Most Popular
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Korea enters full election mode
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Seoul bus drivers go on general strike, cause morning rush hour delays
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Immigrant woman stabbed to death by Korean husband
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Official campaigning kicks off for April 10 elections
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Court upholds jail term for man who attempted to murder ex-girlfriend
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S. Korea to boost support for single-parent families
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Yellow dust engulfs S. Korea, advisory alert issued
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Lee Jong-sup resigns as envoy to Australia
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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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[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
ViewpointsMay 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
ViewpointsMay 9, 2023
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[Editorial] Foundation for cooperation
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to South Korea is significant in that it revived the "shuttle diplomacy" format after a 12-year hiatus. It was a two-day working visit in return for President Yoon Suk Yeol's visit to Japan in March. Kishida's return visit came less than two months after they met in Tokyo. The Japanese leader came to Seoul on Sunday for a summit with Yoon. The last time a Japanese leader visited Korea was February 2018. At that time, Prime Mi
EditorialMay 9, 2023
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[Editorial] Crypto asset disclosure
Rep. Kim Nam-kuk of the Democratic Party of Korea is now at the center of an intensifying political conflict over his cryptocurrency transactions. The focus is on whether his holdings and disposal of crypto assets violated laws or regulations. With the investigation still underway, there is no way at this point to conclude that any illegal acts were committed by Kim. Regardless of the result of the probe, however, the implications of the case are likely to be far-reaching, especially in connecti
EditorialMay 8, 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
ViewpointsMay 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
ViewpointsMay 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
ViewpointsMay 5, 2023
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[Editorial] Biased evaluation
Korea Gas Corp., a state-owned enterprise that effectively monopolizes the import of liquefied natural gas, is said to have raised the annual salary of its executives by 30 percent on average last year despite its mounting debt. The average annual salary of its board members was 171.48 million won ($128,545) in 2022, according to ALIO, a government system that provides management information on public institutions including state-owned enterprises. The amount was up 30.1 percent from 131.79 mill
EditorialMay 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
ViewpointsMay 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
ViewpointsMay 4, 2023
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[Editorial] Shuttle diplomacy
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is scheduled to pay a two-day visit to South Korea this weekend amid growing attention about whether the Japanese leader will respond in kind to President Yoon Suk Yeol’s friendly gesture. Kishida’s visit to Seoul -- the first bilateral visit by a Japanese leader in 12 years -- was initiated by Yoon’s efforts to improve the badly damaged ties between the two countries in recent years over historical and economic disputes. In March, Yoon fle
EditorialMay 4, 2023
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[Editorial] Leafleting of NK positive
The Supreme Court ruled last week that it was unfair for the Moon Jae-in administration to cancel the permission for the establishment of a group run by North Korean defectors to fly balloons filled with leaflets into North Korea. It reversed the lower courts’ decision which had said the cancellation of the permission was just. The Supreme Court ruled that sending leaflets into North Korea plays a positive role in showing North Koreans the reality of their nation's regime, calling att
EditorialMay 3, 2023
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[Jean Pisani-Ferry] Economic threat of geopolitical primacy
In recent weeks, there has been no shortage of speeches by prominent leaders discussing their countries’ relationships with China and the potential economic fallout of geopolitical fragmentation. This is a welcome, if much-belated, discussion. But it must address a fundamental question: Can rivalry and economic integration coexist and, if so, under which terms? The answer will determine the fate of the global economy. In February 2020, Jennifer Harris and Jake Sullivan published an article
ViewpointsMay 3, 2023
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[Faye Flam] Threat from Pacific garbage patch
The infamous Pacific garbage patch is changing the balance of life in the seas. At least 37 species of coastal creatures -- worms, crabs, shellfish and the like -- have colonized the Texas-sized plastic tangle, turning it into an unnatural floating habitat. The findings, reported in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, show life’s tenacity, with a variety of castaway creatures treating our trash as their own Noah’s Ark. But it’s not something to celebrate. It should be a
ViewpointsMay 2, 2023
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[Editorial] Standoff over Nursing Act
A divisive conflict is heating up in the medical sector that could paralyze medical services for the public over the Nursing Act, which was passed Thursday by the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Making matters more complicated is the muddy partisan politics over the controversial bill, with the ruling People Power Party set to ask President Yoon Suk Yeol to veto the bill -- a development that could weaken the president’s political standing from the view of the main opposition Demo
EditorialMay 2, 2023
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[J. Bradford DeLong] Neoliberalism’s final stronghold
The past decade has not been kind to neoliberalism. With 40 years of deregulation, financialization, and globalization having failed to deliver prosperity for anyone but the rich, the United States and other Western liberal democracies have seemingly moved on from the neoliberal experiment and re-embraced industrial policy. But the economic paradigm that underpinned Thatcherism, Reaganomics and the Washington Consensus is alive and well in at least one place: the pages of the Economist. A re
ViewpointsMay 1, 2023
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] How the US Fed undermined its own credibility
The aftershocks of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, while seemingly fading, are still reverberating around the world. Although Federal Reserve officials have taken pains to assure the public that the US banking system is sound, it is unclear why anyone should believe them. After all, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told the US Congress the same thing just days before SVB’s collapse in March. In the weeks since then, it was reported that the vaunted stress tests established by the 2010 Dodd-Fr
ViewpointsMay 1, 2023
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[Editorial] Nuclear alliance
President Yoon Suk Yeol returned home Sunday wrapping up a seven-day state visit to the United States. Yoon and US President Joe Biden discussed ways to strengthen extended deterrence and released the Washington Declaration separately from a joint summit statement. The gist of the declaration is the establishment of a new bilateral nuclear consultative group and the regular deployment of US strategic assets in South Korea. The Washington Declaration is significant in that US capabilities to back
EditorialMay 1, 2023
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[Christopher Cokinos] Root for SpaceX’s Starship rocket
Elon Musk is the most morally dubious rocket pioneer since Wernher von Braun. And the most successful. With each, we can critique faults and celebrate achievements. Von Braun, who supervised the V-2 weapon program for the Third Reich and once calculated the number of slave laborers needed for more efficient production of the system, went on to supervise America’s Saturn V moon rocket. The latter was laudable. The former probably would have led to Von Braun’s arrest by the Allies had
ViewpointsApril 28, 2023
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[Editorial] Lurking beneath fragile data
South Korea’s economy skirted a recession in the first quarter of this year -- by a narrow margin. Exports weakened, investment slowed and the growth outlook darkened amid the increasing uncertainties of the global economy. The economy expanded a mere 0.3 percent in the January-March period, compared with the previous quarter, according to the data of the Bank of Korea. Given that it had contracted by 0.4 percent on-quarter in the October-December period, the plus figure may offer a hopefu
EditorialApril 28, 2023