[Soyen Park] Why Korea’s next administration should prioritize Korea-India ties

As the Hollywood-esque impeachment showdown of South Korea’s first-ever president ousted by impeachment is now behind us, all eyes are on the next presidential election to be held May 9. With the election only weeks away, political circles are in a flurry over finalizing candidates, devising campaign strategy and setting out key policy pledges. It is largely expected that the next president will come from the Democratic Party of Korea, yet the experiences of Brexit and the US election in 2016 ar

April 10, 2017

[Chicago Tribune] To be a child in Syria: Gas attacks and a world that tolerates them

To be a child in war-ravaged Syria is to know fear and suffering, death and destruction. But there is a difference, especially for children, between knowing terrible things and comprehending them.Imagine the panic and confusion early Tuesday after the bombs dropped in northern Syria as children began struggling to breathe. There was something poisonous in the air, causing asphyxiation and foaming at the mouth: a gas attack!Whole families were struck down in their homes and on the streets. Some c

April 10, 2017

[Bloomberg] Russia investigation must also probe surveillance leaks

Representative Devin Nunes’ decision to recuse himself from leading the congressional investigation into Russian meddling in the US presidential election is as surprising as it is welcome. His erratic behavior, much of which appeared intended to protect President Donald Trump and his top aides from scrutiny, had compromised the integrity of the probe before it even got off the ground.　That said, the investigation should continue to look into an issue that many of Nunes’s critics have derided as

April 10, 2017

[Andrew Sheng] Tweets, TED, change through technology

Technology is so pervasive these days that we either have techno-optimism -- that everything can be solved through technology -- or technophobia -- that technology will get rid of all our jobs and create populism and protectionism. 　Trump’s tweets have changed our perception of how leaders engage with their supporters. His tweets simplify very complex issues, but strike an emotional chord. You either think its fake news or you trust the guy more. Right or wrong, they change the game.　TED is a se

April 9, 2017

[Martin Schram] Syria’s horror exposes Putin's blame, global shame

Images of the human horror in Syria filled the world’s news screens this week: Infants, children, teens, adults, some strong, some weak, all helpless and hopeless. Mouths gasping for air and oozing foam, eyes staring but not seeing. The dying lay alongside the already dead.　All were innocent victims of deadly chemical weapons that Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his despotic client, Syrian President Bashar Assad, had assured the world no longer existed.　Now the world has seen with its own eyes why,

April 9, 2017

[Other view] Making the Syria Strikes Count

In the span of just a few days, US President Donald Trump appears to have met both his first true foreign policy crisis and his most challenging bilateral summit more smoothly than many had feared he might. Whether this turns out to be anything more than a symbolic victory, and whether it has an effect in the fight against terrorism and the effort to rein in North Korea, will depend on what he and his administration do next.Trump was clearly justified in Thursday’s decision to order cruise missi

April 9, 2017

[Los Angeles Times] The war on journalism

In Donald Trump’s America, the mere act of reporting news unflattering to the president is held up as evidence of bias. Journalists are slandered as “enemies of the people.”　Facts that contradict Trump’s version of reality are dismissed as “fake news.” Reporters and their news organizations are “pathetic,” “very dishonest,” “failing,” and even, in one memorable turn of phrase, “a pile of garbage.”Trump is, of course, not the first American president to whine about the news media or try to influe

April 9, 2017

[David Ignatius] Trump should stop Russian shell game

When Gen. Michael Hayden visited a secret intelligence facility in the United States a decade ago while he was CIA director, the staff gave him a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Admit Nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter Accusations.”　That motto is much-beloved by covert operators. It also seems to be President Trump’s rubric for responding to the FBI investigation of whether any members of his campaign team cooperated with Russian hackers. Maybe it’s becoming our national slogan.　There are

April 7, 2017

[Trudy Rubin] Amid graves of WWI, stark reminders of nationalism’s peril

Children now scamper through the remaining trenches on Hill 62 in Flanders fields, where Brits endured a World War I hell of mud and shelling.　Lowland water still oozes through the thick clay of the soil within and beyond the trenches, and conjures scenes of men charging over the top and braving German fire, only to sink to their deaths in the ooze.　Today’s politics in America and Europe require us to think again about those battles.　April 6 marks the 100th anniversary of the entry of US troops

April 6, 2017

[Chicago Tribune] Russians who dare to challenge Putin

The other day a man fell out of a fourth-floor Moscow apartment and suffered serious head injuries. The real surprise is not that Nikolai Gorokhov had an accident but that he survived. People who dare to challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin often don’t. Gorokhov’s fall came just a day before he was to appear in court on behalf of the family of Sergei Magnitsky -- who died in a Russian prison cell where he languished after, yes, daring to challenge Putin.Two days after Gorokhov’s hard landi

April 6, 2017

[Tyler Cowen] China’s success explains authoritarianism’s allure　

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel is famous for asking interviewees to describe a view they hold that other smart people they know do not agree with. A variant is to ask which views one might earnestly believe in spite of not having much hard evidence for them. And there I have a nomination: I believe that much of Western politics is becoming more authoritarian and less liberal because of the greater presence of autocracies on the world stage, most of all because of the success of China.　I

April 6, 2017

[Other view] Trump just gave your internet privacy away

If we’ve learned anything from reports of Russians hacking political campaigns and Silicon Valley corporations, it’s that online privacy can’t be taken for granted. But President Donald Trump apparently wants to strip Americans of our last shred of secrecy.　Trump signed legislation Monday that would make it easier for internet service providers to sell unwitting customers’ personal data to the highest bidder. Just about anything typed into a web browser will be fair game, from your financial inf

April 6, 2017

[Adam Minter] How China can become a true climate leader

One of the world’s largest reserves of low-grade, dirty coal is located roughly 400 kilometers west of Karachi, Pakistan in the Thar Desert. Discovered in the 1990s, it remained largely untapped until last year, when Chinese financing underwrote a $3.5 billion project to exploit it. The investment is part of a larger Chinese energy plan for Pakistan that includes seven new coal plants. By 2020, if everything goes as planned, Pakistan will derive 24 percent of its power from coal, up from 0.1 per

April 5, 2017

[Mark Davis] Ban on texting while driving not the solution

Those of us who have long argued against specific bans on texting while driving have hinged our logic on various concepts, mostly the nightmare of enforcement.　Can an officer tell if someone is texting or just glancing at GPS or even checking the time? Should a ban extend to those behaviors as well? And these questions arise before anyone makes a point about the state seeking to micromanage additional layers of driver behavior.　These are all worthy parts of the conversation, but they are now pla

April 5, 2017