Most Popular
-
1
Jimin of BTS, actor Song Da-eun suspected to be dating, again
-
2
Police raid popera singer Kim Ho-joong's house over hit-and-run suspicions
-
3
What's next for the government's push in quota hike?
-
4
Trump may like to 'solve' N. Korean nuclear problem if reelected: ex-official
-
5
Woman falls to death from acquaintance's home after exhibiting ‘unexplained' behaviors
-
6
N. Korea slams planned S. Korea-US military drills, warns of 'catastrophic aftermath'
-
7
N. Korea fires short-range ballistic missiles toward East Sea: JCS
-
8
‘Malice should not undermine the system, social order,’ says Hybe's Bang
-
9
[Robert J. Fouser] Social attitudes toward language proficiency
-
10
[Graphic News] How much do Korean adults read?
-
Prince William’s charming choice to take leave
On the face of it, Prince William’s decision to take two weeks of job-protected, paid statutory paternity leave is absurd. The heir to the British throne can live without the approximately $206 a week in taxpayer funds that men in the U.K. are entitled to receive if they take time off to welcome a baby. But as a symbolic gesture, the prince’s choice is, as the Brits would say, brilliant. For in William’s subtle, necessarily apolitical, good-guy way, he has issued the boldest possible statement o
July 30, 2013
-
Keeping robots from destroying humans
In the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea, SGR-1 robots are on patrol, equipped with cameras and radar to detect intruders as well as speakers to warn them off. If that fails, they also carry machine guns and grenade launchers. In the U.S., the Home Exploring Robotic Butler can retrieve a book from a shelf, a meal from a microwave or a drink from the kitchen. It can even separate an Oreo cookie. In Japan, a seal-like robot called Paro provides companionship for seniors ― and seems
July 29, 2013
-
[Trudy Rubin] Dangerous U.S. Syria policy
Anyone who doubts the dangerous consequences of White House waffling on Syria should note some startling statements by U.S. officials in recent days.Let’s start at the top. After two years of insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go, the White House started publicly hedging last week. No doubt that was a reaction to the fact that Assad, armed and aided by Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, has been scoring major victories against the Syrian rebels.The new W
July 29, 2013
-
McCain goes maverick again as Obama’s ally
Washington being Washington, the hottest relationship in town doesn’t revolve around sex or even the next presidential election: it’s the political courtship of old antagonists, Barack Obama and John McCain. Political relationships, especially those involving the president, are the sustenance of the American capital. Sometimes they are poisonous: President Lyndon Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy, as captured in the latest volume of Robert Caro’s biography of LBJ. At other times, they are lopsided,
July 29, 2013
-
[Ruchir Sharma] What the middle classes are really protesting
Still-smoldering protests from Egypt to Brazil have set off a race among scholars and journalists to identify the roots of this summer of discontent in the emerging world. Each major theory starts at the bottom, with the protesters on the street, and notes a common thread: young, Twitter-savvy members of a rising middle class. In this telling, the protests represent the perils of success, as growing wealth creates a class of people who have the time and financial wherewithal to demand from their
July 29, 2013
-
Mexico’s ‘new’ drug war
Last week, Mexican authorities arrested Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, the leader of the Zetas, Mexico’s deadliest and most feared drug cartel. In Mexico, the news was met with relief, although there is also apprehension that his arrest will lead to a convulsion of violence; historically, taking out cartel kingpins has meant power struggles within organized crime groups, schisms that leave many dead in their wake.Trevino Morales, known as Z-40, was apprehended ― along with a bodyguard and a third
July 29, 2013
-
[David Ignatius] NSA weighs its options
WASHINGTON ― The National Security Agency survived a legislative challenge in the House of Representatives last week. But senior NSA officials still face an uphill fight to convince the American public that its operations can enhance security without jeopardizing privacy. The Obama administration had to lobby aggressively to defeat a bipartisan House proposal to defund the NSA’s collection of Americans’ telephone call records. The narrow 217-205 vote shows how fragile public support has become f
July 28, 2013
-
Reagan lives! That’s bad news for Japanese
The Ronald Reagan moment Japan investors have long fantasized about has finally arrived. Shinzo Abe’s plan to restore Japan’s economic might draws heavily upon principles long associated with the former U.S. president: welfare-spending cuts, debt-swelling tax reductions for the wealthy and corporations, deregulation, a lowering of trade barriers, and reforms that make it easier to fire workers. Yet while investors have greeted this supply-side shock therapy with enthusiasm, Japan’s 126 million p
July 28, 2013
-
[Peter McDonough] Reform is the real mission for Pope Francis
GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA ― Catholicism, among the most tradition-bound religions, contains at its core a paradox that has become increasingly sharp. As Pope Francis is on his first overseas trip ― to Brazil, the world’s most populous Catholic country ― it is difficult, despite the inertia of the past, to tell where the church is headed.The accession of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy adds to the puzzle. The chief Jesuit confessor at the papal court used to be called “the black pope,” owing to hi
July 28, 2013
-
Egypt needs one-year moratorium on protests
