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Guest Columns

The right to be alone and the right to not to be abandoned

Korea has become remarkably good at making daily life convenient. Food delivery arrives within minutes. Parcels arrive almost before we order. Banking, hospital appointments, shopping and government documents can all be handled on a phone. This convenience is one achievement of Korean urban life, yet in one of the world’s most digitally connected societies, a person can pass through an entire day without speaking to anyone. That is why Seoul’s effort to treat loneliness as a public issue deserves attention. Loneliness should not be dismissed as a personal weakness, a family failure or a private matter that individuals must solve alone. In today’s Korea, it has become part of the social condition itself. In 2024, South Korea had 8.045 million single-person households, accounting for 36.1 percent of all households. Living alone is no longer unusual. It has become one of the country’s most common ways of life. There are many reasons for this change: late marriage, not marrying at all, divorce, aging, migration for work or study, high housing costs and changing ideas about family and

3h agoBy Shin Go-eun
The right to be alone and the right to not to be abandoned
Guest Columns

The key forces now shaping markets and geopolitics

NEW YORK — It’s a fascinating moment for international politics and global markets. The world is in turmoil, primarily because the United States, still the dominant superpower, has become a fundamentally unreliable actor. President Donald Trump is actively pulling apart the international order that the U.S. built and led over the past 80 years. Yet financial markets are riding high, not just in the U.S. but also in East Asia, South America, and much of Europe. Are investors wrong, or is the picture more complex than this seeming contradiction suggests? Though the situation is indeed complicated, three major factors will shape global politics and markets for the next several years. First, there are virtually no political constraints on the accelerating development of artificial intelligence (AI), which is the driving force behind the market rally and, for better and for worse, is set to continue virtually unchecked. The most important technological revolution in history — one that will create both extraordinary opportunities and unprecedented dangers—has arrived during a “geo

5h agoBy Ian Bremmer
The key forces now shaping markets and geopolitics
Guest Columns

Korea, Australia strengthen green partnership amid global supply chain disruptions

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and his Australian counterpart Penny Wong recently released a joint statement on energy security. In the midst of the global oil crisis caused by the Middle East conflict, the two sides reaffirmed their mutual commitments to securing fuel supplies. Australia is the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier to Korea. Korea is one of Australia’s largest suppliers of refined petroleum products, and the largest supplier of diesel. While the focus was on guaranteeing fossil fuel supplies, the two countries have quietly been driving a green revolution that will be pivotal to their economic resilience in the decades to come. The meeting of the two leaders came ahead of the Australian government’s May announcement stipulating producers of LNG on Australia’s east coast will have to set aside 20 percent of their gas exports for domestic users from July 2027 onwards. Importantly, the policy excludes existing export contracts entered into before the government’s previous announcement in December 2025. The exemption should allay concerns from Korean LNG buyers l

6h agoBy Kim Sung-young
Korea, Australia strengthen green partnership amid global supply chain disruptions
Guest Columns

Korea’s drug prevention efforts deserve greater recognition

As we approach June 26, the United Nations’ International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, Korea is once again reassessing the nation’s drug problem. Almost daily, news headlines highlight how a rising number of drug offenses, new synthetic drugs, prescription drug misuse and organized trafficking networks pose serious threats to public health and safety. In addition to stoking public anxiety, this constant stream of alarming headlines reinforces the impression that little is being done to address the problem. While it is undeniable that Korea can no longer consider itself a “drug-free country,” the nature of the problem has also changed substantially. Digital communication, anonymous online platforms, cryptocurrency and international trafficking networks have increased the accessibility and distribution of drugs. Prevention efforts must become more adaptive and multifaceted, too. In response to these changes, Korea has expanded its approach beyond legal sanctions to include prevention campaigns, rehabilitation services and cross-agency cooperation, which togeth

1d agoBy Ma Kyung-hee and Kim Ji-woon
Korea’s drug prevention efforts deserve greater recognition
Guest Columns

The rape of Venezuela

CAMBRIDGE — Shortly after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, US President Donald Trump praised the country’s new rulers. Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president who assumed power after his arrest and transfer to the United States, was “doing a great job,” Trump said, adding that “oil is starting to flow, and large amounts of money, unseen for many years, will soon be greatly helping the people of Venezuela.” Judging by Trump’s pronouncements, Venezuela ought to be booming. And by Trump’s favorite metric, it is: oil production has increased, albeit modestly, from 908,000 barrels per day in late 2025 to 1.03 million in April. With the US effectively overseeing the country’s oil revenues, Venezuelan crude—once sold at steep discounts under American sanctions—is now priced much closer to the unusually high international benchmarks, courtesy of the Iran war. In theory, Venezuela should be awash in dollars, but is it? The macroeconomic data tell a radically different story than the triumphalist narrative coming out of Caracas and Washington. Since

