Most Popular
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No plan to let doctors with foreign licenses practice here anytime soon: PM
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Yoon rebuffs opposition's call for special probe into wife
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Ador CEO's dismissal to be decided on last day of May
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[Graphic News] Beer the most favored alcoholic drink by Koreans
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Science Ministry expresses regret over Japan’s pressure on Naver
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Haeundae Beach to become sand art museum in late May
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Suzy, Park Bo-gum star in AI fantasy romance ‘Wonderland’
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Medical professors set to take day off amid protracted walkouts by junior doctors
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Hostilities get out of hand as YouTuber murders another outside courthouse
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Dog goes on incredible journey to make it back home, 41 days after going missing
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Seoul 2008 offers lessons for New York 2011
The Occupy Wall Street that is happening now in New York resembles a familiar episode that I witnessed in Seoul. As Yogi Berra said, this is like dj vu all over again!When my long stay in Seoul on a project started in the beginning of 2008, the new administration was elected but had not yet taken the office. The Korean democracy at work allowed a smooth transition to the new government, with befitting joyous ceremonies.Shortly after the new government was sworn in, some major shifts in policies
Nov. 18, 2011
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[Shashi Tharoor] Ties between India and Europe
NEW DELHI ― The recent Indian-Italian bilateral dialogue, held in Milan on Nov. 7, at a time when Italy was reeling from the euro crisis and Silvio Berlusconi’s impending political demise, offered a fraught reminder of the potential, and the limits, of India’s relationship with the European Union.India has a long history of relations with Europe, going back to the days of the Roman Empire. Its southwestern state of Kerala boasted a Roman port, Muziris, centuries before Jesus Christ was born; exc
Nov. 18, 2011
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U.S.-China relations call for determined diplomacy
It is essential for Japan to pursue strategic diplomacy with the United States and China if effective international rules are to be worked out to ensure peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda met with U.S. President Barack Obama in Honolulu Saturday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and explained to him a government plan to submit to Okinawa Prefecture within this year an environmental assessment report on the planned
Nov. 18, 2011
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Thai government eyes short-term political gain
Although the Yingluck Shinawatra government has planned a budget for the 2012 fiscal year with spending as high as 2.38 trillion baht, the spending details do not respond well to the needs of the country, which is suffering from the ongoing flood crisis and mismanagement by the administration.The massive flooding has prompted many economic institutions to revise the country’s growth projection downwards. The Bank of Thailand, for instance, has lowered the projected growth rate for next year to o
Nov. 18, 2011
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Focus on real agenda
The series of meetins held by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) starting in Bali, Indonesia, on Thursday, should be an opportunity for participants to expand common ground and explore new areas of cooperation, so that the region can better contribute to regional and global development and stability. ASEAN’s traditional dialogue partners, China, Japan and South Korea, will participate and Russia and the United States have been invited to take part for the first time. Despite the
Nov. 18, 2011
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‘Biggest free trade zone’
Last Friday, before leaving for the 19th Leaders’ Summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Honolulu, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said that the meeting would help solve the problems of the Philippines. He mentioned in particular economic growth, job creation, regulatory reforms, competitiveness and protection from the turbulence that has swept the European Union.Well, indeed he may be getting some ideas on how to solve the problems of the country from the strategies, p
Nov. 18, 2011
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[Noeleen Heyzer] Asia must safeguard growth by protecting its people
While European and North American leaders struggle to regain fiscal credibility by cutting back social entitlements, those of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet in Bali this week at a historic turning point, an economic coming of age for their region, which may require them to move in the opposite direction.Asia remains by far the most dynamic region in the world and the locomotive of global growth. Its growth rate is one and a half times that of any other region. But this g
Nov. 18, 2011
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[Dominique Moisi] America in the Asian century
NEW YORK ― At “ground zero” in lower Manhattan, two empty spaces will be filled by water cascades, memorializing in a serene and respectful way the victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Next to them, a powerful tower, designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind and nearly completed, rises vigorously into the sky, a symbol of the triumph of life over the forces of death. One word comes to mind to characterize the impression made by this place, the site of an unprecedented crime: resi
Nov. 17, 2011
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Technocrats step in where political leaders fear to tread
In the past 12 months, four European premiers have lost their jobs because they failed to fix their countries’ mounting debt problems. A fifth could join the list on Nov. 20, when Spain holds a general election. The take-away: When leaders fail to address urgent fiscal matters, the capital markets will punish ― and ultimately remove ― them by making the cost of financing debt prohibitively high. Heads started rolling this year when Ireland’s and Portugal’s prime ministers lost elections soon aft
Nov. 17, 2011
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[David Ignatius] Europe’s unending fiscal circus
