Most Popular
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Jimin of BTS, actor Song Da-eun suspected to be dating, again
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Police raid popera singer Kim Ho-joong's house over hit-and-run suspicions
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What's next for the government's push in quota hike?
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Trump may like to 'solve' N. Korean nuclear problem if reelected: ex-official
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Woman falls to death from acquaintance's home after exhibiting ‘unexplained' behaviors
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N. Korea slams planned S. Korea-US military drills, warns of 'catastrophic aftermath'
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‘Malice should not undermine the system, social order,’ says Hybe's Bang
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N. Korea fires short-range ballistic missiles toward East Sea: JCS
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[Robert J. Fouser] Social attitudes toward language proficiency
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[Graphic News] How much do Korean adults read?
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Outspoken China princeling takes on President Xi
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s conservative stance on political reform has led to a major split within the princeling community, whose members share a common interest in preserving the ruling status of the Chinese Communist Party.Hu Dehua, the third son of the late party chief Hu Yaobang, openly criticized Xi at a seminar held by the liberal magazine Yan Huang Chunqiu in mid-April. It was by far the most severe criticism lodged against Xi since the latter became CCP general secretary last Novemb
July 4, 2013
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Seoul, Tokyo should reconstruct relationship
At a time when the situation in East Asia has become increasingly unstable, cooperation between Japan and South Korea is becoming even more important. Both sides should step closer to each other to put bilateral relations back on a more normal footing.Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se recently held talks in Brunei and agreed to stably develop a “future-oriented” bilateral relationship.These were the first such talks between Japanese and South Korean fo
July 4, 2013
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[Nirmal Ghosh] Hate speech gripping Myanmar
In an age of an abrupt new openness after decades of repression, the line between freedom of speech and human rights is blurred in Myanmar, injecting a dangerous volatility into even commonplace incidents.“People cannot differentiate between freedom of speech and human rights. They think they can say what they like,” prominent monk Ashin Dhammapiya said at a conference on hate speech in Yangon last Friday.The government is also mulling over how to cope with a flood of chatter, propaganda and hat
July 4, 2013
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How did the U.S. lose the Egyptian people?
So here’s a question that’s nagging at me as we watch millions of Egyptians express their loathing for Mohammed Morsi, their hapless, power-grabbing president, and for his Muslim Brotherhood movement: How exactly did the U.S. come to be seen by Egyptian secularists and liberals as the handmaiden of a cultish fundamentalist political party whose motto includes this heartening sentiment: “Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope?” I mean, how did the U.S. fail to formula
July 3, 2013
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[David Ignatius] People power rises again
WASHINGTON ― “Authoritarianism in the name of Islam is dead,” messaged one Egyptian activist last Sunday, as millions gathered to denounce the rule of President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government. There’s a new wave of popular dissent this July 4th in Egypt, Iran and Turkey, the region’s three biggest Muslim democracies. Authoritarianism is still very much alive in the Middle East, but it’s under pressure from a surprisingly broad movement for change that defies religious or na
July 3, 2013
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Ireland’s experience and the austerity debate
DUBLIN ― Both sides of the austerity debate that is now gripping economists and policymakers cite Ireland’s experience as evidence for their case. And, however much they try to position the country as a poster-child, neither side is able to convince the other. Yet this tug-of-war is important, because it illustrates the complex range of arguments that are in play. It also demonstrates why more conclusive economic policy making is proving so elusive.Here is a quick reminder of Ireland’s sad recen
July 3, 2013
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U.S. officials shouldn’t go to bat for Egypt’s Morsi
Mohammed Morsi holds a singular distinction.As Egypt’s president, he is the world’s only democratically elected leader to motivate more than 20 million of his people, one-quarter of the population, to sign a petition calling for his ouster.Millions of these people began showing up at angry, sometimes violent demonstrations in Cairo and other cities on Sunday, the one-year anniversary of his rule. They’re irate about Morsi’s blatant leadership failures. Egypt is riven with enervating economic, po
July 3, 2013
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[Naomi Wolf] The rape culture embedded in the U.S. military
NEW YORK ― Around the world, people’s understanding of why rape happens usually takes one of two forms. Either it is like lightning, striking some unlucky woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time (an isolated, mysterious event, caused by some individual man’s sudden psychopathology), or it is “explained” by some seductive transgression by the victim (the wrong dress, a misplaced smile).But the idea of a “rape culture” ― a concept formulated by feminists in the 1970s as they developed t
July 3, 2013
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China’s slowdown could slam Hong Kong
In the run-up to Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, the world wondered what officials in Beijing would do with the place. Would Hong Kong’s dynamism and openness catalyze change in China, or would the Communist Party try to remake the freewheeling city-state in its image? Sixteen years on, we know it’s more the latter than the former. Beijing has shackled Hong Kong with one bad, handpicked leader after another. China’s commissars and their local lackeys continue to push anti-sedition laws, pat
July 2, 2013
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A rational approach for Korea
Last year, a Vietnamese woman involved in a divorce from her South Korean husband left the country with their 13-month-old child and traveled back to Vietnam. Her husband pressed criminal charges against her for kidnapping and each successive court found her not guilty. Eventually the case reached the South Korean Supreme Court and the court, in its first live broadcast, heard the case. At the time choosing such a case for the very first live broadcast was roundly criticized for feeding into the
July 2, 2013
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[Kim Seong-kon] Why are we still carrying illegal, defective weapons?
