies fighters near border over North Korean spy satellite alarm
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Yoon, Kishida agree on close communication over Naver's Line app row
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The widening gulf between Americans and their military
Spending a couple of days at West Point, especially coming from Washington, is uplifting.The majesty of the setting high above the Hudson River ― where George Washington set up his headquarters in 1779 ― inspires. Compelling, too, is the character of the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy.Whether they are asking vigorous questions in social science class or displaying the precision of the Long Gray line on parade, the cadets inhabit a world imbued with the auras of Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas Ma
Oct. 1, 2013
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[Zaki Ladi] The global cooperation crisis
PARIS ― The rise of emerging economies worldwide has generated much optimism, in terms not only of economic development, but also of global cooperation. But the shift to a multipolar world order has not bolstered multilateralism. In fact, the opposite is true: the logic of national sovereignty has staged a comeback, with major economies consistently undermining cooperation on issues ranging from security to trade to climate change.Consider the muddle in the United Nations Security Council over S
Sept. 30, 2013
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A national family-leave law? It’s a start
Democrats are about to try, and almost certainly fail, to secure paid parental and family leave for most American workers. That could still be an achievement, if it starts a conversation about how to provide American workers with the flexibility they need to manage family needs.California and New Jersey, the two states with paid family leave programs, have shown how it can benefit not only mothers and children but also employers. In California, which has offered paid parental leave since 2004, m
Sept. 30, 2013
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Why China will disappoint pessimists yet again
China’s eagerly anticipated “hard landing” hasn’t happened yet, and recent indicators make me wonder (not for the first time) if it ever will. In the past two months, the Chinese economy has actually shown signs of accelerating.Constant pessimism in financial markets about the country’s prospects is only partly guided by economic analysis. There’s also the faith-based view that growth as rapid as China’s simply can’t go on ― and that a non-democratic country really shouldn’t expect to prosper. M
Sept. 30, 2013
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Economy cannot be all that’s slowing health costs
A new set of projections released last week by Medicare’s actuaries has drawn much attention, in part because it suggests the deceleration in the growth of health costs we’ve seen over the past few years is ephemeral. The actuaries attribute the slowdown to the “lingering effects of the economic downturn and sluggish recovery” and to increases in cost sharing.Both of these explanations have serious shortcomings ― and that, in turn, suggests something larger is in fact at work.The assertion that
Sept. 30, 2013
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[Naomi Wolf] Onstage confrontation between spies and scribes
NEW YORK ― The recent guilty plea by Donald Sachtleben, a former FBI bomb technician charged with leaking classified information, after government investigators identified him by secretly obtaining the phone logs of some Associated Press reporters, represents the latest chapter in the ongoing drama over United States security officials’ behavior.A few days earlier, another chapter played out in a New York City television studio: spies and recipients of leaked information confronted each other on
Sept. 30, 2013
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Shanghai free-trade zone is a symbol, not a threat
Hong Kong is dead. Economic roadkill on China’s way to world domination. Starting this weekend, a free-trade zone opening in Shanghai will supplant the former British colony as the gateway to the world’s most dynamic economy. That’s the chatter in the city of 7 million people, where some business leaders fear becoming China’s Chicago, long ago eclipsed by New York as a financial and cultural center. Shanghai’s new free-trade zone, opening for business Sept. 29 on 11 square miles of land, will of
Sept. 29, 2013
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America’s labor market by the numbers
NEWPORT BEACH ― Politicians and economists now join investors in a ritual that typically takes place on the first Friday of each month and has important consequences for global markets: anticipating, internalizing, and reacting to the monthly employment report released by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Over the last few years, the report has evolved in a significant way ― not only providing an assessment of the economy’s past and current state, but, increasingly, containing
Sept. 29, 2013
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[Park Sang-seek] Why do some dictatorships last longer?