A year ago, it became clear to me that the Arab Spring would not succeed in Egypt unless a deadlock between the Islamists and secularists was broken. That didn’t happen, and now something more is required: a new social contract that includes a moratorium on further protests. Time magazine recently described my country as torn between the “World’s Best Protesters” and the “World’s Worst Democrats.” It was a depressingly apt description. Former President Mohammed Morsi failed to create an inclusiv
July 28, 2013
-
Show some appreciation for Britain’s new prince
Royal baby haters.They’re out there. They’re everywhere.And with the birth of the beautiful royal baby boy in England the other day to the lovely Kate Middleton and her husband, Prince William, a horde of royal baby haters have been revealed, venting their anti-royalist spleens.“I don’t hate the royal baby,” said a fellow of Irish extraction with the middle names Thomas Aquinas Francis Xavier. “Not the baby. The baby’s fine. It’s the royal part I don’t like.”Ah, but you can’t pick and choose and
July 28, 2013
-
Looking beyond the killing fields in Cambodia
“Dho ri min dho?” The cry rings out every night in Phnom Penh, chanted by thousands of teens as they roar past on cheap motorbikes. The riders are merry; they wave flags, bang drums, call out to passers-by. The oldest among them look like they’re in their 20s. They have one question about this weekends’ elections, the fourth round of polls since the United Nations restored civil rule to Cambodia in 1993: Change or no change? For many Cambodians, the answer isn’t obvious. Survivors of the demente
July 26, 2013
-
[Robert Reich] Detroit and the social contract
One way to view Detroit’s bankruptcy ― the largest bankruptcy of any American city in history ― is as a failure of political negotiations over how financial sacrifices should be divided among the city’s creditors, city workers and municipal retirees, requiring a court to decide instead. It could also be seen as the inevitable culmination of decades of union agreements offering unaffordable pension and health benefits to city workers.But there’s a more basic story here, and it’s being replicated
July 26, 2013
-
[David Ignatius] Kerry’s Captain Ahab quest
WASHINGTON ― Two qualities rarely associated with modern secretaries of state are patience and keeping your mouth shut in public. But in his first six months, John Kerry has demonstrated both ― and his stubborn silence appears to have brought him to the door of renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. “The best way to give these negotiations a chance is to keep them private,” Kerry insisted last Friday in Amman while announcing an agreement to resume direct final-status talks after a thre
July 25, 2013
-
Evictions, land-seizures endemic to China
China has evicted more than 400,000 Tibetans from their homelands over the last several years.These forced relocations, sometimes hundreds of miles away, all fall under a program deceptively named “Comfortable Housing.”Part of the unstated reasoning is China’s resolve to pull Tibetans and other minorities out of their semi-autonomous regions and integrate them into the larger Chinese society. But another unspoken motivation, Human Rights Watch says in a new report, is the determination to exploi
July 25, 2013
-
Hun Sen should allow opponent to run in election
Led by Indonesia, ASEAN succeeded in bringing together all warring factions in Cambodia, including current Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Khmer Rouge (which was fully backed by China) to reach a peace agreement in Paris in October 1991. Now, Indonesia has the obligation to engage itself in democratizing Cambodia as it is clear that Hun Sen could become a new headache for the regional grouping because he has been in power too long and has an authoritarian governing style.President Susil
July 25, 2013
-
Abe’s tough policy not likely to last long
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition scored a decisive victory in the upper house election on Sunday. But he should not mistake the victory as Japanese people’s approval for his hawkish foreign policy. Abe’s victory can be attributed largely to the short-term effect of his economic policies, which some experts have named “Abenomics,” and the lack of an appealing alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party.Abe’s understanding and ideology not only reflect his “indifference” and “
July 25, 2013
-
[Anupriyo Mallick] Indian women and the informal economy
A large majority of people in the developing nations are below the poverty line. They are deprived of adequate access to such basic needs as health, education, housing, food, security, employment, justice and equality. Sustainable livelihood and social and political participation of the vulnerable groups are the major problems of developing nations. Governments have failed to guarantee the fundamental rights.In India, almost 94 percent of women workers are engaged in the informal sector; about 2
July 25, 2013
-
China’s gradual descent after decades of growth
One of the most important economic stories of the era is unfolding in China, and every American should hope for a happy ending.The world’s second-largest economy is slowing down from its 30-year dash. A formula based on exports, cheap credit, heavy manufacturing and infrastructure investment has run its course ― after, it should be noted, helping to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.China’s economy grew 7.5 percent in the second quarter this year, far below the double-digit gain
July 24, 2013
-
[Robert J. Shiller] Asset bubbles will never end
NEW HAVEN ― You might think that we have been living in a post-bubble world since the collapse in 2006 of the biggest-ever worldwide real-estate bubble and the end of a major worldwide stock-market bubble the following year. But talk of bubbles keeps reappearing ― new or continuing housing bubbles in many countries, a new global stock-market bubble, a long-term bond-market bubble in the United States and other countries, an oil-price bubble, a gold bubble, and so on.Nevertheless, I was not expec
July 24, 2013