[Kim Myong-sik] New S. Korean president up for political peace

Yoon Suk-yeol is the 13th president of the Republic of Korea since its founding in 1948. Yet, he is officially called the 20th president as they count the number of four-year constitutional terms, including two short transitional tenures. Syngman Rhee, the first president of the republic, held the office for 12 years in three consecutive terms until he resigned in 1960 following a student uprising. Yoon Po-sun succeeded him as the titular head of state in a parliamentary system, but he was soo

May 19, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] When Yoon meets Biden

Within a few days, US President Joseph Biden is coming to Seoul to have a bilateral meeting with South Korea’s new leader, President Yoon Suk-yeol. It will be a great opportunity for the two presidents to strengthen the ties between the two countries. Indeed, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki announced, “This trip will advance the Biden-Harris administration’s rock-solid commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and to US treaty alliances with the Republic of Korea and Japan.

May 18, 2022

[LZ Granderson] The nation is still hung over from the Tea Party. Don’t let 2022 midterms be a repeat

There’s a Twitter game that routinely starts whenever a new, frightening revelation about the Trump administration becomes public: Clips of Hillary Clinton predicting that specific horror are resurrected. It’s really quite remarkable. From President Donald Trump’s affinity for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to his refusal to accept the election results. (“Every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is is rigged against him,”

May 18, 2022

[Mark Z. Barabak] In Ukraine, using an anti-Trump playbook to go after Putin

Over the last two decades, Mike Madrid has battled Democrats, Republicans, Donald Trump and a pesky family of squirrels that assumed residence in the eave of his Midtown Sacramento home. His latest mission is taking on Vladimir Putin and the substructure of lies and misinformation the Russian leader built to support the invasion and attempted takeover of Ukraine. “This is a war of the digital age, of the information age,” Madrid said via encrypted cellphone, before a meeting in the

May 17, 2022

[J. Bradford DeLong] Good inflation news from the bond market

As of May 6, the bond market expected US consumer price inflation to average 2.5 percent between five and 10 years from now. That is the rate of inflation needed to equalize returns on inflation-indexed and nonindexed US Treasury securities. And given that CPI inflation has been running higher than the rate associated with the implicit price deflator for personal consumption expenditures, I count that 2.5 percent five-year, five-year-forward rate as hitting the US Federal Reserve’s 2 perce

May 16, 2022

[Trudy Rubin] Putin’s Victory Day speech shows how Russia can be defeated -- and how Ukraine can win

When Vladimir Putin stood on a Red Square podium Monday, at the annual celebration of the Soviet victory in World War II over Nazi Germany, he looked weak and defensive. Putin didn’t use his speech to formally declare war on Ukraine. He didn’t call for a mass mobilization, or repeat threats to use nuclear weapons. Nor did he talk of Russian “victories” in Ukraine. In a telling indication of how badly things are going for Putin, the Russian military chief, Gen. Valery Ge

May 13, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] Chart the road to peace through dialogue

"When the Qing army is surrounding the fortress, how come you are trying to kill one another within?” The king scolds in exasperation as his courtiers call for punishing opponents in their argument over whether to make peace with the enemy and save their country and people from demise or fight to the end and die gloriously. At a moment when their fate is hung by a thread, the court is severely divided between pacifists and militants. However, isolated in a snow-covered mountain fort

May 12, 2022

[Martin Schram] A supreme conning of America’s women

Let’s tell the blatant truth right up-front: US Senate Republicans are upset by the leaking of the Supreme Court’s always-secret draft opinion. We all now know that the court’s new conservative majority voted secretly in February in favor of overturning the half-century of precedent-setting rulings that legalized the rights of America’s women to have medically safe abortions. But they weren’t quite ready to tell you how dangerous the court’s still-being-cons

May 11, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Sailing to the tomorrow land

The ship called the Republic of Korea has a new captain in charge who just launched his maiden voyage. While congratulating his inauguration wholeheartedly, we hope that the new captain is a reliable one who can skillfully navigate through dangerous reefs on the rough seas. Indeed, it is quite likely he will sail in uncharted territory during a perfect storm. Of course, he cannot sail the ship alone; he must have a competent crew including the first, second, and third mates, in addition to exper

May 11, 2022

[Peter Singer] Should Europe stop paying for Putin’s war?