1d agoBy Ricardo Hausmann
The rape of Venezuela
Guest Columns

Beyond apologies: Writing adoptees into Korea’s global identity

In recent months, Scandinavian and Korean media alike have been saturated with echoes of the past. In my home country of Denmark, a group of Korean adoptees has sued the Danish state over alleged irregularities in their adoption practices decades ago. Simultaneously, Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is investigating the historical practices of adoption agencies. It is a quest for justice that understandably dominates the national consciousness in Korea today. But amid the legal battles, the talk of reparations and the dark headlines of systemic failure, we risk overlooking a crucial conversation. This is not just about legal clauses or financial compensation. It is about something as fundamental as the right to belong — not as victims of history, but as an active part of Korea's modern, global presence. I am Susan Vinzents Jensen — born Jun Hong Ah — and I am one of the approximately 9,000 Korean adoptees living in Denmark. Globally, we form a massive diaspora of more than 200,000 children sent overseas in the aftermath of the 1950-53 Korean War and during the countr

1d agoBy Susan Vinzents Jensen
Beyond apologies: Writing adoptees into Korea’s global identity
Guest Columns

Pax Silica: AI realigns global power balance

The latest Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi offered an important glimpse into how the Indo-Pacific region is being strategically reimagined. Among the many references to maritime security, economic resilience and trusted technologies, one phrase stood out prominently: “Pax Silica.” The term signals that the Quad is no longer merely a diplomatic consultation mechanism or a loose maritime framework. It is increasingly evolving into a broader strategic and technological architecture centered on semiconductors, supply chains, critical minerals, digital infrastructure, cyber resilience and advanced manufacturing. In many ways, the Quad is quietly transitioning from naval security dialogue into a platform that seeks to shape the future economic and technological order of the Indo-Pacific. This transformation also explains why the Quad remains highly relevant despite skepticism surrounding its purpose and longevity. Critics had long argued that the Quad lacked institutional depth, possessed no treaty obligations and consisted of countries with different strategic priorities

2d agoBy Jagannath Panda
Pax Silica: AI realigns global power balance
Guest Columns

The real choice confronting developing countries

BENGALURU—In a recent commentary, Dani Rodrik, one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of trade and development, explains why he became a “manufacturing skeptic” after decades of seeing industrial production as the key to unlocking economic growth. Since traditional manufacturing cannot absorb the 1.5 billion workers “in occupations that neither require university education nor are exposed to the international economy through trade or offshoring,” services-led growth models must take center stage. Expand the opportunities in retail, hospitality, and food service, and middle-class consumption will drive productivity gains. But largely missing from this analysis is the potential for AI-augmented gains in human productivity. Look around the world and you will find AI already quietly increasing productivity in labor-absorbing services in ways that neither require nor assume university education. This trend is especially apparent in India, which offers a path toward reconciling “manufacturing skepticism” with African and South/Southeast Asian policymakers’ per

2d agoBy Ravi Venkatesan
The real choice confronting developing countries
Guest Columns

More coordinated efforts needed to reduce nuclear weapons

It was no surprise that the recent Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) ended in disarray at the United Nations. The 191 states attending this five-yearly review of a 1968 treaty widely considered one of the world’s most important security agreements failed to make any real progress on its "three pillars" of non-proliferation, disarmament and the peaceful use of nuclear material. The treaty is in growing danger of unravelling. The four weeks of meetings in New York failed to reach consensus, and were instead marked by acrimony and a clear divide, with the five nuclear weapon states in the NPT (Russia, Britain, France, China and the U.S.) on one side and the vast majority of members — the non-nuclear weapon states — on the other. The five nuclear weapon states have promised under Article VI of the NPT to move towards the complete elimination of their arsenals. In return for this promise of disarmament, the non-nuclear weapon states have pledged never to develop nuclear weapons. Sharp disagreement between the U.S. and Iran was the main st

Jun 4, 2026By Marianne Hanson
More coordinated efforts needed to reduce nuclear weapons
Guest Columns

The pope should have gone further on AI

BOSTON — Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how we communicate, access information, and work, how income and status are distributed, and even how we wage war. Yet the public conversation remains narrowly focused on the competition between AI labs or on abstract debates about the technology’s capabilities. Almost no one is asking what purpose AI ought to serve, or whether our current mindset, institutions, and control mechanisms are capable of steering the technology toward broad-based improvements in human welfare. It was therefore refreshing to see Pope Leo XIV weigh in on the issue with his first encyclical, which describes AI’s current trajectory as a profound threat to human dignity. As an economist who has long argued that technologically driven outcomes are matters of choice, not fate, I welcome his intervention. Leo is ahead of most commentators in pointing out that “technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it.” And yet, I worry that even he has not gone far enough on the most consequent

Jun 4, 2026By Daron Acemoglu
The pope should have gone further on AI
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