Last week, a National Public Radio reporter interviewed a woman whose sister’s family -- as well as her home -- had been destroyed by the recent wildfires in northern California.It’s a devastating story, hard to listen to: The Shepherds lived in Redwood Valley, deep in the forest. They had built their dream home and hoped to raise their children in a natural setting, away from the city. When the fire swept through with almost no warning, they tried to escape on a long, unimproved road but were o

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has put a kink in President Moon Jae-in’s plan to form a labor-government partnership by boycotting his first meeting with labor leaders at Cheong Wa Dae. Moon’s authority was undermined as well.The Moon administration has pushed labor-friendly policies, including ones to push businesses into hiring outsourced workers as regular workers, raise the minimum wage, shorten working hours and repeal guidelines on what constitutes fair dismissal and the changing

Last week, US-backed forces in Syria expelled the Islamic State extremist group from its self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, a major victory after three years of fighting against the “caliphate” that once terrified much of the West. But there was strikingly little celebration. President Trump made no formal announcement of success. There was no banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.”That was partly because the struggle against IS is no longer the main event. The Trump administration has already d

As expected, power structure is emerging as one of the hottest topics in the discussions to revise the Constitution. Also obvious is that there are notable changes in the public and experts’ views of what would be the best one for the nation. Since the republic was founded in 1948, Koreans have long been accustomed to the presidential system. Public opinion polls used to find that a majority of Koreans favored the presidential system. The tendency to preserve the presidential system had been mai