[Kim Seong-kon] Without children, we have no future

Recently, in a school zone in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, a bus hit and killed a second grader who was crossing the street with the “Walk” signal. The bus driver did not come to a full stop while making a right turn at the red light. The little boy’s father witnessed the tragic scene while waiting for his young son from the other side of the street. This kind of traffic accident is rare in advanced countries. In the US, for example, in states where turning on red lights is al

June 14, 2023

[Ottoline Spearman] Eradicate sexist nationality laws

Neha is a young Nepali woman, born in Nepal to a Nepali mother. She grew up there and had dreams of becoming a doctor. But, despite being an extremely bright student and at the top of her class, Neha could not take the entrance exam for medical school. Her ambition went unfulfilled, because she was not recognized as a citizen of Nepal. Nepal is one of the 24 countries that deny women the right to pass their nationality to their children. It is also one of almost 50 states where women do not enjo

June 14, 2023

Growing bilateral cooperation highlighted on Sweden Day

The Swedish Embassy highlighted the growing bilateral cooperation between the European country with Korea as it celebrated Sweden Day 2023 on Friday. Sweden Day, a national holiday, is observed on June 6. This year marks a double jubilee celebration for Sweden. It commemorates 500 years of independence since the election of King Gustav Vasa in 1523 and the 50th year on the throne for Carl XVI Gustaf, Sweden’s current and longest-reigning monarch. Delivering remarks at the event, Swedish Am

June 13, 2023

[Trudy Rubin] NATO must make Putin pay for war crimes

When Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya addressed a special Security Council session on Tuesday about the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, he confronted his Russian counterpart as “the representative of Putin’s terrorist regime ... that has detonated a bomb of mass environmental destruction.” That says it all. Who can doubt that it was Moscow that unleashed the largest man-made disaster in Europe since the 1986 nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl? But Chernobyl -- an

June 13, 2023

[Harry Litman] What Trump‘s indictment means

In one sense, it was breathtaking: The first ever indictment of a former president by the Department of Justice he once oversaw -- and therefore the most important federal charges in US history. In another, it was expected. Once Donald Trump had received a formal target letter from the department, his fate was effectively sealed. But that was only the latest in a series of recent signs that charges were inevitable. The months and years of questions about whether the Biden administration should

June 13, 2023

[Richard Maude] All Talk, No Dialogue on Asian Security

The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest security conference, has wrapped up its 2023 meeting in Singapore. The context for this year’s summit was not propitious: Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine grinds on, while Chinese President Xi Jinping continues his uncompromising approach to global affairs. If one thing was obvious during the two days of defense diplomacy, it is that the Sino-American competition is far from being ma

June 12, 2023

[Adam Minter] PGA-LIV merger only the beginning

Human rights and golf were rarely mentioned in the same breath until the launch last year of LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed tour organized to challenge the PGA. Fans, sponsors, players and PGA executives claimed to be appalled at the involvement of a country connected to 9/11 and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, among other long-standing human rights concerns. Predictably, then, the news on Tuesday that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have agreed to a merger largely backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereig

June 12, 2023

[Serendipity] Dancers show we are one in humanity

Whether as innocent as a young child moving to her favorite Disney tune or as highly choreographed and tightly executed as the moves of a K-pop band, dancing is an elemental expression of the self and a universal form of communication. At the Busan International Dance Festival, which took place from June 2-4 in the southern port city, 40 dance teams from around the world communicated pure joy, whimsical caprice, despair and hope, human struggles and victory. Watching the dancers perform on an ou

June 9, 2023

[J. Bradford DeLong] Can US escape its 2nd gilded age?

Some of us are more optimistic than others about the future. We optimists recognize that it is still possible to escape from the traps that America’s Second Gilded Age has laid. During a gilded age, productive capabilities are directed away from providing most people with necessities and conveniences, and toward exorbitant spending on status-seeking and other worthless activities. Inherited wealth typically plays a major role, and it is often deployed to block and delay any transformation

June 8, 2023

[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

June 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

June 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

June 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

June 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

June 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

June 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

June 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

June 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

June 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

May 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

May 31, 2023