Is it right for European countries to continue to pay Russia 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) a day for energy when they know that they are funding Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine? Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that European countries prospering from Russian energy are “earning their money in other people’s blood.” Russia did not need to take peace talks seriously, he suggested, because of the billions it receives for its oil and gas e

May 10, 2022

[Adam B. Schiff] What I learned in Kyiv

I returned Monday from traveling to Ukraine with a congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his top national security team in Kyiv for almost three hours. Zelenskyy is a remarkably impressive wartime leader. His grasp of the military, civilian and humanitarian issues facing his country is extraordinary. Although it was our first meeting, I felt I knew him because of all I’d learned through my role as lead House man

May 9, 2022

[Flynn Coleman] The race to save Ukrainian culture, in the real world and online

In the first few days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Lilia Onyshchenko was hastily directing teams of workers throughout Lviv’s Market Square, which dates to the 16th century. As head of historical preservation in Lviv, she is on a mission to safeguard her city’s invaluable historical treasures from Russia’s unprovoked aggression. Lviv is filled with Byzantine- and Baroque-style churches and architectural marvels from the medieval to the Renaissance periods, and its Old Town is

May 9, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] Benefits of the French presidential election system

Emmanuel Macron’s reelection victory in France’s recent presidential election was welcomed most heartily in EU and NATO countries. Macron’s far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen, has long been critical of the EU and NATO and has threatened to pull France out of both organizations. As the second largest economy in the EU and one of the strongest military powers in NATO, a French withdrawal would have disastrous consequences for both organizations. Macron’s win is also a victo

May 6, 2022

[Safiya Noble,Rashad Robinson] Under Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, who will protect users?

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has triggered widespread criticism. Many people are panicked about the direction Musk will take the social platform. There’s a reason for alarm, but focusing solely on Musk ignores the crisis of monopoly control without accountability that characterizes much of the media in this country. In recent decades, the notion of a public square, or the space available to debate, contest, experiment with and expand democratic discourse, is a struggle fraught with

May 5, 2022

[Kim Myong-sik] Moon Jae-in’s final act of self-protection

President Moon Jae-in said in his final TV interview that he wanted to lead a quiet retired life in his country home, forgotten by people. Related to this wish or not, Moon signed into law two bills that many South Koreans believe are designed to protect himself and his colleagues from being subject to legal judgment for what they did while in power. Moon’s left-wing Democratic Party of Korea with its huge majority strength in the National Assembly has unilaterally completed legislation

May 5, 2022

[Howard Davies] Will Western sanctions change the global financial system?

Faced with the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and recognizing the limited military options open to them, Western governments understandably deployed their economic and financial arsenal. Such sanctions have been imposed on errant countries before, of course, with varying success, but not to anything like the same extent as against Russia now. Notably, the United States and its allies seized much of the Russian central bank’s foreign-exchange reserves, and cut off some Russ

May 4, 2022

[Trudy Rubin] Key to curbing Putin is shutting off his corrupt money and targeting oligarchs, Bill Browder says

As Western leaders struggle to curb Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, there may be no one with keener insight into the Russian leader’s mindset than Bill Browder. Browder was once the largest foreign investor in Russia, as head of the Heritage capital management fund. But the American-born financier was banned from Russia in 2005 after arousing Putin’s wrath with his investigations into Russian government corruption. Browder’s courageous Moscow lawyer, Sergei Magni

May 3, 2022

[Nicholas Goldberg] Is democracy failing? Xi Jinping says it is, and he’s not entirely wrong

US President Joe Biden likes to say that we are locked in a global battle pitting democracy against autocracy. In Seattle last week, he described a phone conversation he’d had with Chinese President Xi Jinping in which Xi argued that democracy doesn’t work anymore. Among other things, Xi said, democracy requires consensus, and mustering a consensus takes too long in a fast-moving world. Biden dismissed the idea that democracy is passe or unworkable. But I’ve begun to wonder

May 3, 2022

[Zach Meyers] Elon Musk’s Twitter test

With Elon Musk set to buy Twitter for $44 billion, commentators are scrambling to understand what the “free speech absolutism” espoused by the world’s richest person will mean for the platform. But the principle could also create headaches for Musk himself. With the European Union and the United Kingdom about to enact laws aimed at making social media safer and more accountable, Musk has seemingly chosen a bad time to roll back content moderation on Twitter. In fact, despite o

May 2, 2022