Most Popular
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Korea enters full election mode
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Immigrant woman stabbed to death by Korean husband
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Seoul bus drivers go on general strike, cause morning rush hour delays
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Lee Jong-sup resigns as envoy to Australia
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Yellow dust engulfs S. Korea, advisory alert issued
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Official campaigning kicks off for April 10 elections
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S. Korea to boost support for single-parent families
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Court upholds jail term for man who attempted to murder ex-girlfriend
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Kia EV9 wins world car of year
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Korea misses out on global bond index boost
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[Jean Guerrero] Shouting down racists isn't effective
We've become accustomed to the weaponization of words. Words are used to divide, dehumanize and incite violence. Conservative leaders spread hateful rhetoric to whip up support for attacks on women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and more. Progressives fight back by trying to shout down the purveyors of bigotry. Meanwhile, Americans are losing faith in their capacity to tap into the opposite power of words -- bringing people closer together. Polls show a tendency to avoid political
May 19, 2023
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[Daniel Hogsta] Delivering on nuclear disarmament
From May 19-21, the leaders of the G-7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as high-level representatives from the European Union will meet in Hiroshima, Japan. Many of these leaders will be visiting the city, one of two where nuclear weapons were used in August 1945, for the first time. And since the nuclear threat is now higher than at any time since the end of the Cold War, they must not use this occasion to pass off the same deca
May 18, 2023
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[Wang Son-taek] Wolf warriors retreat, worries diminish
Several days ago, there was a significant diplomatic event in Vienna, Austria. Jake Sullivan, the White House's national security adviser, and Wang Yi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo, held talks there. The talks were reported to last more than eight hours over two days. It shows that in-depth conversations have been exchanged on various topics. Fortunately, the issues include the effective management of bilateral relations so that the US-China strategic competition
May 18, 2023
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[Kim Seong-kon] Only a fool trips on what is behind him’
Suppose there are two types of men: One is a pleasant fellow to be with, and the other is not. One enjoys respect and adoration in the community, while the other does not. Which one would you prefer to be? The first man has a positive attitude. Although he has some sad memories of his past life, he does not harbor any grudges or enmities. He is generous enough to “forgive and forget” because he knows “a happier heart is the key to a happier life,” as Gandhi said. He tries
May 17, 2023
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[Cory Franklin] High COVID-19 death rate in US
Following his recent retirement, Dr. Anthony Fauci reflected on his government role during the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked about the high per capita COVID-19 death rate in the US, Fauci replied, “Something clearly went wrong. And I don’t know exactly what it was. But the reason we know it went wrong is that we are the richest country in the world, and on a per capita basis we’ve done worse than virtually all other countries. And there’s no reason that a rich country lik
May 17, 2023
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[Daniel DePetris] US still very much at war on terrorism
At a time when the Biden administration has its hands full trying to reverse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and manage a US-China relationship stuck in the doldrums, America’s vast, lethal counterterrorism machine continues to be in high gear. The US intelligence community, in close partnership with America’s special operators, are tracking and hunting down terrorists in several countries -- Syria and Somalia, most especially -- with such regularity that it barely makes a dent in
May 16, 2023
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[Lisa Jarvis] Isolation is as harmful as smoking
Your doctor’s orders for staying healthy might include a daily routine of eating your broccoli, going to the gym and getting a good night’s sleep. Now, the US surgeon general would like to add another action item to the list: Reach out to a friend. In a new report, Vivek Murthy says that the US is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation that can be as harmful to our health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Murthy also offers practical fixes: public policies and spac
May 16, 2023
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[Ana Palacio] A BRICS revival?
There was a time when everyone was talking about a group of fast-growing emerging economies with huge potential. But the BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- struggled to transform themselves from a promising asset class into a unified group of real-world diplomatic and financial players. Is this finally changing? The story of the BRICS begins with a November 2001 paper by Jim O’Neill, then the head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, called
May 15, 2023
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[Mark Z. Barabak] Will Trump pay a political price?
