One wedding and a funeral It has been a relaxing few days for English-language foreign correspondents here in Seoul: two massive news fests have been keeping their editors far too busy to consider running any stories from a distant Asian peninsula, thank you very much.
Royal wedding: tying US-UK knot On Friday, the royal wedding of Prince William of England and Kate Middleton took place. Hundreds of million of viewers around the world had their eyes glued to television units transmitting the momentous event.
Can you keep a secret? Foreigners who have spent considerable time in uri nara may be well acquainted with the saying there are no secrets in Korea; indeed, in densely populated, socially (and digitally) integrated Korea, this expression contains more than a kerne..
Fight against fake medicines Earlier this month, a British man was jailed in the U.K. for eight years for his role in supplying more than 2 million doses of fake medicines to treat schizophrenia, heart disease and prostate cancer.
China and East Asia The biannual national defense white paper of China, which was released by the Beijing government on March 31, states three major goals for the Chinese military in the coming years.
Synergistic Korea-Brazil partnership Today, Brazil and South Korea are facing a unique window of opportunity where challenges concerning both countries offer mutual synergistic momentum to each other.
Tyranny of the thin Some time ago a deliveryman arrived at my home. My wife answered the door and the deliveryman handed over the package. Transaction complete, the charming fellow casually informed my wife she was fat and departed.
Textbook issue and trilateral cooperation South Korea has continued to offer help to victims of a strong earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan on March 11. Amid the ongoing provision of humanitarian aid, the Japanese government authorized new school textbooks renewing its territoria..
Implications of Japans nuclear crisis for Korea A preliminary risk calculation released by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan on April 11 prompted the Tokyo government to raise the alert level from current 5 to 7, an equivalent of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.
On my birthday I am always reminded of my mothers labor pains on my birthday. In spite of the day I was born, I always remember the fact she went through awful hardships with an extremely painful labor. The person with the most vivid experience and memory of th..
End of radical Islam After decades of disappointing leadership, false prophets and lies, finally history is taking its right course in the Middle East. The voices that have been hijacked by autocratic thugs for decades have spoken, not against America or the democratic..
Conspiracy theory of Cheonan sinking March 26 marked the one-year anniversary of the Cheonan incident, where 46 South Korean sailors were killed by a torpedo attack from North Korea. The scars from the sorrow of the families of the victims, mourning their sons and brothers, will remai..
China buying up the board in Zimbabwe UNITED NATIONS The Peoples Republic of China has gone on a buying spree on the resource-rich but economically underdeveloped African continent. And central to the plan has been massive investments into raw materials as well as political influe..
For better health care services To mark World Health Day on April 7 not as an annual ritual, we should do some soul searching with serious introspection that is seriousness about health in a holistic sense.
Korea has friends, too There are tsunamis and there are tsunamis. Having seen the terrible effect of a real one, I experienced, last week, its conversational equivalent.
Endgame in Ivory Coast The general offensive has begun, said Seydou Ouattara, the military spokesman of the man who claims to be Ivory Coasts legitimate president, Alassane Ouattara, on March 28.
Should Korea rethink atomic energy pursuit? A recent revelation that South Koreas nuclear reactors broke down 89 times over the past 10 years due to malfunctions warrants a reflection over the countrys ambitious pursuit for nuclear energy.
