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East Asia
GGGI to bridge global green divide
Korea wants to make real contributions to the welfare of the world and is adopting green growth as its theme. Songdo has just been selected to host the secretariat of the United Nations-operated Green Climate Fund (GCF), often compared with the World Bank in the area of sustainable development. Now,…
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East Asia
President’s son to be summoned
An independent counsel plans to summon President Lee Myung-bak’s son for questioning this week over alleged irregularities involving an abandoned plan to build a retirement home for the president. Lee Si-hyung is under suspicion for his involvement in a shady deal last year to purchase land in Naegok-dong, southern Seoul.…
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Seoul to boost claim in E. China Sea
The government plans to submit official documents calling for a U.N. body to recognize the continental shelf in the East China Sea near the southernmost island of Marado as its territory. According to a foreign ministry official, Seoul will claim in the official documents to be submitted to the U.N.…
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President-elect to set new records
The president-elect will set new records, regardless of whether it is the Saenuri Party’s Park Geun-hye, the Democratic United Party’s (DUP) Moon Jae-in or independent Ahn Cheol-soo. If Park wins in the December poll, she will be the nation’s first female president. America has still to elect a female president…
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East Asia
‘Spicy kimchi kept me warm in winter’
Peace Corps volunteers recount their discovery of Korea in late 1960s The first group of American Peace Corps volunteers to come to Korea in the mid-1960s had their own way of keeping warm during the icy winter weather, despite the poor heating systems. Some wore several layers of clothes, while…
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East Asia
Bid to send anti-NK leaflets blocked
The government blocked activists from sending anti-regime pamphlets into North Korea, Monday, in a bid to avoid a military clash over the activity. Dozens of activists including North Korean defectors had planned to send 200,000 pamphlets across the border in giant balloons from the Imjingak Park near Paju. But soldiers…
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‘Unification costs will depend on NK wages’
South Koreans just can’t decide whether they want their country to unify with the North or not. One moment they get starry eyed imagining a bigger country with more political and economic clout but the next they worry about the enormous price tag attached to the combined country and social…
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NLL as political football
Any further brawl is dirty old electioneering Analysts here have long worried the 18th presidential election would be a proxy war of ghosts: two deceased former leaders. Unfortunately, the premonition seems to be proving right, as ex-Presidents Park Chung-hee and Roh Moo-hyun are coming back in big ways. For nearly…
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East Asia
Diplomatic procession as world heritage
The initiatives to make the Joseon Diplomatic Procession a UNSECO World Cultural Heritage are about to begin in Korea and Japan. Korea has nine world cultural heritage sites and one natural heritage site, and Japan has twelve cultural and four natural heritage sites recognized by the internationally renowned organization as…
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East Asia
Little justice in N. Korea
One of the questions a Korean-speaking visitor to North Korea is likely to encounter in a private conversation with a local is “What happened to the Party and security functionaries of East Germany after reunification?” This question shows one of the most important, and perhaps the defining feature, of the…
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