Most Popular
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1 in 3 Koreans live alone, family types becoming diverse
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Korea, Japan finance chiefs vow to tame rampant FX market volatility
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K-pop group's manager dismissed for setting up spycam in theater dressing room
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K-pop singer lost consciousness after being hit by foul ball, cancels show
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Korean Muslim YouTuber's plan to build mosque in Incheon goes viral
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Why is Apple Pay struggling to get purchase in Korea?
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Yoon's office denies considering liberal figures for key posts
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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[Today’s K-pop] BTS pop-up event to come to Seoul
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To restore jobs, U.S. has to ramp up exports
One school of thought about the so-called jobless recovery of the American economy blames high unemployment on the federal deficit. But that’s blaming the wrong deficit.To achieve an authentic recovery that includes new jobs, the deficit we need to cut is in trade.For 20 years, America’s exports have been surpassed by its imports, with a big bite of that trade deficit composed of oil imports. Addr
May 18, 2011
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[Lee Jae-min] Making more laws available in English
One of the positive changes during the past couple of years is that Korean laws and regulations have become more available in English. This is an important development for foreign businessmen and investors who are currently in Korea or are considering coming to Korea. Just a while back, laws and regulations were only sporadically available in some specific areas. The Ministry of Government Legisla
May 18, 2011
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[Albert R. Hunt] Geithner emerges as Obama’s indispensable man
If, two years ago, reports of Timothy Geithner possibly leaving reached the White House, some advisers would have seized on them as an opportunity; President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary got off to a very rocky start, and was considered a short-termer.Today, if rumblings that he’s thinking about stepping down made their way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there would be near panic. Geithner is a
May 18, 2011
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[Simon Johnson] IMF to get chief from emerging markets?
Even before the shocking events of the past few days, the international policy community had been contemplating a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the International Monetary Fund.Strauss-Kahn, the IMF managing director, was expected to begin campaigning soon for the presidency of France. Now, whatever happens in the New York legal system as he defends himself against attempted rape allegatio
May 18, 2011
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[Andrew Sheng] George Friedman: From next century to next decade
During my 2010 holiday in Turkey, I brought only one book to read ― George Friedman’s “The Next 100 Years.” Friedman is an American political scientist and founder of the private intelligence company Stratfor. I first came across him through browsing in the Internet and found his analysis of political events uniquely penetrating and bold. For someone to forecast the next century showed an audacity
May 18, 2011
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Pakistanis play the blame game with the CIA
So it has come to this. Pakistani authorities miffed about the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden leak the name of the CIA station chief to the Islamabad press corps.Pakistan is all for the red, white and blue until the check comes through. If there were ever a signal about the time to part ways, this is it.Prime Minister Yousuf Raza “Tumbleweed” Gilani was upset anyone would imply his country’
May 17, 2011
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A short Arab spring succeeded by long summer
The wave of democracy that swept across the Arab world beginning in January appears to have dissipated. Most countries in the Middle East and North Africa remain under the rule of governments that are anything but democratic. In Tunisia and Egypt, where revolutions succeeded in removing long-time despotic leaders, there are uncertainties about whether liberal constitutional democracy can actually
May 17, 2011
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Early child care pays dividends
The United States is sitting on a vast, untapped economic development tool that has received too little notice: our children.Investing in children before they enter school pays dividends, and yet child care subsidies are at risk as Congress mulls questions about how to reduce the federal deficit. Before you tune this out as the same old “it’s for the kids” chorus, consider:― Children in high-quali
May 17, 2011
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[Peter Singer] When prevention is better than relief
PRINCETON ― When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March, Brian Tucker was in Padang, Indonesia. Tucker was working with a colleague to design a refuge that could save thousands of lives if ― or rather, when ― a tsunami like the one in 1797 that came out of the Indian Ocean, some 950 kilometers southeast of where the 2004 Asian tsunami originated, strikes again. Tucker is the founder and pre
May 17, 2011