WASHINGTON ― After so many months of watching Europe’s economic follies, we should better appreciate the merits of America’s bipartisan response to the great crash of 2008. If the Europeans had handled their problems as cleanly as the United States did three years ago, the financial world wouldn’t be spinning like a yo-yo. The U.S. turned a corner in 2008 and 2009 because officials from both parties made good decisions and backed them up. The Europeans, by contrast, just keep dithering. They set
Nov. 17, 2011
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Handicapping a war over Iran’s nuclear aims
As concerns mounted over a possible military confrontation between Israel and Iran, several leading Arab commentators argued that such worries were overblown.This was so even as the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded last week that Iran appeared to have worked on developing a nuclear bomb and as media in Israel reported that the country’s leaders may be nearing a decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Wrote columnist Rachid Hassan, in the Amman-based Ad-Dustour daily: “We are cert
Nov. 17, 2011
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[Michael Smerconish] Scandal cries out for tougher child-abuse reporting law
Among the many things that need to change in the aftermath of the Penn State scandal is Pennsylvania law.First, the commonwealth needs to require that any witness to child abuse must call the police. Second, the statute of limitations for civil claims against child abusers needs to be expanded.Consider that when Mike McQueary saw a 10-year-old boy being raped in the shower at the campus’ Lasch Football Complex, he was under no legal obligation to dial 911 ― much less intervene. According to the
Nov. 17, 2011
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Firms that aid Syria crackdown deserve sanctions
Terrible things tend to happen when Syrian security officials catch their quarry. Dissidents are detained, tortured and sometimes killed. It is thus disturbing to learn that U.S. and European technology companies are working to help the regime of President Bashar al-Assad monitor Internet traffic to keep tabs on citizens. A Bloomberg News investigation revealed that the Italian company Area SpA has been installing a wide-reaching surveillance system for the Syrians, using equipment from the U.S.
Nov. 16, 2011
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[Lee Jae-min] Trade disputes and domestic policies
Antigua and Barbuda is the seventh-smallest country in the world with a population of 70,000. This country, as its name connotes, is composed of two main islands and located in the middle of the Caribbean. It is a former British colony where a British naval fortress was located in the 1700s (this fortress was featured in the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean”).In 2003, this small country waged a David-and-Goliath battle against the United States by bringing a claim against Washington at the WTO di
Nov. 16, 2011
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Facing a nuclear Iran
The United Nations report on Iran’s nuclear program released last week should end the debate, if any debate remained, over whether Iran is moving toward acquiring the ability to build a nuclear weapon. In cautious but convincing detail, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency listed evidence that Iran is still conducting research that would lead to an atomic bomb, much of it in secret military laboratories. And Iran has refused to answer the U.N.’s questions or allow U.N. inspectors to see
Nov. 16, 2011
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Every man a king? U.K.’s better off with its queens
U.S. President Barack Obama said at the Group of 20 meeting in Cannes, France, earlier this month that he was told that he had just been given a “crash course” on the complexities of European politics. Well, that’s us, the folk who brought you Byzantine. We do have the habit of talking about one thing while doing another, like your mother peeling potatoes at the sink while telling you to hurry up and provide her with some grandchildren. And, often, the thing we’re doing is not what it appears, a
Nov. 16, 2011
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[Vivek Maru] Giving legal power to the people
NEW DELHI ― Inspired by Anna Hazare’s hunger strike, thousands of people gathered at Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi to protest governmental corruption. Protesters here and around the country pressed for a specific political change ― a new institution to combat corruption ― and, in principle, they won. Parliament passed a resolution accepting their demands and is now drafting a bill accordingly.But the demonstrations were also motivated by a larger aspiration, one that is more difficult to achieve:
Nov. 16, 2011
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Oh man, girls are beating the boys in tests
The latest round of test results are in for America’s shoolchildren, this one from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and there is the usual good and bad news.American kids, for example, are doing better in math than they were in 1990. On the other hand, the gap between white and minority students remains large ― except for Asian students, who got their own category this year and beat everybody.But I noticed something that never seems to change much. Although girls do about as well
Nov. 15, 2011
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[Nouriel Roubini] Eurozone’s endgame has started
NEW YORK ― The eurozone crisis seems to be reaching its climax, with Greece on the verge of default and an inglorious exit from the monetary union, and now Italy on the verge of losing market access. But the eurozone’s problems are much deeper. They are structural, and they severely affect at least four other economies: Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, and Spain.For the last decade, the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) were the eurozone’s consumers of first and last resort, spending
Nov. 15, 2011
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A sensible solution to student loan debt
The college class of 2010 now has a dubious distinction. Its graduates who had student loans owed a record-high average of $25,250, up 5.2 percent from the previous year, according to a new report from the Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit advocacy group.Last month, President Obama announced a plan to make it a little easier for 1.6 million college graduates to repay their government loans, recognizing the drag that $1 trillion in student debt is placing on the economy.In the early 1990s, mos
Nov. 15, 2011