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Seoul, Washington break off defense cost talks in 90 minutes The mounting pressure from Washington to "excessively" increase Korea's share of costs for the maintenance of U.S. troops in South Korea is triggering concerns among Koreans that the U.S. is not showing due respect to its allies. Such concerns were greatly magnified by a recent meeting between U.S. Ambassador Harry H..

Samsung should offer new model for industrial peace Samsung Electronics' "no-union" policy has been broken after 50 years. Workers at Samsung Electronics, the flagship company of Korea's leading conglomerate Samsung Group, launched a union Saturday under the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), one of Korea's major labor umbrella groups. Three unions were established at S..

Excessive US demand will damage partnership South Korea is under growing pressure from Washington to pay more to keep the 28,500-strong United States Forces Korea (USFK). A flurry of recent visits by high-ranking U.S. officials is raising concerns that the security alliance between the countries may fall apart due to Washington's blatantly excessive demand for Seoul to cover t..

Stronger ties impossible without mutual respect South Korea's senior security officials and diplomats, including Foreign Minister Kang Kyungwha, are reportedly preparing to visit Washington next week before and after the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, expires at midnight Nov. 22. Their visits are to..

Conglomerates should no longer engage in unfair practices Owner families of large business groups or chaebol that adopted a holding company system are still in charge of an aggregate 170 subsidiaries outside the system. This raises concerns about the continuous headlong expansion of chaebol into diverse business fields which puts small and medium enterprises at risk. According..

Japan should not distort facts about sexual slaves Japan has again gone too far in distorting historical facts about its mobilization of Korean women as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II. This time the country is arguing against defining such women as "sex slaves," a move apparently aimed at denying the country's crimes against humanity. According..

Seoul should consider withdrawing from defense cost talks Senior U.S. officials and diplomats have arrived in South Korea amid growing challenges to the alliance. They are Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell; Deputy Assistant Secretary for Korea and Japan Marc Knapper; James DeHart, the top negotiator in defense cost-sharing negotiations with South Korea; and Keith Kra..

Banning celebrity pictures on liquor bottles is overdue but welcome Will entertainers' photos disappear from soju bottles? People are asking this question after the Ministry of Health and Welfare began a move to ban local distilleries from promoting their alcoholic products through the use of celebrity pictures on their bottles and cans. Both cigarettes and alcohol harm human ..

Social consensus needed to cope with demographic issue The government has unveiled its second policy package to cushion the impact of the expected fall in the country's population in the coming decades. The measures worked out by an interagency taskforce call for reducing the number of Korea's standing armed forces from the current 580,000 to 500,000 by 2022, and cutting down ..

Urgent need to stamp out unacceptable comments, cyber bullying Kakao announced last week that its comments sections on entertainment news on KakaoTalk and Daum will be disabled temporarily. Kakao, the operator of the major portal Daum, will also discontinue a service to provide keywords related to specific persons by the end of the year. The real-time "hot keywords" function s..