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[Kevin Steinberg] Lessons for living in a new world of risk
No matter how well we foresee and plan, some aspects of both man-made and natural risks will remain random and unpredictable. This uncertainty is inherent in the very nature of risk, and its chaotic and fickle nature has been reaffirmed by the recent tragedies in Japan. As the Japanese people and their government gradually shift from responding to the immediate safety and humanitarian aftermath of
May 17, 2011
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[Hirokazu Yoshikawa] Citizen children and life under the radar
President Obama spoke last week about the economic reasons for providing a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s undocumented. This is clearly a polarizing issue, and there is much room for honest disagreement. But there’s one fact we can’t ignore: Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. include the parents of 4.5 million children who are legal citizens. What that means is that, on average, one or t
May 17, 2011
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[Kim Seong-kon] Gangnam leftists vs. Gangbuk rightists
These days, the newly-coined term, “Gangnam left wing,” is quite fashionable in Korea. The term, which refers to leftist activists who reside in the rich district of South Seoul, is similar to the pejorative American term, “limousine leftists.” The British sarcastically call such people “chardonnay socialists” or “Champagne socialists,” and the French call them “caviar leftists.” In the Netherland
May 17, 2011
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Oil industry benefits on campaign contributions
The day after House Speaker John Boehner demanded trillions in budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, Senate Democrats offered him a small down payment Tuesday: a plan to cut $21 billion in unneeded federal subsidies to the extraordinarily profitable oil industry.Not surprisingly, Republicans quickly labeled the proposal a tax increase and declined to provide any support, probably d
May 16, 2011
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Fewer volunteers at Japan’s disaster area
During the Golden Week holidays from April 28 to May 8, a total of some 78,000 volunteers worked in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which were devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to “disaster volunteer centers” set up by local governments in the prefectures.On and after May 9, however, that number dropped sharply. On a peak day, there were some 11,000 volunteers,
May 16, 2011
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[Michael Oren] Wrong pact for peace in Middle East
The world shared the American people’s gratitude for the special forces who rid us of Osama bin Laden, but there was one flagrant exception.“We condemn the assassination of an Arab holy warrior,” declared Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas regime in Gaza, who also deplored “the continuing American policy ... of shedding Muslim blood.”This is the same Hamas that has launched hundreds o
May 16, 2011
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[David Ignatius] The puzzle of Pakistan for Washington
WASHINGTON ― The day before he suffered a fatal tear in his heart last December, a frustrated Richard Holbrooke confided to a colleague: The Obama administration had tried everything to convince Pakistan to crack down on terrorism, including threats and special-assistance packages, but none of it seemed to work. Why wasn’t Pakistan getting the message? The question posed by Holbrooke in his final
May 16, 2011
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[Nicolas Moore] Sub-par English education in Korea: Root of the problem
The symptoms of sub-par English education are often discussed in the pages of this paper, but I’ve yet to read an accurate description of the cause. The cause of the lack of quality teachers is simply government interference in the marketplace, and specifically the preposterous restrictions, and poisonous regulations discouraging native English speakers from coming to Korea to teach, produce, and
May 16, 2011
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[Dick Polman] Meet new Newt as presidential hopeful
When I first heard that Newt Gingrich was mapping a Republican presidential bid ― he formally announced Wednesday ― I recalled what conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said recently about the guy. It sure wasn’t pretty.Coburn was a Newt soldier back in the 1990s, when Newt was riding high as House speaker and conservative Pied Piper. Nevertheless, Coburn told C-SPAN in March that “having served
May 16, 2011
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[Mai Yamani] Bin Laden’s ghost in the Middle East
LONDON ― Osama bin Laden’s death in his Pakistani hiding place is like the removal of a tumor from the Muslim world. But aggressive follow-up therapy will be required to prevent the remaining al-Qaida cells from metastasizing by acquiring more adherents who believe in violence to achieve the “purification” and empowerment of Islam.Fortunately, bin Laden’s death comes at the very moment when much o
May 16, 2011
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A necessary ultimatum on cutting federal debt
Let’s call it Boehner’s Law: When you issue an ultimatum, make sure that whatever you’re threatening really is ... the ultimate. In that spirit, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, says Republicans need to see trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for letting the Obama administration raise the nation’s debt limit.Hair-on-fire Democrats react that it’s perilous to delay upping the debt
May 15, 2011