• East Asia

    PM nominee withdraws

    ‘I don’t want to be burden to President-elect’ Kim Yong-joon, President-elect Park Geun-hye’s nominee for prime minister, withdrew his nomination Tuesday amid persisting suspicion over his property deals and other potential ethical lapses. In a statement read to the press by the transition team’s spokesman Yoon Chang-jung, Kim wrote, “I…

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  • East Asia

    NK leader empowers ‘cell secretaries’

    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un emphasized the importance of lower-level secretaries of the ruling Worker’s Party in a rare meeting of such officials this week, Pyongyang’s state media said Tuesday, as the young ruler attempts to gain “grassroots” support. The North a day earlier convened the meeting of the secretaries…

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  • East Asia

    Kang Sue-jin offers life lessons

    Kang Sue-jin is more than a prima ballerina. Uniquely for an artist, the Korean public has embraced her as a national hero and many young women in their 20s perceive her as a role model. The longtime principal of Germany’s Stuttgart Ballet arrived in Seoul on Jan. 19 to promote…

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  • East Asia

    Vanity conquers all

    Many Korean women have red hot love affairs with designer label handbags. Regardless of their income levels, they crave high-end luxury bags in order to satisfy their obsessive vanity and make a social statement. Sensitive about how they appear to others, they want to decorate themselves with expensive accessories. The…

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  • East Asia

    Bailout feared to cause moral hazard

    Private lenders use Park’s debt plan as marketing tool Saving debt-crushed families is good for the economy, says incoming President Park Geun-hye. But critics are sounding the alarm on her plans for intervention, arguing that using taxpayer’s money to rescue the more needy borrowers will cause the nation to fall…

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  • East Asia

    Female Giant Panda “Yaya” Climbs A Tree In Foping County, Northwest China

    Three-year-old female Giant Panda “Yaya” climbs a tree in the Qinling Giant Panda Field Training Base in Foping County, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, Jan. 28, 2013. “Yaya” was brought here a month ago to get trained in food seeking and climbing in the wilderness. <Xinhua/Ding Haitao>

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  • East Asia

    U.S. Envoy For NK Shakes Hands With His Japanese Counterpart In Tokyo

    U.S. envoy for North Korea Glyn Davies, left, poses with his Japanese counterpart Shinsuke Sugiyama prior to their talks at Sugiyama’s office in Tokyo on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Davies was in Tokyo on a four-day visit. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened top security and foreign affairs officials…

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  • East Asia

    Japanese Lawmakers In Kimono Attend Opening Ceremony Of Ordinary Diet Session

    Japanese lawmakers clad in kimono participate in the opening ceremony of the ordinary diet session at the upper house of parliament in Tokyo Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. About 80 lawmakers who belong to a non-partisan parliamentary group to promote the Japanese traditional attire customary attend the first diet session in…

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  • East Asia

    President Lee Myung-bak Talks With Aung San Suu Kyi At The Blue House In Seoul

    Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, center, is greeted by Myanmarese who lives in South Korea upon her arrival at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, west of Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Suu Kyi arrived in South Korea for her five-days trip to attend the opening ceremony…

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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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