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East Asia
Restoring Seoul City Wall
Over the past several years, the city government of Seoul has taken a new interest in the Seoul City Wall that surrounded the old city. Built in 1396 four years after the selection of Seoul as the capital of the Joseon Dynasty, the wall is one of Seoul’s grandest historic…
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East Asia
Open letter to Park’s advisers
As soon as Park Geun-hye won the 2012 presidential election, she became like the main character in “The Marriage of Figaro” (“The Day of Madness”). She was getting so much advice from so many people that she didn’t know which way to turn. Some of the advice in open letters…
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Is China enough?
BUENOS AIRES ― For many countries in Latin America, demand from China has been essential to maintaining high GDP growth rates over the last decade. But will Chinese demand for commodities be enough to sustain high prices for the region’s exports in the coming years? During the last two decades,…
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West Asia
Trip to Bulgar following the footsteps of Ahmad bin Fadhlan who first taught Islam in the land
In front of the White Mosque in the village of Bulgar on the River Volga, Tatar girls dressed in sky-blue clothes were waiting for us, making traditional eurhythmic movements. Historical clothes, vast expanse, severe cold and different faces returned me more than a thousand years back, as if they were…
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East Asia
When Dreams Come True: Reflections on ‘Social Economy’ in Korea
*Author, Won-soon Park is a prominent civil rights lawyer, civic activist and social innovator. He became Mayor of Seoul in October 2011. First there was triumph of market economies after the fall of the Soviet Union. Then came successive global financial crises that debunked that triumphalism. Now, a new concept…
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East Asia
Small firms need to overcome Peter Pan Syndrome
Small Korean firms are trapped in what resembles the Peter Pan Syndrome or Dwarf Syndrome, where adults do not want or feel unprepared to grow up. In the Korean economy, this tendency can be seen among small- and medium-sized firms that fear to become large companies. Since the 1980s, the…
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The new old year
NEW YORK ― Any look back at 2012 would necessarily focus on three parts of the world: the eurozone, with its seemingly endless financial uncertainties; the Middle East, with its many upheavals, including, but hardly limited to, the Muslim Brotherhood’s accession to power in Egypt and Syria’s savage civil war,…
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Master plan for Lumbini Peace City appears to complete in six months
KATHMANDU – The new master plan of the Lumbini Peace City is likely to complete in six months. According to Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), 80 percent works of the master plan has been completed. Korean professor Kwak Young Hoon, 72, is drafting the new master plan to build a lotus-shape…
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East Asia
Are extraterrestrials here?
We sometimes encounter people who behave extraordinarily. When we do, we refer to them as “sachawon” which means four-dimensional. My daughter, now turning 19, is one of these and is often scolded by my wife for her frequent unexpected behavior. Once she disappeared in the middle of eating breakfast leaving…
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East Asia
How to lure more foreign visitors
In front of the main office of the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) in Seoul stands a small stele that is engraved with words by late President Park Chung-hee, the father of President-elect Park Geun-hye. It reads “For the Promotion of Tourism,” and the date shows the commemorative stone slab was…
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