Most Popular
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Do Korean doctors make too much money?
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Korean industries gauge impact of Biden's steep tariffs on China
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Court refuses injunction on medical school expansion
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Why Korean crime stories typically feature nameless, faceless perpetrators
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Is FTC's conglomerate listing a boon or bane for Hybe?
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NewJeans to headline palace show
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Coupang's Kim Bom escapes chaebol chief designation again
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Debate on 'no-seniors zones' heats up
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Rare mid-May heavy snow warning issued over mountainous areas of Gangwon
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S. Korea, Cambodia forge strategic partnership
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Abenomics promises to rejuvenate Japan economy
TOKYO ― Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s program for his country’s economic recovery has led to a surge in domestic confidence. But to what extent can “Abenomics” claim credit?Interestingly, a closer look at Japan’s performance over the past decade suggests little reason for persistent bearish sentiment. Indeed, in terms of growth of output per employed worker, Japan has done quite well since the turn of the century. With a shrinking labor force, the standard estimate for Japan in 2012 ― tha
April 10, 2013
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Cameron and Merkel are failing the Thatcher test
Margaret Thatcher was hated ― widely and passionately ― when she was U.K. prime minister, a fact that has gone largely unsaid in the encomiums that followed her death. Her polarizing nature needs to be remembered, because it defines what set her apart as a leader. Thatcher was unusual among politicians because she wasn’t first of all tactical. She didn’t shape her policies to secure the next election or to keep people happy. She didn’t triangulate. Voters accepted her not because they liked her,
April 9, 2013
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[Daniel Fiedler] A North-South traffic jam
Driving in the back alleys of a major city in South Korea, one occasionally comes upon a two-car traffic jam. Narrow roads combined with on-street parking often mean only one car can pass at a time.This combined with the bizarre cultural norms of South Korea sometimes results in two middle-aged men at an impasse. To preserve face neither wants to put their car in reverse to allow the other to proceed. These two-car traffic jams can last as long as an hour while each side puts forth a show of for
April 9, 2013
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How Thatcher won the war to save Britain
More than any other prime minister since 1945, Margaret Thatcher changed the course of British history. In one sense, like any politician, she was a product of her times, but don’t let that mislead you: Only she could have done what she did. No other U.K. politician of her time or since has had her combination of courage and single-mindedness. To meet the challenges she faced, she needed both. While she was in office, the country’s voters never much liked her, and to their shame Britain’s chatte
April 9, 2013
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Thatcher wouldn’t succeed in our ‘Lean In’ culture
There could never be another “Iron Lady.” That was the first thought that came to some minds today with the news that Margaret Thatcher, the U.K.’s great prime minister, had died. This is an odd reaction. Women in the developed world now routinely hold more top jobs than they did in 1975, when the 49-year-old Thatcher first assumed leadership of the Conservative Party. The No. 1 bestseller on the New York Times list is “Lean In,” by a woman holding one of the highest of those positions, Sheryl S
April 9, 2013
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[Kim Seong-kon] Mistakes in translating Korean into English
Ever since the Tower of Babel, human beings have been speaking in different tongues, inevitably creating communication problems. In the course of history, some languages have become extinct, while a few have thrived and emerged as international languages widely spoken in many countries. English, for example, has clearly become an international language. In Korea, many signs are written in both Korean and English as a courtesy for foreigners.Due to cultural and linguistic differences, however, so
April 9, 2013
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[Meghan Daum] Which comes first, husband or career?
Maybe it’s spring fever or maybe it’s the centrifugal force from all that Sheryl Sandberg-led “leaning in,” but it’s been a big week for outrage about women and their place.Last week, Princeton alumna and parent Susan A. Patton published a letter in the Daily Princetonian urging female students to “find a husband on campus before you graduate,” lest they’re forced to search for a mate among the teeming masses of the outside world. The letter triggered such a severe case of blogospheric dyspepsia
April 8, 2013
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[Robert Reich] Charge against social programs
The president and a few other prominent Democrats are openly suggesting that Social Security payments be reduced by applying a lower adjustment for inflation, and that Medicare be means-tested.This is even before Democrats have begun formal budget negotiations with Republicans ― who still refuse to raise taxes on the rich, close tax loopholes the rich depend on (such as hedge-fund and private-equity managers’ “carried interest”), increase capital gains taxes on the wealthy, cap tax deductions or
April 8, 2013
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Immigration gives Rubio his shot at big leagues
As the American baseball season begins, it seems appropriate to borrow an analogy from the sport: Will the “can’t miss” young phenomenon of the political world, Senator Marco Rubio, be able to play in the big leagues? The immigration battle affords a good test. The conservative Florida Republican is part of a small group of lawmakers trying to fashion a comprehensive immigration measure that creates a pathway to citizenship for most of the estimated 11 million undocumented workers, changes the c
April 8, 2013
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Obama reacting prudently to N.K.’s belligerence
The Obama administration is reacting responsibly to a series of provocations from North Korea, shoring up defenses while seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis. But even if North Korea is deterred from attacking South Korea or U.S. forces for the foreseeable future, the defiance it has demonstrated in the last several weeks renders more elusive than ever achievement of the administration’s ultimate goal: a Korean peninsula without nuclear weapons.Last month the U.N. Security Council ― inclu
April 8, 2013
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Obama should end political fight over morning-after pill
Putting an age restriction on buying the most common emergency contraception over the counter was never sound from a medical point of view. Now a federal judge has upset the political calculus behind the restriction, as well. By the time the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided, in late 2011, to lift the rule that girls under age 17 need a prescription for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s Plan B, the pill’s safety was well-established. What’s more, research had shown that the drug, whi
April 8, 2013
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[Robert J. Barro] Popes, saints, and competition between religions
CAMBRIDGE ― The election of the first non-European pope is long overdue. After all, Pope Francis’s native region, Latin America, is currently home to nearly half (44 percent) of the world’s Catholics. But the Catholic Church is increasingly losing out to Protestant competition there and elsewhere.Just look at the statistics. Evangelicalism is the fastest-growing world religion by conversion ― a trend that underlies the strong expansion of Protestantism in traditionally Roman Catholic Latin Ameri
April 8, 2013
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Capitalism is not on last legs yet
PARIS ― Be careful about how you interpret what you’re seeing, as your eyes might be deceiving you. That’s the advice I offered viewers the other day on Russia’s global TV network’s flagship program, “CrossTalk,” when explaining that capitalism isn’t facing any sort of crisis, but rather is just being subverted by socialists, Wall Street con artists and various anti-capitalist wishful thinkers who are corrupting the once-straightforward relationship between work and benefit.It has become common
April 7, 2013
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[David Ignatius] America the war-weary
ISTANBUL ― Talking with members of Congress at a gathering here last week was an education in the public’s wariness of new foreign entanglements ― especially in Syria. It was a reminder that the post-Iraq era is only beginning, and that it may limit America’s ability to exercise power for the next few years. The great advantage (and on occasion, disadvantage) of the House of Representatives is that its members are so close to their constituents. Most of them spend every nearly weekend back home
April 7, 2013
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The way to peace on Korean Peninsula
Your editorial entitled “Walking a tightrope” (March 30-31) took issue with the recent remark of Korea’s new Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae that South Korea is preparing to propose a reunion of separated families and reopening of long-stalled dialogue with North Korea. The editorial said that it’s ill-timed and inappropriate to say so when the North is threatening a nuclear war against the South. It even said that Ryoo’s proposal “could be denounced as a policy of appeasement.” However, we r
April 7, 2013
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[Lim Woong] Almost Korean: Mystery behind Kim’s withdrawal
It was not long ago when I heard that Kim Jeong-hoon, former president of Bell Labs, had been offered a job in the new South Korean Cabinet. I later learned that he withdrew his candidacy and returned to the United States. After this experience, Kim contributed an article titled “A Return to South Korea, Thwarted by Nationalism” to the Washington Post, in which he advised his fellow Koreans to embrace diversity and use transnational resources to achieve a greater economy. In this article, Kim al
April 7, 2013
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Japan’s brave new monetary era
The Bank of Japan’s new governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, didn’t disappoint investors with his announcement on Thursday: He laid out plans for the biggest, fastest unconventional monetary stimulus any large economy has ever seen. By definition, financial markets never expect “shock and awe,” but they expect it least of all from the hyper-cautious BOJ. For once, for the first time anybody can recall, “shock and awe” is what they got. On balance, this bold move is the right one. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
April 7, 2013
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[Joel Brinkley] China lacks world’s trust
On his first foreign foray as China’s new president, Xi Jinping visited Russia and then Tanzania, two countries with which China has frosty relations at best.“China and Russia, as the biggest neighbors of each other, share many commonalities,” Xi declared in Moscow. But in truth the two nations carry on carefully crafted civility, and that’s all.“All of Africa is China’s friend,” Xi said in Dar es Salaam, Tazania. But many Africans say they hold a different view.“China takes our primary goods an
April 7, 2013
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North Korea threat screams for diplomacy
The threats from Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s young, untested leader, are extreme even by the paranoid standards of the dynastic dictatorship that has led the country since 1945.Kim’s bellicosity is likely intended to consolidate domestic political and military standing, as well as to extricate concessions from a wary, weary global community. Even so, a military miscalculation could plunge the region into war. The global community must take the threats seriously and apply maximum pressure on North
April 5, 2013
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[William Pesek] Understanding Kim’s tantrums
Can the world just take a long, deep breath about North Korea? This isn’t a trick question, but a plea for a moment of sobriety amid Kim Jong-un’s tantrums. Rather than obsess over his nuclear capabilities, the firepower of his adjectives or the amount of foam at his mouth, let’s consider what Kim is up to. After barely a year running the family business, the Kim Dynasty, the Swiss-educated 30-ish dictator still has a bunch of trigger-happy generals looking over his shoulder. He’s showing them h
April 5, 2013