Most Popular
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[Weekender] Geeks have never been so chic in Korea
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N. Korea says it test-fired tactical ballistic missile with new guidance technology
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NewJeans members submit petitions over court injunction in Hybe-Ador conflict
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[News Focus] Mystery deepens after hundreds of cat deaths in S. Korea
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S. Korea's exports of instant noodles surpass $100m for 1st time in April: data
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[Herald Interview] Byun Yo-han's 'unlikable' character is result of calculated acting
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US military commander in S. Korea during Gwangju uprising dies
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[KH Explains] Why Korea's so tough on short selling
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[Photo News] Seoul seeks 'best sleeper'
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US expert says N. Korea might ignore Trump if he returns to White House
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Japan’s option in face of increasing nuclear threat
On Tuesday, Hiroshima marked the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. Nagasaki will do the same Friday.As the only nation ever to have been attacked with atomic weapons, how will Japan pass on the accounts of the terrible devastation wrought by the bombings and entreat the world to prevent nuclear weapons, which are inhumane by themselves, from being used again? The average age of atomic-bomb survivors has already passed 78.In a declaration of peace announced Tuesday at a peace me
Aug. 8, 2013
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[Salman Haidar] Progress in India-U.S. relations
It is not so long since the India-U.S. nuclear deal ushered in a new era in relations between the two countries. The edginess that had so often intruded seemed to have been definitively set aside, to be replaced by a genuine spirit of goodwill and cooperation. The nuclear issue had been the most prominent among the differences between the two countries, a seemingly impermeable barrier between them. The U.S. felt obliged to impose sanctions on many types of nuclear-related transactions between th
Aug. 8, 2013
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Bo Xilai’s trial exposes truth about China
Almost 18 months after it roiled the Chinese political establishment, the Bo Xilai scandal is drawing to a close. The trial of the former Chongqing Communist Party chief could start as early as this week. If anything, the ignominious end of Bo ― once viewed as a shoo-in for a spot on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top decision-making body ― is an anticlimax. Even if the trial were public, we would witness no courtroom drama. Bo, who hasn’t appeared in public since March 2012,
Aug. 7, 2013
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[David Ignatius] The Grahams’ final gift to paper
WASHINGTON ― It’s easy to talk about how change is good, but when it actually happens it‘s a shock. It felt that way for hundreds of Washington Post employees on Monday when we heard our boss, Donald Graham, tell us that he was selling the newspaper. To appreciate what happened this week, you have to understand how personal the owner’s relationship was with the Post. This is a CEO who kept at the entry to his office an old wooden cart used to distribute the paper when it was called The Post and
Aug. 7, 2013
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[Kim Myong-sik] Top-level scandals weaken confidence in state
This year’s jangma is finally over after a record two-month stretch. While the rain front moved up and down the peninsula from mid-June, the nation had too much disturbing news that further annoyed people who were under nature’s merciless attack with floods, landslides, unbearable heat and humidity. Most saddening was the sacrifice of six workers ― three from China ― in the flooding of a piped water facility construction site in Seoul. Then we lost five high-school boys at a poorly supervised se
Aug. 7, 2013
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U.S. public don’t know what food stamps buy
The debate in Congress about cutting the food stamp program has sparked predictable clashes between those who want to help the poor and those who want to cut government spending. But strangely missing from the arguments is a shocking fact: The public, including Congress, knows almost nothing about how the program’s $80 billion is spent.What foods are being purchased by the 47 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (the official name for food stamps)?
Aug. 7, 2013
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Why homo economicus might actually be an idiot
Imagine yourself betting on the long-term survival of two types of people. One is the classic egoist, focused and ruthless. The other is more selfless, willing to help fellow humans without any evident gain. Who will be more successful? For anyone steeped in the prevailing thinking of our era, the obvious winner is the egoist. Darwinian evolution and the lore of modern capitalism tell us that only fierce competitors survive. Altruists, the game theorists teach us, are mathematically incapable of
Aug. 7, 2013
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Who does America’s banker wants as Fed chairman?
