Most Popular
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Marine Corps commander summoned by CIO for questioning on alleged influence-peddling case
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Debate rages over ‘overly fatty’ samgyeopsal
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[Weekender] Korean psyche untangled: Musok
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40 flights canceled on Jeju Island due to bad weather
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[Eye Interview] 'If you live to 100, you might as well be happy,' says 88-year-old bestselling essayist
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N. Korea slams US, other countries for seeking alternative to UN sanctions monitoring panel
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Pandemic left Korea more depressed than before: report
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From fake prostitution ring to nonexistent robber, prank calls hamper police
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Missing S. Korean traveler in Paris found safe after 2 weeks
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Defense chiefs of US, Australia, Japan decry NK-Russia military cooperation
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NATO strike can’t lead to breach with Pakistan
When NATO aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a strike near the Afghan border on Nov. 25, U.S. press reports called it a case of “friendly fire.” That seems the wrong term. It has been some years since the U.S. and Pakistan could be accurately described as friends. The U.S. and Pakistan have a handful of common goals but far more that conflict. The U.S. wants to fight all forces opposed to Afghanistan’s government; Pakistan nurtures remnants of the Haqqani Network and the Afghanistan Taliba
Dec. 1, 2011
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[Robert Shiller] The neuroeconomics revolution
NEW HAVEN ― Economics is at the start of a revolution that is traceable to an unexpected source: medical schools and their research facilities. Neuroscience ― the science of how the brain, that physical organ inside one’s head, really works ― is beginning to change the way we think about how people make decisions. These findings will inevitably change the way we think about how economies function. In short, we are at the dawn of “neuroeconomics.”Efforts to link neuroscience to economics have occ
Dec. 1, 2011
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For better government, don’t kill all the lawyers
Most everyone hates lawyers. So it probably isn’t a surprise that many people hate law professors, too. A recent front-page article in the New York Times, much discussed in legal circles, was the latest salvo in what is now a long line of attacks depicting the legal academy as impractical and unworldly. I think the dislike, though, is a result of law professors being too much in the world. You see, law professors ― and I should disclose here that I am one ― very nearly run the world, or at least
Nov. 30, 2011
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God and man and William F. Buckley
The modern conservative movement began 60 years ago with the publication of a book by a 26-year-old first-time author. Reflecting on that work teaches us something important about the nature and trajectory of modern conservatism, about the energy that propelled the movement and about serious problems with the movement today.The book was “God and Man at Yale.” The author was William F. Buckley Jr.“GAMAY” (as conservatives often call this iconic work) was an attack on the young author’s alma mater
Nov. 30, 2011
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ROK Air Force’s role in limited, localized conflicts
So far, an all-out war launched by North Korea has been the major conflict scenario that all kinds of operational plans by the Republic of Korea and the United States have been based upon. The structure and development of South Korean forces were organized in accordance with this assumption. There has been an implicit agreement that Seoul provides massive ground forces to defend its metropolitan areas, while Washington provides high-tech support from its navy and air force to its labor-intensive
Nov. 30, 2011
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[Michael Boskin] Europe’s last best chance to get out of debt quandary
STANFORD ― The resignations of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have highlighted how Greece, Italy, and many other countries obscured for too long their bloated public sectors’ long-standing problems with unsustainable social-welfare benefits. Indeed, for many of these countries, meaningful reform has now become unavoidable.The social-insurance systems in Europe, as in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere, were designed under vastly different
Nov. 30, 2011
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Improving the Paris Declaration in Busan
Beginning Nov. 30, dozens of foreign aid donors and recipients will meet in Busan for several days to review the implementation of their 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The declaration purports to structure donor-recipient partnerships based on five principles: ownership (recipient countries, not donors, should create and “own” their development plans); alignment (donors should align their aid with those plans); “mutual accountability” between donors and recipients; “managing the ai
Nov. 29, 2011
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[Omar Ashour] Headless revolution in Egypt
CAIRO ― “The man who taught me to sacrifice my heart for Egypt is dead,” said Vivian Magdi, mourning her fiance. Michael Mosad was killed in the Maspiro area on Oct. 9, when an armored vehicle hit him during a protest called to condemn an attack on an Egyptian Church in the southern Aswan region. The protest left 24 dead and more than 200 injured ― a higher toll than that taken by the so-called “Battle of the Camels,” when former President Hosni Mubarak’s security forces and armed thugs attacked
Nov. 29, 2011
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[Park Sang-woo] Stressing the benefits of international marriages
Nowadays there are many international marriages not only in Korea, but also around the world. Since 1990 the number of men has increased more than women. So the number of international marriages has also increased and most international marriages are arranged marriages with people who live in poorer countries. Because of this, arranged marriages with people who live in other countries are looked down on. However, this is not good for Korea in this age of globalization. Eight years ago, my brothe
Nov. 29, 2011
