South Korean officials have recently realized that the United States is likely to try to forbid them from enriching uranium and expanding their country’s missile range, rather than leave these issues on the diplomatic back burner. Indeed, recent discreet talks, in which the U.S. has disregarded South Korean efforts to supplement the controversial U.S.-South Korea Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which expires in March 2014, suggest that there are reasons to be deeply worried about the alliance’s f

As we enter the fourth quarter of 2012, two influential commentators have questioned whether Germany should exit the eurozone. Earlier this month, George Soros argued that Germany must either lead or leave the eurozone. This week, Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf also considered the question and argued that Germany will have to pay a high price for her mercantilist policies. The fact that German Chancellor Merkel has come out openly to overrule the Bundesbank president on commitments to the

On Dec. 19, Korean voters will choose one from among the three major candidates ― Park Geun-hye, Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo (by the traditional media order). There can be an eventual two-way competition supposing either Moon or Ahn making a last-minute exit, and the field looks extremely hazy at this moment with nearly even possibilities of Park-Moon, Park-Ahn and Park-Moon-Ahn ballots. The campaign headquarters of the three are releasing many known and unknown names mostly from academia as s

Each year at this time, leaders gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to assess the state of the world. This year, I used the occasion to sound the alarm about our direction as a human family.We are living through a period of profound turmoil, transition and transformation. Insecurity, inequality and intolerance are spreading. Governments are wasting vast and precious funds on deadly weapons while reducing investments in people. Too many people in power seem willfully blind to the th

Don’t deny it: This presidential race, for all its minor dust-ups, has mostly been a snore, a bloodless standoff between two men who, despite their differences, are both essentially uptight squares whose wives are forever trumpeting how poor they used to be. Thank goodness, then, for the blast of fresh air that is Jesse “the Body” Ventura.Well, maybe it’s not that fresh. Ventura isn’t a new face on the political stage. In 1990, the Navy SEAL-turned professional wrestler ran for governor of Minne

A silent film that has lost none of its haunting significance in today’s climate of global economic anxiety and uncertainty, Charlie Chaplin’s classic “Modern Times” captures the nightmare vision par excellence of the middle class ― social demotion. Released in 1936, the film portrays the hapless character Charlie ― or, the Tramp, Chaplin’s alter ego ― comically and, at times, heroically, struggling to carve out an existence during the Great Depression in America. “Modern Times” came out at a ti

Few Seoulites are aware that the city hosts an inter-governmental “international organization.” The International Vaccine Institute under the United Nations Development Programme, situated near Seoul National University since May 1997, is the first and the only international organization headquartered in Korea. Now, it is time for a second one ― the Global Green Growth Institute.Since its founding in June 2010 by the strong initiative of Korea, the GGGI has been a non-profit think tank located i