Some time ago, I heard a funny joke from one of my colleagues. When I was about to enter the women’s room on campus by mistake, a professor warned me solemnly, “If you go in there, you will be arrested for carrying an illegal weapon.” Then he added teasingly, “If you are over 50, you will be arrested for carrying a defective weapon.” Since “illegal weapons (bulbeob mugi)” rhymes with “defective weapons (bulyang mugi)” in Korean, it made a fine joke. With newspapers filled with reports of sex cri
July 2, 2013
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Grumpy old Scalia versus those pesky kids
You may have heard that Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the majority opinion striking down the Defense of Marriage Act as “legalistic argle-bargle.” Intemperate as the dissent was, derision for Justice Anthony Kennedy’s jurisprudence of dignity and personhood was nothing new for Scalia, who has been castigating what he once called Kennedy’s “sweet mystery of life” rhetoric for a decade. What’s new about Scalia’s numerous dissents issued over the U.S. Supreme Court’s remarkable June is how muc
July 2, 2013
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Why are so many college graduates driving taxis?
It’s a parent’s nightmare: shelling out big money for college, then seeing the graduate unable to land a job that requires high-level skills. This situation may be growing more common, unfortunately, because the demand for cognitive skills associated with higher education, after rising sharply until 2000, has since been in decline. So concludes new research by economists Paul Beaudry and David Green of the University of British Columbia and Benjamin Sand of York University in Toronto. This rever
July 2, 2013
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Securing nuclear material from wrong hands
VIENNA ― World leaders have devoted increasing attention in recent years to the risk of terrorists obtaining nuclear or other radioactive material. That’s the good news. But all of us need to act with greater urgency in translating good intentions into concrete action.The risk of nuclear or other radioactive material falling into the wrong hands is all too real. There have been embarrassing security lapses at nuclear facilities, and sensitive material is often inadequately secured. Indeed, the I
July 1, 2013
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[Jeffrey D. Sachs] Profiles in peacemaking
NEW YORK ― Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy did the seemingly impossible. At the height of the Cold War, he moved the two nuclear superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, toward peace. The lessons of Kennedy’s act of leadership ― one of the greatest of modern times ― are directly relevant today.I recount this remarkable story in a new book, “To Move the World.” To many, war between the two superpowers seemed inevitable. The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 created a glo
July 1, 2013
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Starving the squid
BERKELEY ― Is America’s financial sector slowly draining the lifeblood from its real economy? The journalist Matt Taibbi’s memorable description in 2009 of Goldman Sachs ― “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money” ― still resonates, and for good reason.Back in 2011, I noted that finance and insurance in the United States accounted for 2.8 percent of GDP in 1950 compared to 8.4 percent of GDP three years
July 1, 2013
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Sub-Saharan Africa’s subprime borrowers
NEW YORK ― In recent years, a growing number of African governments have issued Eurobonds, diversifying away from traditional sources of finance such as concessional debt and foreign direct investment. Taking the lead in October 2007, when it issued a $750 million Eurobond with an 8.5 percent coupon rate, Ghana earned the distinction of being the first Sub-Saharan country ― other than South Africa ― to issue bonds in 30 years.This debut Sub-Saharan issue, which was four times oversubscribed, spa
July 1, 2013
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Quick move needed to save Egypt’s economy
Egypt is being convulsed by protests for and against the rule of President Mohammed Morsi on the one-year anniversary of his accession. Beneath the political turmoil and questions of legitimacy lie profound economic challenges that must be met by whoever governs Egypt. The nation’s hopes for “bread, freedom and social justice” are being overwhelmed by the slow pace of economic change. Instead of undertaking reforms, Egypt has been relying on its wealthy neighbors for unconditional cash injection
July 1, 2013
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Mess in Honduras has U.S. fingerprints
The State Department issued a new travel advisory last week for a neighbor state, Honduras, warning potential American visitors that they risk being kidnapped or killed. What’s more, it said, if they face a problem, the police may not even show up.If you do go, the advisory added, lock your car doors so robbers or kidnappers can’t burst in at traffic lights. Eighteen Americans have been killed there in the last two years. Police have arrested no one for any of those crimes.By now, many people kn
June 30, 2013
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[David Ignatius] No clipping these wings
WASHINGTON ― For an illustration of why the federal government has become so unmanageable, consider the Air Force’s attempt last year to cut its budget by retiring unneeded warplanes. This sensible policy ran into a shredder ― largely because of the political clout of the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve.Governors united across party lines to protest the potential loss of their pet C-130s and other planes. Members of Congress lined up behind the potent lobbying pressure of the Guard
June 30, 2013