In every way, Yu Woo-seong was a model defector. In his early 30s, he was smart, friendly, ambitious, and well liked. Trained as a doctor in North Korea, he eschewed the competitive South Korean medical school system and instead pursued a bachelor’s degree in business...
It was famously described as the “end of history.” The collapse of Communism and the victory of liberalism near the end of the 20th century seemed to suggest that the great ideological conflicts of the previous eras had come to an end. A new and powerful consensus...
Supporters of the impending U.S. strike on Syria claim that it is necessary to punish the Assad regime for using chemical weapons on its citizens and to prevent it from further employing them. The situation, says Washington, calls for “humanitarian intervention.” ...
More than two years after an earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on a Japanese power plant, the Fukushima nuclear disaster is one of the most serious threats to public health in the Asia-Pacific, and the worst case of nuclear contamination the world has ever seen....
Would you believe me if I told you that your tax dollars are lining the pockets of some of the highest-paid CEOs? The Institute for Policy Studies recently released a report examining the performance of the corporate chief executives who have ranked among America’s 25...
By the time you read this, we may already be at war. Syrian forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad now stand accused of deploying chemical weapons against Syrian civilians in a Damascus suburb. Though they have long clamored for U.S. intervention in the conflict,...
This August, two prominent American liberal arts institutions opened educational outposts in decidedly non-liberal countries. The first is NYU Shanghai, the third addition to NYU’s self-proclaimed “Global Network University,” which also includes the main campus in New...
After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic and heroic 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech against the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, he received a barrage of criticism from editorial boards, donors, and even other civil rights leaders. Ralph Bunche (who in 1950 became the...
Egypt: A Peaceful State Rule by a Junta “We have this thing about us, that the Egyptian Army is untouchable,” [a woman named] Israa said. “So many want Egypt ruled with an iron grip,” she said. [But] “This is not us. … It’s not Egypt at all. We are not happy with...
This commentary was originally published by TomDispatch in 2009. In light of the draconian Bradley Manning verdict, we are republishing it now. However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform...