Most Popular
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Yoon visits ancient Uzbek city, wraps up Central Asia trip
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N. Korean military's construction activities spotted inside DMZ: source
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[AtoZ into Korean Mind] Korea's broken ladder of social mobility
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Top 4 conglomerates convene strategy meetings to navigate uncertainties
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[Weekender] IV drips: A quick energy shot for overworked Koreans
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[Drama Tour] Follow Suwon’s fortress to find traces of ‘Lovely Runner’
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Yoon returns amid tensions over Putin's Pyongyang visit
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Doctors to go on indefinite walkout as government rejects final demands
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Unlicensed driver rams day care center van into wall
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Popular TV series, movies cross borders in remakes
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Success in enabling trade in a changing world
Global trading patterns have become increasingly intertwined. So too has global prosperity. Rather than products or services simply originating in one country and being sold in another, value is often added by many countries involved in complex supply chains. This means that one country’s success in enabling trade not only plays a significant part in its own overall competitiveness, and by association, prosperity, but also has implications for the competitiveness of other countries. Moreover, si
May 29, 2012
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Is government propaganda resurgent in U.S.?
Did you hear about the new bill that would allow the U.S. government’s official overseas information agency to rebroadcast its content onto American TV and radio? The bipartisan Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 was introduced in Congress last week by Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Washington), both of whom are presumably dissatisfied with their satellite TV package and think more government-produced content would go down better with an after-work beer.Not really. As Thornb
May 28, 2012
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[Joel Brinkley] Youth unfazed by N.K. threat
YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea ― Just down the hill from a South Korean Air Force helipad here sits the air base’s barber shop, encased in glass. The front wall is floor-to-ceiling windows displaying shattered toilets in the men’s room and a gaping hole in the ceiling, wires and rebar still dangling.This barber shop was one of about 30 buildings damaged or destroyed in a North Korean rocket attack in November 2010. Now it’s a museum of sorts.You might think South Korea is keeping this and other
May 28, 2012
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The new Egypt ― don’t give up hope!
CAIRO ― A few days ago, I watched a debate between Amr Moussa and Abdel Moneim Aboul-fotoh, two of the leading candidates among the 13 running for president of Egypt. This stunning debate went on for more than four hours and was watched by millions of Egyptians and Arabs. Contrary to the perception around the world that Egypt is inexorably sinking into chaos and intolerance, this debate in many ways reflects the hope for a new Egypt following last year’s January 25 revolution.From the time of Ra
May 28, 2012
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Hey, Germany: You got a European bailout, too
In the millions of words written about Europe’s debt crisis, Germany is typically cast as the responsible adult and Greece as the profligate child. Prudent Germany, the narrative goes, is loath to bail out freeloading Greece, which borrowed more than it could afford and now must suffer the consequences. Would it surprise you to know that Europe’s taxpayers have provided as much financial support to Germany as they have to Greece? An examination of European money flows and central-bank balance sh
May 28, 2012
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[Abdullah Gl] Turkey’s new course: Less military, more multilateral
CHICAGO ― Turkey has recently been at the forefront of international economic and political debates. On the one hand, despite the economic crisis engulfing neighboring Europe, Turkey remains the world’s second-fastest growing economy, after China. On the other hand, there is almost no issue on the global agenda ― from Iraq and Afghanistan to Somalia, Iran, and the Arab Spring, and from sustainable development to a dialogue among civilizations ― on which Turkey is not playing a visible role.This
May 28, 2012
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Shareholder spring that holds bosses to account
Recent weeks have seen what some are calling a “shareholder spring” in the U.S. and Europe. Investors, led by institutional shareholders (traditionally a quiescent bunch), have protested pay awards for top executives at several big public companies, and in some cases have overturned them. European Union regulators are now considering a next step: giving owners a binding vote on top pay instead of the nonbinding “say on pay” that prevails in much of the EU and in the U.S. since 2011, compliments
May 27, 2012
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[Robert B. Reich] The address that won’t be given
As a former secretary of labor and current professor, I feel I owe it to you to tell Americans the truth about the pieces of parchment they’re picking up today.You’re screwed.Well, not exactly. But you won’t have it easy.First, you’re going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job. The job market you’re heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year’s class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking.That’s been the pattern over the last three graduati
May 27, 2012
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The death of inflation targeting policies
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts ― It is with regret that we announce the death of inflation targeting. The monetary-policy regime, known as IT to friends, evidently passed away in September 2008. The lack of an official announcement until now attests to the esteem in which it was held, its usefulness as an ornament of credibility for central banks, and fears that there might be no good candidates to succeed it as the preferred anchor for monetary policy.Inflation targeting was born in New Zealand in Ma
May 27, 2012
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The Nixon option for Iran?
WASHINGTON ― Rearranging the deck chairs would not have saved the Titanic. Nor did the endless debates on the shape of the table in the Vietnam negotiations advance the effort to end that malign conflict. Nevertheless, many American presidents have successfully redesigned talks with adversaries in bold new ways to strengthen national security without war. Such boldness is now needed in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt negotiated personally with Soviet F
May 27, 2012
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[Gordon Brown] Crafting a global rescue for Europe’s financial crisis
Another international summit has come and gone without any of the coordinated action that is vital if an ailing European economy is to be revived.Confronted by a crisis whose resolution demands intervention on a par with the crash of 2008, last weekend’s G8 communique was long on words and short on action. There were no concrete measures, least of all a plan to back up public pleas for growth. And, while next month’s G20 meeting in Mexico could offer a second chance for coordinated action, there
May 27, 2012
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Lessons to heed for drilling in the Arctic Ocean
The second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster passed with little fanfare last month. But with our government on the brink of allowing the oil industry to explore in America’s remote Arctic Ocean this summer, it is worth revisiting some of the lessons learned from the biggest oil spill in the nation’s history. Stopping that spill took three months, even though it occurred in the relatively calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico near Coast Guard stations, cleanup equipment, and abundant shor
May 25, 2012
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[Robert J. Shiller] My speech to the finance graduates
NEW HAVEN ― At this time of year, at graduation ceremonies in America and elsewhere, those about to leave university often hear some final words of advice before receiving their diplomas. To those interested in pursuing careers in finance ― or related careers in insurance, accounting, auditing, law, or corporate management ― I submit the following address:Best of luck to you as you leave the academy for your chosen professions in finance. Over the course of your careers, Wall Street and its kind
May 25, 2012
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Emergency provisions in disaster law
Regarding the government’s proposals to review the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Law, more than 14 months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, is that all there is?The government submitted a bill to revise the law to the Diet last week, aiming to enable better immediate responses to large-scale disasters based on lessons from the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. However, the bill does not review provisions stipulating emergency measures the government can take, even though the existi
May 25, 2012
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Invest in teachers to make education more equitable
The protest by Bodindecha students and their parents urging the school to take previously rejected students into classes illustrates a major flaw in the education system. The students and parents have been desperately trying to get accepted at this well-recognized school because of the wider disparity in the quality of our schools.As of press time, there were reports that the school had accepted an additional 20 students and planned to assist parents of the remaining rejected students to find su
May 25, 2012
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Lying for the country
The trouble with Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is that he has probably spent too much of time travelling abroad to really understand what’s going on in his own country. On Monday he said the government has done enough to protect the interests of Indonesia’s religious minorities.On the eve of a periodic review of Indonesia’s human rights record before the U.N. Human Rights Council, Marty toed the official line, saying the government has done whatever was necessary to protect the fo
May 25, 2012
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[Bruce Gale] Peace still eluding Thai south
On May 4, four local government officials were assassinated while travelling by sedan along a road in Saiburi, a district in the southern Thai province of Pattani. Reports say gunmen on a pickup truck opened fire on them with AK-47 and M16 assault rifles.Given the wave of seemingly random attacks that has swept Thailand’s southern border provinces since the insurgency first erupted in January 2004, the incident seemed almost routine.Indeed, the rebels are often depicted by government spokesmen a
May 25, 2012
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[David Ignatius] Syria’s restless neighbors
WASHINGTON ― The Middle East sometimes resembles a string of detonators wired to explode together ― and this seems especially true now of Syria and its neighbors. There is political instability nearby in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, as the Arab uprising moves through its second year. In each of these countries, the leadership maintains power in a balancing act. Only Turkey, with its triad of a strong economy, army and political leadership, seems genuinely stable. Fear of blowing up the region ― and
May 24, 2012
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[Ban Ki-moon] Coping with the threat of resurgent polio
As the World Health Assembly convenes in Geneva this week, one item on the agenda will be polio, or more specifically, how to finally deliver on an epic promise made a quarter-century ago: to liberate humankind from one of the world’s most deadly and debilitating diseases.The world’s war on polio has been as ambitious an undertaking as the successful campaign to eradicate another great public health menace, smallpox. Slowly but surely we have advanced on that goal. Polio, a highly preventable di
May 24, 2012
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Why KAIST students choose suicide
In the very early morning of April 17, a senior KAIST student committed suicide. Outside of KAIST, it was recognized simply as another suicide, because just last year, four students and one professor killed themselves. But it was a shock to the community of KAIST because it happened after the introduction of the so-called suicide mitigation plan.KAIST is well-known as a fully government-supported, privileged university. Not only was tuition free but living expenses were also supported during stu
May 24, 2012