[Elizabeth Shackelford] Foster a free press everywhere

Catching up with a friend over Zoom, I wondered recently what might have happened if China had come clean about the presence and origins of COVID-19 before it spread beyond Wuhan. But, my friend asked, wouldn’t the United States have done the same and tried to hide it too? No, I replied. Even if our government had tried, it would have come to light. That’s the beauty of an open society and a free press. Imagine if COVID-19 had first emerged in a country with a free press. Governmen

June 9, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] We owe BTS and Korean enterprises

It seems that our left-wing politicians today tend to think that corporations only exist to exploit their workers. Perhaps that is why they so frequently discourage our enterprises and give them such a hard time. Yet, corporations create jobs, often pay high salaries and instill a good impression of South Korea around the world. They even contribute to our diplomacy by investing in foreign countries. At a recent press conference after the summit between Korea and the United States, US Presiden

June 9, 2021

[Contribution] Toward carbon neutrality in Korea

Korean President Moon Jae-in did make some strong commitments at the P4G Summit, repeating the country’s Net Zero 2050 pledge, an end to financing coal projects internationally, and a significant increase in the green share of Korea’s Official Development Assistance. At the summit, President Moon did not yet commit to a stronger Nationally Determined Contributions’ target for 2030, but he promised it will be announced before COP26 in November. The Global Green Growth Institut

June 8, 2021

[Andrew Sheng] Cities, countries getting to Net Zero Olympics

As rich countries get their vaccination numbers up while poorer countries are still struggling, there is some hope that we are getting to grips with the pandemic. On the climate change front, there have been some remarkable achievements in the last two months. First, US President Biden’s Climate Summit in April got 40 top leaders to commit toward working together on climate change. Even though several countries did not commit to anything new, just getting the US back to the Paris Agreemen

June 8, 2021

[J. Bradford DeLong] Xi Jinping’s historic mistake

Late last month, the American actor John Cena issued a groveling public apology after having referred to Taiwan as a “country” in an interview to promote his latest film. Though he was using the term to refer to a linguistic media market with a discrete distribution channel, not to the status of the island of Taiwan in international law, the Chinese government would make no allowance for such distinctions. What are we to make of this episode? Clearly, globalization has gone terribl

June 7, 2021

[Faye Flam] Virology labs deserve more oversight

Even if we never learn whether COVID-19 escaped from a lab or jumped to humans from animals, the public is entitled to a closer look at what‘s going on in virology labs. Some scientists worry that laboratory scientists are getting too little oversight on projects that could potentially start pandemics. Others worry about the global proliferation of labs that work with dangerous viruses and other pathogens. The journal Nature accused politicians and the press of stirring up a “divis

June 7, 2021

[Serendipity] Get ready to roar back to life

I won a trip to Tahiti. In my dream, that is. I was ecstatic at having won the lottery, but within a few seconds, my heart sank at the fact that I had not been vaccinated. Even in my dream. I don’t know what deeply seated unconscious desire to visit Tahiti may have led to the dream. Tahiti has never been on my bucket list. I suspect the dream had more to do with a pent-up desire to travel. To anywhere, really. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in January 2020, travels around the world cam

June 4, 2021

[Robert J. Fouser] The pull of ‘normalcy’

As the COVID-19 pandemic fades, countries around the world are returning to in-person life. Families are gathering, schools are opening, and city streets are coming back to life. The pandemic is not over, and much suffering remains, but the trajectory is moving toward an end. As the world returns to normal, speculation abounds about the lasting influence of the pandemic on society and institutions. Which changes will remain and which will disappear? In the early days of the pandemic, the 1918-1

June 4, 2021

[Doyle McManus] New look at COVID-19’s origins

Last week, President Joe Biden set an example that all of us -- Democrat and Republican alike -- should embrace. It wasn’t so much what he did -- ordering US intelligence agencies to take a new look at the origins of COVID-19, including whether the coronavirus that causes the disease escaped accidentally from a laboratory in China -- as it was the mindset that prompted his action. For more than a year, debate about the origins of the virus has been deeply political, with former President

June 3, 2021

[Kim Myong-sik] Let Olympics prove mankind's triumph over pandemic

Historically, the Japanese love the Olympics, but they haven’t had the best luck with them. In the 1930s, Japan successfully made a bid to host the Summer Olympics in 1940, four years after Nazi Germany’s Berlin Olympics, but they had to give up the great enterprise because of World War II. In 1964, two decades after the war ended, they finally realized the ambition. Since then, Japan twice played host for Winter Olympics in Sapporo and Nagano. And, no one had thought of a pandemic

June 3, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] Korean women’s discontent with men

These days, young Korean men and women criticize each other and clash over controversial issues such as feminism and women’s mandatory military duty. Korean men argue that if women want to “earn” equal treatment, they should serve in the Army, just as men are obligated to do. Korean women find such a notion unmanly and repulsive. As a result, Korean young men and women find each other “extremely abominating,” as they well put it. Recently, a historian revealed tha

June 2, 2021

[Jean Pisani-Ferry] Is Bidenomics more than catch-up?

