[Lee Kyong-hee] Fallout from Fukushima radioactive wastewater

This summer, Japan intends to begin releasing wastewater into the sea from the destroyed Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Japanese officials assure that the operation spanning decades will not endanger marine life or the environment. And to help convince skeptics, they have a willing neighbor, according to Japanese news reports. Quoting a diplomatic source, the reports say that President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to make all-out efforts to remove public concerns in Korea about the wastewater disch

ViewpointsJune 8, 2023

[Martin Schram] The making of Trump's MAGA base

Today we will be exploring why Donald Trump’s little-understood MAGA Republican base has seemed so stunningly shatterproof -- despite being pounded by nonstop news revelations of potential prosecutions, more unsavory conduct and eruptions that sound unpatriotic to outsiders’ ears. Now this: The 2024 presidential campaign attacks are just getting started. Former Trump endorsers are now campaigning against him in the 2024 presidential primaries. No one knows what to expect. And there a

ViewpointsJune 7, 2023

[Kim Seong-kon] The crisis of liberal democracy in the era of 3 P's

In 1992, when Francis Fukuyama published his celebrated book “The End of History and the Last Man,” people thought that liberal democracy would be the predominant form of government on Earth after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Despite Fukuyama’s optimistic prediction, however, ideological evolution did not end even after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, and consequently, liberal democracy is in crisis today. In his article “Populism is a Symp

ViewpointsJune 7, 2023

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Western industrial policy and international law

With the enactment last year of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States fully joined the rest of the world’s advanced economies in combating climate change. The IRA authorizes a major increase in spending to support renewable energy, research and development and other priorities, and if estimates about its effects are anywhere near correct, the impact on the climate will be significant. True, the design of the law is not ideal. Any economist could have drafted a bill that woul

ViewpointsJune 6, 2023

[James Stavridis] How will AI change modern warfare?

Artificial intelligence is, suddenly, everywhere. We are awash in ideas about how we can use AI productively -- from agriculture to climate change to engineering to software construction. And, equally, there are plenty of cautionary notes being struck about using AI to control societies, manipulate economies, defeat commercial opponents, and generally fulfill Arthur C. Clarke’s visions of machines dominating man in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Thus far, however, relatively little has

ViewpointsJune 5, 2023

[Jean Pisani-Ferry] Europe‘s Climate Quandary

As Europe sets its sights on becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral continent, it must perform a delicate balancing act. Can the European Union transform its economy while enhancing its competitiveness? And can it achieve these goals while maintaining its status as a shaper of global standards and adhering to its principles of fiscal responsibility? The answer to these questions is a resounding no. Trade-offs are unavoidable, and identifying the concessions required to strike the ri

ViewpointsJune 5, 2023

[Robert J. Fouser] Japan remains stuck in 2019

A few weeks ago, I visited Japan for the first time in four years. I expected to find many changes but was surprised to find things almost the same as they were in 2019. Compared to South Korea and the US, where some pandemic era innovations have become the norm, Japan feels the most like 2019. As I traveled, I began to wonder why and came up with several possible answers. Compared to South Korea and the US, Japanese society changes more slowly. Japanese organizations are wary of sudden change a

ViewpointsJune 2, 2023

[Michael O'Donnell] Novels to help remember pandemic

The pandemic is officially over. By federal declaration, the public health emergency expired on May 11. Yet COVID-19′s devastating effects are going nowhere. I recently attended a wedding where only one of the bride’s parents was there to see her take her vows because the coronavirus had claimed the other. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.1 million Americans and nearly 7 million people globally have died as a result of the disease. Nevertheless, three years after the wo

ViewpointsJune 1, 2023

[Wang Son-taek] How to respond to the satellite launch of North Korea

The security situation on the Korean Peninsula has fallen into a foggy hole again as North Korea attempted the launch of a military reconnaissance satellite. Though the launch failed, it does not change the assessment that North Korea seriously violated the UN Security Council’s resolutions which ban the North from using ballistic missile technology. As North Korea's satellite launch has consistently deteriorated security anxiety, dragging down the security situation on the Korean Pen

ViewpointsJune 1, 2023

[Andreas Kluth] Kremlin offers Trump-Putin ticket

The bizarre and unsavory strongman bromance between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump continues. If you’re a Make America Great Again Republican and not having second thoughts by now, something’s wrong with you. The latest head-scratcher and jaw-dropper is a new list of sanctions slapped on American individuals by the Russian president. That’s already weird. Aren’t we in the West the ones imposing sanctions on him for waging a genocidal war of conquest against Ukraine? But

ViewpointsMay 31, 2023

[Kim Seong-kon] Koreans’ sense and sensibility of colors

Linguists say that the Korean people have an extraordinarily keen sense of colors. For example, Koreans do not simply say something is red, blue, or yellow, or reddish, bluish or yellowish. In fact, the Korean language has numerous, rich adjectives depicting the subtle nuance of different colors. Among others, "bulgu-jukjuk hada," "pureut-pureut hada" and "nori-kiri hada" come to mind, all of which are hard to translate into English, but delicately describe complex

ViewpointsMay 31, 2023

[Parmy Olson] Don't believe your eyes in AI era

A fake photo of an explosion near the Pentagon went viral across Twitter on Monday, and stocks dipped. The incident confirmed what many have said for months: Misinformation is on course to be supercharged as new AI tools for concocting photos get easier to use. Fixing this problem with technology will be an endless game of whack-a-mole. It’s certainly worth trying to track image provenance, as Adobe is doing with its Content Authenticity Initiative. But as the saying goes, a lie can trav

ViewpointsMay 30, 2023

[Kim Seong-kon] Belonging nowhere and everywhere

Recently, I came across an article in Axios with the headline, “Asian Americans least likely to feel they belong in U.S., study finds.” Quoting from a survey jointly conducted by the Asian American Foundation, the article reported, “Only 22% of Asian Americans said they feel they belong and are accepted in the U.S.” CNN, too, recently reported that many second-generation Korean immigrants to the US are moving to South Korea because “they always felt like outcasts, a

ViewpointsMay 26, 2023