Asia

As 2005 wound down, the Six Party Talks appear stalled with the talks likely to resume no earlier than midJanuary. North Korean officials spent December deriding the new U.S. Ambassador…

After a record year in 2004 that saw foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to Korea increase by 97.7 percent, 2005 saw a step back with a drop of nearly 10…

Red is a strong color. It is a color of passion, energy, power, and confidence. According to some studies, it can actually produce physical results, such as increasing the rate…

The world is about to experience a demographic revolution. Throughout history, the elderly population (people aged 65 and over) never amounted to more than 2−3% in any country. Today, in…

From 1966 to 1981, around 2,000 Peace Corps volunteers lived and worked in South Korea. After returning to the United States, many volunteers wanted a way to share their Korean…

October 2015 will mark 25 years since the official reunification of East and West Germany. Meanwhile, the Korean Peninsula remains divided. South Korean President Park Geun-Hye has referenced Germany many…

The Eugene Bell Foundation has been working in the DPRK for 20 years. Now they focus on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), a deadly disease that is incredibly expensive and time-consuming to…

In the recent agreement between Seoul and Pyeongyang to defuse tensions along the DMZ, the two governments included a promise to "vitalize" non-governmental organization (NGO) exchanges in various fields.   …

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a very short list of countries on his list of available international travel destinations these days. He made a wise choice to travel to Pyongyang, where he could be feted as a fellow dictator and share relief from sanctions-imposed isolation. However, Putin’s decision to sign a comprehensive mutual defense pact…

MSCI, a New York-based international ratings provider, is soon to release its annual Market Classification Review. The findings will determine what next steps Korea needs to focus on to move from the index of emerging markets to that of a developed one. Once the latter occurs, it would allow Korea to be listed alongside other…

During the week from May 28 to June 2, North Korea released over 1,000 large balloons across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) into South Korea. The balloons carried payloads of manure, cigarette butts, used batteries, cloth and plastic fragments, and lots of scrap paper (including used toilet paper). One report said that even dirty diapers were…

Questions of whether the K-pop market has peaked are hardly new. Concerns about market oversaturation have been raised since the inception of the third generation in 2012 when the number of groups that debuted annually more than tripled. New bands from industry powerhouses are not making the expected impact in sales, and there has been…