Most Popular
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BTS, NewJeans fandoms clash over Hybe-Min Hee-jin conflict
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N. Korea launches missiles in latest show of military, nuclear strength
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High temperatures may worsen mental health conditions: study
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Samsung chief travels to France to encourage young talents
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Korean battery makers zero in on global commercial EV market
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Yoon leaves for Prague to cement nuclear energy push
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N. Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles: JCS
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[Off the Pages] German bestseller gets new twist in ‘Snow White Must Die -- Black Out’
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4th case of lumpy skin disease confirmed in S. Korea
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Main opposition to railroad multiple contentious bills after Chuseok
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[Editorial] Keep inflation low
It is fortunate for South Korea to see inflation fall to its intended level last month. The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of prices for goods and services, rose 2 percent on-year in August, according to Statistics Korea, Tuesday. It was the lowest increase in 41 months since March 2021 when it edged up 1.9 percent. The Bank of Korea finally met its inflation target of 2 percent. Above all, it is encouraging that Korea reached the 2-percent mark earlier than the US and eurozone, who
EditorialSept. 5, 2024
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[Kim Seong-kon] No more specter of Marx hovering over Korea
Recently, newspaper reports said that Seoul National University canceled an undergraduate course on Marxist economics due to the lack of registered students. It is only natural in this era of the global economy. In fact, Marxist economic theory became extinct as a failed experiment in the early 1990s when communist countries in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China gave up on it and adopted free market principles. In that sense, canceling a course on Marxist economics was a much-belated me
ViewpointsSept. 4, 2024
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[Lionel Laurent] Working six days a week is no myth in Greece
Anyone who’s seen swathes of sunburnt German tourists harrying Greek workers for a beach towel this summer will know how wrong economic cliches can be. Greeks, depicted as “lazy” during the euro crisis, actually work more hours than anyone else in Europe, and supposedly workaholic Germans work among the least. Now the gap is getting starker with a divisive new law allowing some Greek firms to enforce a six-day workweek -- a first in Europe and one that runs counter to the trend
ViewpointsSept. 4, 2024
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[Editorial] Electricity supply
Electrical grids, which deliver power to households, businesses and industrial sectors, are becoming increasingly important in recent years. Grids are having greater demand placed on them not only for the transition to green energy, but also for cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence. But the global push for green energy and advanced technology has been mired in delays as a result of bottlenecks linked to grid facilities. According to a recent report by Kepco Management Resear
EditorialSept. 4, 2024
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[Eric Posner] Is a pro-labor Republican Party possible?
Following a speech by Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters union, at the Republican National Convention last month, a New York Times analysis considered whether the party could really carry out a populist agenda in support of workers. While Donald Trump has never shown much interest in workers’ rights, many of his acolytes have. Republican Sens. Josh Hawley, Roger Marshall, Marco Rubio and JD Vance (the party’s vice-presidential candidate) have all sided with workers in
ViewpointsSept. 3, 2024
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[Grace Kao] My K-pop class at Yale University
For the past four years, I’ve taught a first-year seminar titled “Race and Place in British New Wave, K-pop and Beyond” at Yale University. Since it’s the beginning of the Fall semester here, it seems like an appropriate time to share what my course is like. At Yale, we have special seminars that are only open to our first-year students. These courses are introductory and offer unique content. First-year seminars give our newest students a chance to interact with other st
ViewpointsSept. 3, 2024
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[Editorial] Keep dialogue going
People Power Party Chair Han Dong-hoon and Democratic Party of Korea Chair Lee Jae-myung took the first step toward cooperation in supporting public livelihoods through their meeting in the National Assembly on Sunday. It was the first official talks between the leaders of the ruling and main opposition parties in about 11 years. The interval indicates that confrontational politics has lasted a long time in Korea. However, with signs of legislative normalization emerging recently after both part
EditorialSept. 3, 2024
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[Jean Pisani-Ferry] What is needed to awaken Europe?
The European Union is facing three major crises. The first is a competitiveness crisis that was already apparent in the late 2010s but has worsened, leading to lackluster productivity and growth performance. More recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created a security crisis that is compounded by the bloc’s deteriorating relationship with China. The war also triggered an energy crisis that puts Europe at a disadvantage relative to its major competitors, the United States and China.