“Let us think big,” exhorted US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen in May. “Let’s build something that lasts for generations.” Such is the transformative rhetoric behind President Joe Biden’s economic-policy agenda. But what, exactly, will be built, and how will America be transformed? The answer is bound to be as much political as economic, because Biden has set out to respond to the anger that led many workers to vote for his predecessor, Donald Trump.

June 2, 2021

[Trudy Rubin] ‘Don’t give up on us’

“Don’t abandon us!” That’s the message I’m getting from brave, educated Afghan women -- as the Pentagon advances the date for the final troop withdrawal from Afghanistan to mid-July. There is a last minute Pentagon scramble to plan for evacuating 18,000 translators who worked with the US military, but it’s still unclear whether this will happen. But little thought seems to have been given to the fate of thousands of Afghan women who have been educated and ta

June 1, 2021

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] America, human rights and Israel’s war on Palestine

Israel’s attempt to justify its latest brutal assault on Gaza rings hollow to anybody familiar with events in Israel, where the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by anti-Arab racists, has systematically, cruelly, and persistently violated the basic human rights of the Arab population. Human Rights Watch, a global NGO with many Jewish leaders, has recently condemned Israel for crimes against humanity. Israel’s behavior puts US President Joe Biden’s adminis

June 1, 2021

[Tim Culpan] Dear Japan, the Olympics are a bureaucracy, not a democracy

Everybody loves the Olympic Games. Except when you’re the host nation in the middle of a pandemic. Unfortunately for Japan’s government, it’s not really up to them to decide whether the Games of the 32nd Olympiad get canceled. While Tokyo could theoretically pull the plug right now -- two months from the rescheduled start date -- the city is contractually obliged to go ahead. With COVID-19 cases once again surging, parts of the nation (including Tokyo) under a state of emergen

May 31, 2021

[Chris Hughes] Enough lip service to racial equality

Investors have demanded that company bosses do more than just condemn racism, shaming them into releasing previously unseen data on workforce diversity. It’s a step forward, but it’s too soon to say this spells real progress toward equality. Companies need to lay out what they plan to do with the information -- or face more heat. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, investors dialed up pressure on the corporate sector to act. Among the most high-profile campaigns was N

May 28, 2021

[Lee Kyong-hee] Welcoming the bequest of priceless treasures

The showpieces of art, antiques and artifacts amassed by the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee will fill museum rooms this year. Naturally, the trove donated to public museums will enrich art appreciation and perhaps lift standards. On the other hand, detractors say the motivation behind the historic act of munificence is dubious and the timing is curious. The donation, announced by the Lee family last month, is part of plans to pay its inheritance tax bills. The family owes more than $10

May 27, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] Teaching is not simply a profession

May 15 is Teachers’ Day in Korea. Unfortunately, our inconsiderate politicians have ruined this special day by prohibiting the beautiful custom of students’ giving a red carnation to their teachers as a token of gratitude. It is nothing but a symbolic gesture of expressing students’ appreciation of their teachers’ teaching and guidance. For some inscrutable reason, however, our hopelessly opinionated politicians think of it as a bribe. Last week, the US media reported a

May 26, 2021

[Noah Smith] How to kill the Great American Highway

As President Joe Biden and the Republicans haggle over the definition of infrastructure, some in the latter camp have raised the possibility of using public-private partnerships to pay for new projects. The government would get new roads and bridges funded by private companies, which would then collect a share of the “user fees” charged to people who drive on them. But the proliferation of toll roads is already doing damage to the national freeway system. You can question whether it

May 26, 2021

[Lee In-hyun] Liszt, you are my ‘oppa’

When I was a teenager, I really liked H.O.T, a boyband similar to BTS and the first ever successful K-pop idol group. I bought H.O.T’s products and mug-shot posters to be part of them and forever cheer on their spirit. When they had a concert, I got there early to see them up close because the seats back then were on a first-come, first-served basis. In order to watch the concert, I had to wait in line for many hours outside. However, waiting in line for a long time was not an issue for

May 26, 2021