Dispute over torture
Seoul, Beijing should seek cool-headed solution The gruesome details of torture suffered by Korean activist Kim Young-hwan in China are shocking and infuriating. Any country that can put a foreigner through such unjustifiable physical and mental ordeals must be nothing more than a third-rate dictatorship. What astonishes and disappoints people all the more is that […]
Middle East after Assad
BERLIN ― What will the Middle East look like once the Syrian civil war brings about the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, whose clan has ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 40 years? Given the recent dramatic turn of events that has pushed the battle for Syria to a new stage, […]
Hoping to taste a Jeju beer before long
Jeju-do, the nation’s southernmost island province, is now embroiled in a controversy over having its own brand of beer. If Jeju has a beer brand that can make people, residents and visitors alike, easily associate with the subtropical island, this will surely help increase its tourism income, the main source of the province’s revenue. The […]
Leadership secrets
At a recent seminar with senior journalists in Seoul, a leading presidential contender of the Saenuri Party, Rep. Park Geun-hye, was asked to characterize the May 16 military coup d’etat of 1961, through which her late father took power. In her response, she defended the coup as “inevitable and the best possible choice,’’ and further […]
Women in North Korea
In most post-socialist nations, the collapse of the state socialist system had a rather ambiguous impact on the social and economic position of women. Clearly the advent of the market economy brought with it some advantages, especially in those countries where its introduction brought an economic boom. Women often have far more choice, freed from […]
New signs in N. Korea
It’s official now: North Korea is changing, or at least is trying to change. That is, if the report by the National Intelligence Service submitted to the National Assembly Thursday is any guide. The spy agency’s intelligence capability has often been in doubt, but we hope the NIS is right this time around. The latest […]
Korea at crossroads: back to Confucianism or further Westernization
Korean culture has typically been characterized as a unique hybrid of traditional Confucian values coupled with a modern, pragmatic and dynamic approach to the economy. Since the mid-1990s this balance has been shifting more clearly toward Westernization: workers’ productivity is slowly shifting to Western levels, car worker strikes are not uncommon and savings rates have […]
Concerns about blackouts
Key lies in saving power, reasonable price system The whole nation seems to have fallen ill from the midsummer heat. But officials at Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) say a temperature rise of one degree sends a terrible chill down their spines. An unexpected blackout last September forced some KEPCO officials to leave the company […]
Outright rights violation
China should get to bottom of torture argument China’s human rights violation is stealing a renewed focus as Kim Young-hwan, a South Korean activist, revealed Wednesday that he had been physically abused while being detained in China for nearly four months. Kim said in a press conference in Seoul that he was harshly treated after […]
Missing element in China’s charm offensive
China strives to project a profile on the global stage as a responsible state because some western observers remain wary of “an assertive China” after its rapid rise to become a global economic power house. Chiefly through its state-controlled media, the Chinese government launched a campaign to highlight its peaceful rise and attractive culture by […]
Media in Tie-up with The AsiaN 
Trump, Kim, and the Three P’s of Summit Diplomacy: 