There is a long list of descriptors used to identify Donald Trump: real estate magnate, reality TV star, former president, insurrectionist, criminally indicted payer of hush money. As of Tuesday, a new particularly incriminating label can be added: sexual assailant. Even so, the determination of a civil jury -- that Trump physically brutalized writer E. Jean Carroll -- seems unlikely to make much difference to his unshakable political base or, for now, change the fundamental dynamics of the 202
May 12, 2023
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[Lee Kyong-hee] History matters in Korea-US-Japan relations
On the cusp of World War II, Syngman Rhee warned Americans about Imperial Japan’s expansionist ambitions. “To review the past is to preview the future,” wrote the future president of Korea in his 1941 book, “Japan Inside out: The Challenge of Today.” Months after the book’s release, Japanese planes bombed US naval ships at Pearl Harbor. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korea-US alliance and mutual defense treaty, hailed as a historic success. Yet, t
May 11, 2023
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[Doyle McManus] Concerns grow about US debt ceiling
It's time to start worrying about the debt ceiling. The US federal government is careening toward its borrowing credit limit, beyond which the Treasury won't be able to pay all its bills. The consequences could be truly catastrophic -- a global financial crash -- or merely damaging: a jump in interest rates, a plummeting stock market and a more likely recession. Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said the "X Date," the day the money runs out, could arrive as soon a
May 11, 2023
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[Kim Seong-kon] From Hallyu fans to Korean studies specialists
The other day, I passed by a Books-A-Million store near my house in rural New England. Otherwise known as “BAM!,” this big store is a typical pop culture emporium that sells books, DVDs, movies and toys. Normally I would walk by without a second thought, but I saw something that intrigued me, a big poster hanging on the front window that said, “K-Pop Available Here.” The poster got me so curious that I decided to drop in to see what they had. Inside, I found another large
May 10, 2023
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[Antara Haldar] The price of sweatshop development
It has been ten years since an eight-story commercial building housing several textile factories on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed on April 24, 2013. The collapse of Rana Plaza claimed the lives of 1,134 people and severely injured 2,000 more, most of them women. It was the deadliest industrial disaster since the 1984 gas leak that killed more than 3,000 people in Bhopal, India, and the worst accident in the modern history of the textile industry. Thousands of workers were trapped
May 10, 2023
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[Faye Flam] AI helps us read minds, but should we?
Since mind reading has only existed in the realms of fantasy and fiction, it seems fair to apply the phrase to a system that uses brain scan data to decipher stories that a person has read, heard, or even just imagined. It’s the latest in a series of spooky linguistic feats fueled by artificial intelligence, and it’s left people wondering what kinds of nefarious uses humanity will find for such advances. Even the lead researcher on the project, computational neuroscientist Alexander
May 9, 2023
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[Jonathan Bernstein] Why US elections are more democratic
Colin Allred, a former NFL player now in his third term in the US House, plans to give up a safe Texas seat to take on Ted Cruz for the US Senate in 2024. He is probably Democrats’ best hope to challenge the Republican incumbent. While his bid, announced Wednesday, is a long shot, Allred’s candidacy is proof that the torrent of money involved in political campaigns, and specifically the huge number of small-scale donations, has been a boon for American democracy. A lot of people hav
May 9, 2023
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[Nicholas Goldberg] Trump‘s up in the polls. How can that be?
I guess it’s possible that Republicans really don’t care about Donald Trump’s run-ins with the law. Maybe, despite the numerous allegations, investigations and charges against him -- for rape, for defamation, for seeking to subvert the 2020 election, for his role in the Jan. 6 assault, for falsifying records about hush money payments -- he will maintain his position as the front-running GOP candidate and once again persuade his tens of millions of zealous supporters to vote for
May 8, 2023
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[Tom Ginsburg] Charles' realm will not disappear
As Britain’s King Charles III is officially coronated, the “empire on which the sun never set” is looking a little shabby. In addition to the United Kingdom, 14 former British colonies still maintain Charles as their monarch and head of state, but many of his subjects around the world are reconsidering the arrangement. Barbados became a republic in 2021, and Jamaica has initiated a similar process of constitutional reform. Others might soon follow. Why should countries from Bel
May 8, 2023
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[Robert J. Fouser] Problems with the ‘Pax Americana’ revival
President Yoon Suk-yeol charmed Washington last week on his first state visit to the US. His speech before a joint session of Congress was received warmly and his rendition of “American Pie” was the highlight of a lavish state dinner. He relished the hospitality, much as President Joe Biden did on a visit to Ireland in mid-April. The visit will be remembered, however, as a turning point, not in relations between South Korea and the US but in relations between South Korea and China. P
May 5, 2023
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[Wang Son-taek] The secret to success following the Korea-US summit
President Yoon Suk Yeol returned to Seoul after a state visit to the US. As the visit is of national interest, it is natural to see many assessments and debates on whether the summit was successful. However, there are concerning elements in the discussions. The evaluations are sharply divided according to the political camps, becoming the subject of political struggle and causing the whole country to be cut in two. However, applying such tribalism to the outcome of the President's foreign
May 4, 2023
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[Noah Feldman] Kids have free speech rights too
The new bipartisan bill to limit kids’ access to social media will no doubt appeal to many parents. The trouble is that, under existing First Amendment doctrine, the proposed law is almost certainly unconstitutional. For the Supreme Court to uphold it would require it to repudiate a 2011 precedent, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, which struck down a California ban on selling or renting violent video games to minors. The proposed legislation, named the Protecting Kids on Soc
May 4, 2023