On Monday, eight days after 49 people were gunned down in an Orlando nightclub by a terrorist claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group, the U.S. Senate voted down four different gun control proposals, two from each party.Democrats saw the Republican proposals as too weak. Republicans saw the Democratic proposals as too tough.So nothing happened. There was no agreement on a way to keep people who are on the country’s terrorist watch list from buying guns capable of slaughtering dozens in m

Viewpoints June 23, 2016

The main opposition The Minjoo Party of Korea is pushing to divert funds from the state-run National Pension Service to build low-cost rental apartments for young people and child care centers to boost the nation’s low birth rate.The party launched Monday a large-scale special committee to promote the scheme, showing its determination to tap into the 520 trillion won pension fund ($446 billion) to finance its welfare projects.The committee consists of 13 lawmakers and 10 experts invited from out

Editorial June 22, 2016

The government has scrapped its plan to build a new international airport in the southeastern region, choosing instead to expand the existing airport in Busan.The decision, which is exactly the same as the one made five years ago, was reached Monday based on a feasibility study carried out by ADPi, a French airport architecture and engineering company. ADPi was expected to choose one of the two candidate sites for the new airport — Miryang, a town located between Busan and Daegu, and Gadeokdo Is

Editorial June 22, 2016

There’s no sense sugarcoating it: Philadelphia is one of the fattest big cities in the fattest country in the developed world. To its credit, it has been trying to shed the pounds -- back in 2001, its then-mayor enlisted the city’s basketball team in challenging residents to lose 76 tons in 76 days -- but very little has worked. That’s why Philadelphia’s decision to tax sugary drinks is so promising.　About one-third of Americans adults are obese, and obesity is a primary cause of diabetes, heart

Viewpoints June 22, 2016

The Korean guerrillas who operated along the east and west coasts under the U.N. Command during the Korean War had previously been anti-communists in the North Korean regime. With the intervention of the Chinese forces, to reclaim their homeland in North Korea, they evacuated to islands near Pyongan and Hwanghae provinces and continued their armed resistance with the support from the U.S. Army. The anti-communist guerrilla resistance in the Korean War began in the early stages of North Korea’s i

Viewpoints June 22, 2016

Last week’s decision by MSCI not to include Chinese shares in its primary emerging-markets stock index has been viewed — widely and rightly — as a blow to China’s hopes of internationalizing its financial sector. There’s worse news, though: Even the progress China has made thus far is in danger of going into reverse. MSCI’s choice is a sharp contrast to the one made by the International Monetary Fund last December, when it promised to begin including the Chinese yuan in its basket of “special dr

Viewpoints June 22, 2016

The news that the unions of South Korea’s three major shipbuilders are moving to strike against restructuring plans is truly distressing. Workers at Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries proclaimed last week a labor dispute with management -- the first legal step for collective action. They said workers will cast ballots soon whether to authorize a strike or not. The union of the third shipbuilder -- Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering -- had already voted for walkout, wit

Editorial June 21, 2016

As expected, investigations into incumbent prosecutors over the Jung Woon-ho bribery scandal is going nowhere. This raises a fundamental question -- whether it is legitimate to leave the investigation in the hands of the state prosecution. Prosecutors indicted a key figure in the case – former vice minister-level prosecutor Hong Man-pyo -- on Monday on charges of accepting kickbacks from Jung and evading taxes. The indictment accused Hong, already in custody, of receiving 300 million won ($251,0

Editorial June 21, 2016

It was simply great to have spent the last two weeks in Korea, my wife Jakyung and I splitting our time between her native Seoul and the beauty of the PyeongChang region. In the many years that I have been coming to Seoul, primarily for work, I have always found the combination of industriousness and warmth of the Korean people to be infectious. Yet I had a profound sense of happiness to return to New York City at the end of this trip, for the reason that many New Yorkers would have laughed at s

Viewpoints June 21, 2016

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which carry the Zika virus, are kind of like dogs. OK, the analogy isn’t perfect. Dogs don’t fly, and they don’t suck blood, and they don’t lay eggs. But like our canine pals, Aedes aegypti started out wild and got domesticated.With dogs, it took thousands of years. With these mosquitoes, the time frame has been much shorter. We humans happily joined in the process that changed wolves into dogs. With Aedes aegypti, we’ve been not-so-innocent and increasingly unhappy bys

Viewpoints June 21, 2016

Even before our two-party system coughed up the most disliked presidential nominees in modern polling history, Canada had firmly established itself as America’s favorite backup plan. Air Canada is already goofing on our quadrennial -- “How do I move to Canada?” Google searches with a new ad campaign called “Test Drive Canada,” in which Americans are encouraged to “Make it a long weekend! Take a look around. Try your hand with the metric system.” As the Quebecois might say, “ouaf ouaf.”But would-

Viewpoints June 21, 2016