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The euro area is coming to an end
Investors sent Europe’s politicians a painful message last week when Germany had a seriously disappointing government bond auction. It was unable to sell more than a third of the benchmark 10-year bonds it had sought to auction off on Nov. 23, and interest rates on 30-year German debt rose from 2.61 percent to 2.83 percent. The message? Germany is no longer a safe haven. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, investors have focused on credit risk and rewarded Germany with low interest rates
Nov. 29, 2011
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[Kim Seong-kon] No history is the absolute truth
What is history? Famous and wise men have time and time again pointed out the various problems with history. For example, Voltaire once said, “History is the lie commonly agreed upon,” implying there exists an unspoken agreement that history is not always reliable or truthful. He also suggested that history could be fabricated by those who wield political power. Indeed, it is well known that history is written by the victors and rulers who have power. As a result, there may be missing pages in t
Nov. 29, 2011
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Defense and democracy in America
LOS ANGELES ― The failure of the U.S. Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to reach agreement on budget cuts now sets the stage for $1.2 trillion in automatic reductions to begin in January 2013. Should these cuts go into effect, the U.S. Defense Department, which already must implement $450 billion in reductions over 10 years, will take half the hit. But pushback has already begun, with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta arguing that further reductions will impose “substantial risk
Nov. 28, 2011
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[Stephen P. Groff] Making development aid work
As the world’s advanced economies continue to limp toward recovery from the global economic downturn, questions are again being raised about the need for ― and value of ― official development assistance. In these times of fiscal restraint, critics are increasingly asking: Is aid worth it? Does it make a positive difference in the lives of poor people in developing countries? Or does it merely line the pockets of corrupt officials and fuel the consultancy industry in donor countries?A very positi
Nov. 28, 2011
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Do Koreans want to go it alone?
Whenever U.S. soldiers in Korea misbehave egregiously, Koreans naturally soul-search on whether USFK should withdraw. This is proper; soldiers sexually assaulting teenagers is horrific. The debate also usefully signals to the U.S. that Korea not be taken for granted. But in the end, Koreans have always hewn to the U.S., even after George W Bush famously alienated South Korea by placing N.K. on the ‘axis of evil.’ South Korea is the overwhelming beneficiary of a very one-sided relationship and te
Nov. 28, 2011
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[Dave Tonetti] A rebuttal to ‘harmful’ English education
A story ran in the British newspaper The Guardian recently with the following headline: South Korean parents told: Pre-school English ‘harmful.’ The sub-headline was: “Pressure group argues that money spent on early year classes is wasted and urges starting at age 10.” The operative word here is “pressure group,” but I’ll come back to that in a moment. For now, I will content myself with dissecting the arguments in the article, and dissection they need.The very first line in the article attribut
Nov. 28, 2011
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[Jeffrey Frankel] The new hour of the technocrats
CAMBRIDGE ― Greece and Italy, desperate after their gridlocked political systems left them mired in debt and crisis, have both chosen technocratic economists ― Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti, respectively ― rather than politicians to lead new governments. Both can be described as professors: Monti has been president of Milan’s Bocconi University as well as a European commissioner, and Papademos has been my colleague at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in the year since he finished his ter
Nov. 28, 2011
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Save money ― hire more police officers
At a recent Capitol Hill rally for the administration’s job creation bills, Vice President Joe Biden urged America to hire more police ― even in this era of austerity ― or accept that crime will increase.His point is worth considering. Although crime in the United States on average has shown a historic decline since the early 1990s, a recent Rand Corp. report shows that a 10 percent increase in the size of a police force decreases the rate of homicide by 9 percent, robbery by 6 percent and vehic
Nov. 27, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Charting an Arab transformation
RIYADH ― Spring is a distant memory now, including here in the Arab world. It’s harvest time, and people give thanks for what they’ve reaped in the hope it will carry them through the long and chilly months ahead. I think of these seasonal facts of life as I watch the television reports of chaos in the streets of Egypt and Syria, as revolutions struggle to be born. In this part of the world, the feast celebration is the Muslim religious holiday known as the Eid al-Adha, which came a few weeks ag
Nov. 27, 2011
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Is Korea really younger, smarter brother of China?
Korea the younger, smarter brother of China? The clich cumulates too many “no-nos” to be sustainable. First, nations are not anthropomorphic entities you can compare on moral grounds. Second, Northeast Asian relations can be as touchy as minefields, and the epicenter of Confucianism is not the ideal playground for audacious familial metaphors. Ask a Chinese nationalist, and he’d rather consider South Korea and its actual sibling, North Korea, as mere provinces bound to get back to their Motherla
Nov. 27, 2011
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[Peter Singer] Should we prohibit the sale of cigarettes worldwide?
PRINCETON ― U.S. President Barack Obama’s doctor confirmed last month that the president no longer smokes. At the urging of his wife, Michelle Obama, the president first resolved to stop smoking in 2006, and has used nicotine replacement therapy to help him. If it took Obama, a man strong-willed enough to aspire to and achieve the U.S. presidency, five years to kick the habit, it is not surprising that hundreds of millions of smokers find themselves unable to quit.Although smoking has fallen sha
Nov. 27, 2011