That 1999 Time magazine cover is finally catching up with Lawrence Summers. That was the year Summers was celebrated along with Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin as “The Committee to Save the World” for their free-market solutions to Asia’s financial crisis. The timing always struck Asians as odd, given that they were still picking up the pieces from a meltdown made worse by the trio’s ill-conceived and overbearing remedies. That baggage is but one reason many in Asia favor Janet Yellen over Summe
Aug. 6, 2013
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This is time to test new Iran leader’s bona fides
The same House of Representatives that just voted to speed up the end of U.S. combat missions in Afghanistan seems eager to embroil America in another war in the greater Mideast ― with Iran.In high dudgeon, House members voted, 400-20, last week for more harsh economic sanctions on Tehran ― just before the inauguration of Iran’s president-elect, Hassan Rouhani. The new Iranian leader says he wants to ease tensions with Washington, and has signaled he may be ready to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
Aug. 6, 2013
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Bulky words drive out short, simple, clear ones
In 16th-century England, Thomas Gresham formulated what is now known as Gresham’s law, which stipulates that bad money drives out good. Paper money tends to circulate more freely than silver, and silver more freely than gold, because people hoard whatever type of money is seen as best. It’s why we spend those torn dollar bills first. I have no problem with this. It might even be a good thing, because it expands the money supply and credit. But I do have a problem when a similar dynamic takes ove
Aug. 6, 2013
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[Kim Seong-kon] Rereading history: Yi Kwangsu’s ‘My Confessions’
With Seoul National University’s recent decision to designate Korean history a required subject for applicants, other universities are beginning to follow suit. There is no need to debate the importance of history education. However, a more essential and urgent question we must ask is how do we want to teach history? It is well known that secondary school history education in Korea today is seriously distorted by radical, pro-North Korea teachers who teach, for example, that the Korean War was a
Aug. 6, 2013
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[Lee Jae-min] A rare rush to Apple’s rescue
An unexpected turn of events occurred last Saturday in the three-year legal battle saga between Samsung and Apple. Since 2011, the two digital giants have been engaged in more than 30 legal proceedings in more than a dozen jurisdictions worldwide claiming patent infringement. And now the plot thickens as the U.S. government enters the fray between the two private corporations.So came the veto by the Obama administration of the United States International Trade Commission’s June ruling in favor o
Aug. 6, 2013
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A better welcome for Iran’s new president
The U.S. House of Representatives has a peculiar way of welcoming Iran’s new president. Just days before today’s inauguration of Hassan Rohani, who has vowed to improve relations with the outside world and bring transparency to Iran’s nuclear program, the House approved legislation that would impose the harshest sanctions to date on Iran. It’s possible to doubt both the sincerity of Rohani’s pledges (or at least his ability to follow through on them) and the value of the House’s legislation. Par
Aug. 5, 2013
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[Terri Chung] Free my brother from N. Korea
I will never forget the sound of anguish my mother made as we watched the recently released video footage of the American citizen ― my brother, Kenneth Bae ― in a North Korean labor camp. Our family had been devastated by my brother‘s 15-year sentence of hard labor, but nothing could have prepared us for this.My mother drew in a sharp breath and broke into heaving sobs, gasping for breath, at the sight of her son so diminished. We could see the heavy toll his long imprisonment, since November, h
Aug. 5, 2013
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Obama, Republicans gird for another debt chicken
Democrats and Republicans, bracing for a game of chicken over a possible government shutdown and a debt-ceiling default, should rewatch the 1955 movie, “Rebel Without a Cause,” starring the American icon James Dean. A thug challenges Dean’s character to race their stolen cars toward an abyss. The first driver who jumps out of his speeding vehicle is a coward. Dean leaps just as his car is about to go over the cliff; the other guy’s leather jacket gets ensnared in the door handle, and he plunges
Aug. 5, 2013
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Follow basic safety rules to prevent water accidents
On July 15, six workers were killed at the flooded Noryangjin Reservior in Seoul. When the cause of the accident was disclosed, it became clear that the accident was a “man-made disaster.” If even one of the several dozens of people responsible for the construction of the Noryangjin Reservoir had fulfilled their roles properly, the accident could have been avoided; however, it happened as all of them handled it with insensibility and complacency.Three days later, on July 18, five second-year stu
Aug. 5, 2013
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[Jeffrey Frankel] Protectionist shadows cast over solar power
CAMBRIDGE ― As July ended, a settlement was reached in the world’s largest anti-dumping dispute, with China agreeing to a minimum price for the solar panels that it exports to the European Union. The solution is much less severe than what had been the imminent alternative: EU tariffs on Chinese solar panels were set to rise to 47.6 percent, as a result of the European Commission’s “finding” that China ― whose market share now stands at 80 percent in Europe ― had been “dumping.” Nonetheless, the
Aug. 5, 2013
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Our hotter, wetter, more violent future
Earth’s atmosphere seems to have found a way to get back at the human race. For almost three centuries, we humans have been filling the air with carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Now, it turns out, the climate change these emissions have wrought is turning people against one another. So says a review, published today, of 60 studies on how climate change helps spark conflict throughout the world. The researchers found a surprisingly close link between climate change and civil wa
Aug. 4, 2013
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[William Pesek] Asia’s $7 trillion problem
“It’s our currency, but it’s your problem.” This musing from Nixon-era Treasury Secretary John Connally is about to find new relevance as the White House battles Republicans over raising the U.S. debt limit. Connally couldn’t have foreseen how right he would be 42 years on as Asia sits on almost $7 trillion in currency reserves, much of it in dollars. Asia’s central banks engaged in a kind of financial arms race after a 1997 crisis, stockpiling dollars as a defense against turmoil. That altered
Aug. 4, 2013
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Six of Janet Yellen or half-dozen of Larry Summers?
The strangest part of the increasingly bitter shadow campaign for chairman of the Federal Reserve is that the contest is not really about monetary policy. It’s about financial regulation. The two leading candidates for the job are Janet Yellen, the current vice chairman of the Fed, and Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary and an economics adviser to President Barack Obama. When it comes to monetary policy, they don’t differ drastically. Both support the Fed policy to maintain low interes
Aug. 4, 2013