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad. Together the al-Assad family reign stretches to 42 years. The Syrian political system is nominally a democratic republic. In the case of North Korea, its founder and head of the state, Kim Il-sung, has been succeeded by his son, and his son by his grandson over 62 years. But Syria and North Korea are neither the same kind of political system nor a traditional monarchy. A question arises: Why is this kind of power succession c
Sept. 29, 2013
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[Jean-Marie Guehenno] The West’s 2nd chance in Syria
NEW YORK ― The last-minute agreement between Russia and the United States to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control gives the West, which had run out of good options, a second chance to reach what always should have been its strategic goal: peace in Syria and an end to its people’s suffering.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took advantage of Western leaders’ failure to formulate a clear central objective. Did they hope to end Syria’s civil war by forcing a military stalem
Sept. 27, 2013
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Don’t be alarmed by Obamacare’s failures
House Republicans trying their damnedest to stop Obamacare in its tracks aren’t the only ones who foresee chaos when state health-insurance exchanges open next week. President Barack Obama himself has told Americans to expect “glitches” and “hiccups.”That’s an understatement. It’s the surest bet since the 1936 presidential election: Things won’t work perfectly when the gears begin turning on the giant new public health-insurance sales machine, the likes of which the U.S. has never seen. Exchange
Sept. 27, 2013
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Crisis averted; now invest in Asia’s future
The latest announcement from the U.S. Federal Reserve delaying the start of a slowdown in asset purchases gives Asian markets a bit of a reprieve but does not change the basic picture that the U.S. is embarking on a gradual normalization of its monetary policy.The big question is whether that normalization will keep driving investors out of Asia’s markets, further sapping the wind from the region’s economic sails and all but wrecking the most vulnerable economies, as happened in 1997 during the
Sept. 26, 2013
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[David Ignatius] Syrian chemicals on the move?
WASHINGTON ― A high-level defector has provided a disturbing new account of Syrian chemical weapons operations ― including an allegation that some of these weapons have been moved since Russia proposed an international monitoring scheme to destroy the toxic munitions. The revelations came in a lengthy telephone interview Sunday with Brig. Gen. Zaher al-Sakat, who was a chemical-weapons specialist for the Syrian army until he defected to the rebels in March. Sakat spoke by Skype from a city in Jo
Sept. 26, 2013
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Xi wages ideological war against liberals
The first half year of Xi Jinping’s tenure as China’s president has been marked by tighter control over the ideological sector. In less than six months, he has launched two salvos against liberals who asked for political reform.Two months after assuming the presidency in mid-March, Xi issued Document No. 9. This banned discussions on constitutionalism, universal values, civil society, the independence of the judiciary, press freedom, crony capitalism and the past mistakes of the Chinese Communis
Sept. 26, 2013
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Time running out to address problems ahead of AEC launch
Looking at the potential downside of things can be useful ― and now would be a good time for countries in ASEAN to consider and prepare for any problems relating to the ASEAN Economic Community they could face in the not-too-distant future.Countries in Southeast Asia are seeking ways to come together under the name of the AEC, scheduled for launch by the end of 2015. The 10 countries in the region will integrate themselves politically, economically and socially.It is very logical for them to get
Sept. 26, 2013
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[Martin Khor] Global agriculture system favors rich countries
A fight taking place in the World Trade Organization shows how the rules on agriculture allow rich countries to continue huge subsidies whilst penalizing developing countries’ farmers.Food is one of the most important and emotive of all issues. As consumers, we can’t survive without it.Agriculture also employs the most people in most developing countries. Ensuring farmers have enough income is key to development and social stability.Some countries that did not achieve this have faced rural disgr
Sept. 26, 2013
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[Kishore Mahbubani] Silver linings for a golden age
SINGAPORE ― Are prospects for global stability and prosperity improving or deteriorating? With enlightenment and progress in some parts of the world accompanied by atavism and stagnation elsewhere, this is not an easy question. But we can gain greater purchase on it by considering three other questions.The first is whether the United States will regain its standing as a source of moral leadership. Despite its flaws, America did provide such leadership, beginning at the end of World War II. But t
Sept. 25, 2013
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Is Xi ready to roll out pro-market reforms?
As a judge sentenced him to life in prison yesterday, a smile spread across Bo Xilai’s face. Perhaps he grasped the irony. He’d lost inside the courtroom. At the top levels of China’s leadership, though, his methods have won.Chinese state media have tried to proclaim Bo’s conviction as a triumph for the rule of law and a powerful blow in the party’s battle against corruption. Editorials have praised President Xi Jinping for his fearlessness. In fact, most Chinese understand that this was a polit
Sept. 25, 2013
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U.S. federal government faces shutdown again
“The American people don’t want the government shut down, and they don’t want Obamacare. The House has listened to the American people.”That’s what Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said at the GOP’s victory rally Friday after the House voted to pass a spending bill that cut all funding for the president’s health care law ― and took the country one step closer to a government shutdown on Oct. 1.The American people, alas, weren’t in the room to speak for themselves. But was Boehner right about the
Sept. 25, 2013
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What if insurgents close the Suez Canal?
Most of the attention these days is on Syria, but there is also a growing problem in Egypt with global implications. Nine Egyptian policemen were wounded by a bomb in the northern Sinai Peninsula on Monday. The week before, suicide bombers killed nine soldiers in the peninsula. Shootings, kidnappings and bombings ― roadside, car and suicide ― have become routine occurrences in Sinai. And the burgeoning Islamist insurgency is spreading to other parts of Egypt. In early September, the interior min
Sept. 25, 2013