Every year, New York becomes the epicenter of diplomacy as world leaders pour in to speak at the UN General Assembly. Few of the addresses made the news, but those by the leaders of the US, Iran and Israel struck a defiant tone amid war in the Middle East. President Lee Jae Myung’s speech was one of the most notable by a South Korean leader in years. Hoping to ease tensions with North Korea, Lee outlined a three-step plan toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The first step is a freez

At the request of West Germany, the South Korean government under the administration of President Park Chung-hee officially dispatched 251 female nurses to the European nation. Germany was experiencing a severe shortage of workers amid its rapid post-war economic growth. This pivotal labor migration not only provided crucial support for the European healthcare system but also opened up foreign employment opportunities for South Koreans during a challenging economic era at home, creating lasting

Controversy over “The Assassin(s),” a film about the 1974 shooting death of Yuk Young-soo, wife of then-President Park Chung-hee, has spilled into the political arena. At issue is not artistic license itself, but whether cinematic invention can justify distorting established historical facts. The film depicts the Aug. 15, 1974, shooting and advances a plot hypothesis that people close to Park or the Korean Central Intelligence Agency may have been involved. The filmmakers insist they did not exp

A message came from Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. The sender was a patient who had visited my clinic, Lee Moon Won Oriental Medicine Clinic, in Seoul months earlier for a consultation on hair loss treatment, received a prescription and returned home. The message was short: "I'd like to continue. Is that possible?" I sat with that message for a long time. This person was not asking about Seoul. They were asking for me — not a place, but a relationship. In that moment, what I do was redefined

There is an old maxim in foreign policy that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” The principle suggests that partisan competition should not be allowed to undermine the national interest in dealing with the outside world. However, that principle is increasingly difficult to uphold. Complex diplomatic maneuvers and sensitive military procedures are too often drawn into partisan disputes. Security issues should be debated vigorously in a democracy. But when they are judged primarily by their use

A tax windfall can be dangerous precisely when it looks permanent. South Korea is enjoying one of those moments. Fueled by a semiconductor upswing and stronger equity markets, national tax revenue this year is expected to exceed the original budget estimate by more than 75 trillion won ($55.3 billion), reaching more than 465 trillion won. That bonanza could swell next year’s Future Response Fund from its planned 162.3 trillion won to more than 200 trillion won. With the national budget set at 82

The office of Colorado's attorney general is a perch 10 stories above downtown Denver. From his aerie, Phil Weiser has a sweeping view of the city skyline, the gold-domed Capitol and, occasionally, a red hawk on the wing. But looking toward November, Weiser sees something darker. Federal agents swarming polling places. Voters intimidated or blocked from casting their ballots. A tyrannical president using his powers, real and imagined, to undermine or try to overturn the Nov. 3 election. "With th

Recently, I came across a voluminous Korean book titled "The Spy Who Went Out to the Cold" by Korean journalist Lee Dong-wook. The title sounded like a parody of the famous 1963 Cold War spy novel "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" by John le Carre. In fact, the book is a biography of Lieutenant General Kim Chang-ryong, who served as the head of the Korean Counterintelligence Corps under the Syngman Rhee government. According to the biography, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, Kim served

South Korea’s military and the UN Command investigated the site of a suspected land mine explosion in the western part of the Demilitarized Zone on Sunday, six days after the incident happened. The military initially said it would investigate the site on Tuesday, after the Chuseok holiday, citing the risk of a secondary explosion during the investigation. Amid growing controversy over the delay and concerns of evidence being destroyed, however, it moved up the investigation by two days. The mili

On Sept. 12, leaders of the most powerful artificial intelligence firms in the United States asked the government to regulate them and slow down AI development. What AI risks are driving their fears, and why are they only asking for these radical steps now? The simplest answer is that AI capabilities are outrunning our ability to understand and control them, and the problem of aligning AI with human values remains unsolved. There is no better example of this than the July OpenAI–Hugging Face inc

The tension began in January, when the judicial council that screens candidates put forward four names to serve on the Supreme Court. By custom, the chief justice and the Blue House are supposed to consult and settle on a final nominee. But the two offices remained deadlocked for months; in March, the retiring justice left the bench with no successor. On Aug. 18, Chief Justice Jo Hee-de broke with custom and nominated one of the stalled candidates in writing; 10 days later, the Blue House refuse