• Smaller Cheong Wa Dae

    What matters most is to select ‘good people’ President-elect Park Geun-hye’s vision for her new presidential office structure, unveiled Monday, can be summed up as slimmed down and simplified. This direction is reflected well in the fact that the title of the bureaucratic unit at Cheong Wa Dae will be…

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  • World

    The end of pasta?

    PRAGUE ― Scare stories have been an integral part of the global warming narrative for a long time. Back in 1997, Al Gore told us that global warming was making the El Nino winds stronger and more severe. That has not happened. Greenpeace and many others have told us for…

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  • East Asia

    ‘Obama to follow Park on NK’

    U.S. President Barack Obama will follow the lead of incoming President Park Geun-hye in handling North Korea, a U.S. expert said, amid concerns over possible provocations by the Kim Jong-un regime. Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Pyongyang put Washington in a “deep…

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  • East Asia

    NK leader orders foreign-language signs

    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s education abroad may be starting to show. During a recent inspection of a hospital, Kim called for signs to be written in other languages, Pyongyang’ s state media reported. While visiting the Taesongsan General Hospital, currently under construction, Kim noted a sign written with Korean…

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  • East Asia

    Imperfect multiculturalism

    This is the eighth in a series of letters by experts to President-elect Park Geun-hye. – ED. Dear Madam President-elect, I am from the Philippines and have been living here for four years as wife and mother in a multicultural family. We at the Korean Institute for Healthy Family’s Danuri…

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  • East Asia

    SNU professor to become dean at Ethiopian university

    Lee Moo-ha, professor at Seoul National University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is to become the dean of the School of Agriculture at Adama Science and Technology University in Ethiopia. The 65-year-old professor, who will leave for Ethiopia on Jan. 29, will serve as a professor to the university…

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  • East Asia

    Don’t be duped by tricky statistics

    We live in the information age; the Internet overflows with a limitless stream of data and statistics. Everyday newspapers and online media outlets spit out news stories based on statistics produced by various institutions. But it’s hard to know whether the data is true or false. They say: “Numbers don’t…

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  • East Asia

    Original paintings of Korean cartoons on exhibit

    Korean cartoons, better known as “manhwa,” began with the influence of the Western world but they have later grown with a unique style that emphasizes such Korean traditional aesthetic elements as margins and lines. The Korean cartoon industry is now enjoying a golden age with the surge in popularity of…

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  • East Asia

    Chinese company eyeing Korean hotel

    A Chinese company has submitted a letter of intent to the Incheon Development & Tourism Corp. (IDTC) to acquire the Harbor Park Hotel in the port city, IDTC officials said Tuesday. If successful, it would mean the first Chinese ownership of a large-size Korean hotel, they said. “The Chinese firm…

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  • People

    Ban Ki-moon Speaks In New Year’s Press Conference At UN Headquarters In New York

    UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks at his first press conference this year at the UN headquarters in New York, the United States, Jan. 22, 2013. Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for an innovative action to deal with the numerous challenges facing the world and to meet shared goals such as…

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