ViewpointsSept. 2, 2024
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[Yoo Choon-sik] Rising housing prices in Seoul and trust in policy
An efficient economic policy is not necessarily one that simply achieves its intended goal regardless of side effects, but rather one that economic players trust, believing it was based on a correct assessment of the situation and expected effects from the policy. Measured against this criterion, South Korea’s recent policies and top officials' comments on rising house prices in the capital area fall short of being efficient -- not because they will fail to curb housing prices, but be
ViewpointsSept. 2, 2024
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[Editorial] Discrepancy in views
President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a televised briefing Thursday on state affairs that the South Korean economy is on a clear path for recovery and is set to take off in a big way in the future, painting a rosy picture. The next day, however, Statistics Korea data showed that the country’s industrial output dropped for the third-straight month in July. The reason was the shrinking production in the country’s mainstay industries of semiconductors and automobiles. Industrial output fell 0
EditorialSept. 2, 2024
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[Lee Byung-jong] Gen Z’s growing gender gap
The upcoming US presidential election in November has a surprising degree of similarities with the South Korean presidential election in 2022. For starters, both elections feature candidates who are being tried for various criminal charges, facing prosecutors-turned-candidates on the other side. But more importantly, both elections highlight a remarkably sharp gender divide among young people, particularly Generation Z. In both countries, young men predominantly support conservative candidates,
ViewpointsAug. 30, 2024
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[Editorial] 2025 Budget
The Yoon Suk Yeol administration has revealed its determination to keep a tight budget to “normalize” public spending in the face of a growing tax revenue shortfall, but there are voices that any belt-tightening should be more selective and strategic in a way that benefits the public. The Finance Ministry on Tuesday announced that the budget for 2025 has been set at 677.4 trillion won ($507.7 billion). The figure marks a 3.2 percent on-year increase, which is higher than 2.8 percent
EditorialAug. 30, 2024
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[Contribution] Towards responsible AI in military domain
On Sept. 9-10, South Korea will host the second summit on the Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (REAIM). The first-ever summit on this topic was held last year in the Netherlands. REAIM 2024 in Seoul will continue to deepen understanding and awareness of the issues surrounding the application of AI in the military domain, and will explore ways to ensure that AI is used responsibly by militaries around the globe. AI is transforming all facets of human existence at an asto
ViewpointsAug. 29, 2024
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[Wang Son-taek] Were they not Koreans?
A nasty specter of historical revisionism has again shaken the Republic of Korea. This time, a comment in question came from Kim Moon-soo, the labor minister nominee. During his confirmation hearing in parliament, he denied the nationality of Koreans in the Japanese occupation period from 1910 to 1945. He asserted, “Our country was completely taken over and forcibly incorporated in Japan. How could there be such a thing as (Korean) nationality?” Shockingly, there exists a faction in
ViewpointsAug. 29, 2024
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[Takatoshi Ito] Japan after Kishida
On Aug. 14, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he would step down as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in September. Soon after, the LDP will select Kishida’s replacement -- who will serve as prime minister, given the LDP-led coalition’s control of the Diet (the lower house of parliament). The new government is then likely to call a snap election, in the hopes that the “honeymoon effect” will help it increase its majority. What the LDP must f
ViewpointsAug. 29, 2024
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[Editorial] Uproot sexual deepfakes
Making deepfake images or videos by combining facial photos of innocent persons with pornography, as well as their distribution, is undoubtedly criminal. It is punishable under the Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act. It is a heinous crime that abuses the anonymity of social media and computer technology. Deepfake sexual material is spreading fast and indiscriminately. Police recently arrested the operator of a Telegram chatroom where users shared deepfake sexual content crea
EditorialAug. 29, 2024
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[Tony McAleer] How language enables the extremes
When I was a white supremacist who had infiltrated the Canadian military reserves, an officer who had spent two tours of Northern Ireland embedded in a British unit told me that the Irish Republican Army had only 75 active personnel who pulled triggers and planted bombs. Behind those combatants were 3,500 people who offered them safe houses and storage for their ammunition. Bolstering them was a much broader community of people who endorsed their efforts. Ultimately, decades of sectarian violenc
ViewpointsAug. 28, 2024
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[Kim Seong-kon] How to replenish our exhausted political parties
We Koreans are very proud of the outstanding young athletes and charming K-pop singers who made South Korea internationally famous. On the other hand, we are not so proud of our politicians, who have seriously damaged the reputation of our country in the international community lately. Some political analysts have observed that the two representative political parties of South Korea seem to have exhausted their possibilities. Others have diagnosed that the Korean political parties are now suffer
ViewpointsAug. 28, 2024
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[Editorial] Tackle debt crisis
A clear warning sign for policymakers is on the horizon: surging debt -- not only in the South Korean government, but also among households. According to data from the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Korea, the combined debt of the South Korean government and households has surpassed 3,000 trillion won ($2.26 trillion) for the first time. In detail, the country’s combined national debt and household debt came in at 3,042 trillion won at the end of the second quarter this year. This negati
EditorialAug. 28, 2024
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[Zaki Laidi] The geopolitics of Olympic medals
Why do certain countries dominate the Olympics? The answer may lie in the correlation between athletic performance and gross domestic product. The 2024 Paris Olympic Games were a case in point: the top seven medal winners -- the United States, China, Japan, Australia, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom -- are all among the world’s 20 largest economies. This can be partly attributed to demographics: a larger population provides a deeper pool of athletic talent from which to draw
ViewpointsAug. 27, 2024