President Moon Jae-in’s government is seeking ways to circumvent international sanctions against North Korea to reopen an inter-Korean industrial park. The Kaesong industrial complex north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas was shut down in February 2016 after Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test.In a lecture to a group of ruling party lawmakers on Friday, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha raised the need to study whether it would be possible to resolve the matter in a way

Some presidents have really bad years.　For Nixon, it was 1974 -- the Watergate year, which ended with his resignation. For Clinton, it was 1998 -- the Monica year, which culminated with an impeachment trial in the Senate in 1999. He won that vote easily and came out more popular than before.　It’s a good guess that Donald Trump’s really bad year will be 2019. And it’s not yet clear whether he’ll survive, like Clinton, or be forced out of office, like Nixon.　Nixon’s worst year resulted from crimes

If your idea of a good holiday is taking part in the mass killing of fish, brought in from farms to be crammed like sardines into a river -- blocked and sealed solely for this purpose -- awaiting thousands of people to lower their hooks through holes bored by electric drills into an artificially frozen surface, then perhaps you want to look away. If not, you might want to reconsider your plans, just in case you had in mind the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival in Gangwon Province among your poten

Job data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday show the employment policy of the Moon Jae-in administration has backfired.The number of jobs increased 97,000 on-year in 2018, dipping below 100,000 added for the first time since 2009. However, if you take a closer look, the job situation is even more concerning.The number of nonfarming, private-sector jobs decreased 16,000 on-year in 2018. This figure had increased 256,000 in 2017 and 239,000 in 2016 year-over-year. It is the first decrease i

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to China heralds brisk diplomatic maneuvers ahead over how to end the country’s nuclear threat. Most of all, the visit, set to end Thursday, further heightened prospects for a second meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump that is expected to set the course of their stalled denuclearization talks. In many respects, the surprise visit made at the start of the year is seen as a move by North Korea and China to demonstrate their alliance, especially

Over the past 40 years, the US economy has experienced four recessions. Among the four, only the extended downturn of 1979-1982 had a conventional cause. The US Federal Reserve thought that inflation was too high, so it hit the economy on the head with the brick of interest rate hikes. As a result, workers moderated their demands for wage increases and firms cut back on planned price increases.The other three recessions were each caused by derangements in financial markets. After the savings-and

Just over a year ago, a writer named Kristen Roupenian published a short story in the New Yorker called “Cat Person.” It chronicled a brief, mediocre romance. At first, it was hard to say what made the story newsworthy.　Still, just as #MeToo was taking off, “Cat Person” became history’s first viral short story. Something in Roupenian’s tale of Robert and Margot’s relationship -- testy, opportunistic -- felt familiar. And then there was the word mild Robert uses at their breakup, when he finally