When Lee Jae-myung entered office, many in South Korea’s business community braced for a sharp left turn. His progressive campaign rhetoric on labor rights and taxation had boardrooms preparing for confrontation. koreapro.org/2025/11/aft...

This is exactly the problem with the critical minerals lists. Copper and coal have market solutions. But their addition here only adds to the costs/use of taxpayer dollars that should be used elsewhere.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I find the Parthenon sculptures at the BM to be wholly underwhelming. Just admit it and return them. The much better room is the Bassai frieze. That entire room is magical.

In my career, literally all of my direct bosses have been women. And I feel comfortable that they would identify as "liberal feminists." I can attest they were fantastic to work for and lovely people.

Aunties and Grannies! And my grandfather. Acupressure (probably originated in India) may be 5,000 years old. Acupuncture (China spreading to Korea and Japan) is almost as old. Reflexology (from the US) is over 100 years old.

I haven't read the paper, yet, so this may be totally off. But this was something I've been anticipating. I've long (anecdotally) hypothesized that expertise/interest on Korea is on the rise, and that would inevitably siphon off expertise/interest from Japan.

Korean grannies been swearing by foot/brain connection for decades. Centuries? Those jagged stone walking paths in parks across the country serve a real purpose.

A sitting US Senator posting an ITYSL meme. You love to see it.

Related: We need more mainstream resistance music right now.

"Most critical minerals are not energy-transition minerals, and most energy-transition minerals are not critical minerals" The Minerals Security concept proposed by Daniel Franks (@Uqueensland) seems more relevant to me. I want to be on the sustainability boat, not in the war one...

If you happen to be in Seoul, cannot recommend highly enough making the day trip to Museum San. One of my favorite museums.

@csis.org @victordcha.bsky.social joins @cnbc.com to discuss how China’s recent policies are reshaping the U.S.–South Korea alliance and regional security. Watch here: www.cnbc.com/video/2025/1...

This gets at diff. approaches from the right/left in Korea. Politicians on right blurt out, "Hey, we need nukes!" Those on left will do work to put the entire system in place. Public opinion on both sides is supportive. It's less mentioned, but this issue has bipartisan public support.

As an avid college football fan, nothing I'd love to see more than LSU in even more chaos. Tommy Tuberville the obvious terrible choice. But he'll no doubt go for George Lombardi because "they named the trophy after him."

Have you seen this? Points to ROK government for understanding the assignment.

I went back and looked at the long thread I did on old Twitter when Takaichi ran in 2021 that looked at her career up until 2012/2013. Posting the screenshots here.

"It is hard for me to accept that there are still some who believe South Korea cannot secure self-reliant national defense and must rely on others for its defense," Lee said.

South Korea pulling out all the stops here as negotiations on $350bn investment--and other issues--drag on.

"“When victors judge the vanquished, it creates an enduring misery of defeat and hardship for future generations." --PM Takaichi

Whoa. Chicago mayor calls for a general strike; now we're talking www.huffpost.com/entry/chicag...

IMO, this takes the US in the wrong direction long-term in trying to stand up secure supply chains. These facilities need to be distributed across allies and partners not concentrated in the US. But US largesse is going to distort the market.

Next season... 7pm - Chicago Med 8pm - Chicago Fire 9pm - Chicago PD 10pm - Chicago Pope

Really interesting results for support for legalizing same-sex marriage in Korea. This kind of polling is done rarely.

www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/rep... ◎ 전반적 직무 평가 수치는 직전 조사(9월 23~25일)와 별반 다르지 않으나, 부정 평가 이유는 적잖이 바뀌었다. 추석 전에는 조희대 대법원장 사퇴 압박과 진실 공방, 내란 재판부 변경 등 여당 주도 사안 언급이, 이번에는 외교, 중국, 부동산 관련 지적이 늘었다.

And just as importantly, keep him out of the opening at Penn State.

US Treasury Secretary Bessent lashes out at a top Chinese trade official Li Chenggang, saying he turned up in Washington recently uninvited and behaved in an ‘unhinged’ fashion typical of Beijing’s so-called wolf warrior diplomats – Bloomberg

Let 1,000 inflatable frog protesters bloom.

Thermostatic public opinion, reacting against the governing regime, like old faithful. globalaffairs.org/research/pub...

rare earths are an exercise in American inability to govern. the problem of Chinese dominance in the sector has been known for over a decade. there was a broad bipartisan consensus that it was a problem in DC, at least among anyone who knew even a little about it, and constant discussion of ...

With new export controls from China on rare earths, feels like a good time to push out my new report from the Chicago Council. The US is already years behind, the Trump admin. is focused on the wrong "stream", and there is no short- or medium-term solution.

Currently reading Achille Mbembe's Brutalism, and I'm not sure anything else comes close to capturing our current moment. Highly recommend.

Coming up in about an hour.

Look, if we find this Mr. Corpus and it turns out he's a bad guy, bad intentions for our country, we'll throw him into Stephen Miller's casket. But maybe not. Maybe he's a good guy. We'll see.

The United States is falling behind China in the race to secure critical minerals and rare earth elements. Can Washington and its allies close the gap? Council Fellow @kfriedhoff.bsky.social presents a path forward ⛏️➡️ brnw.ch/21wWsoS

So this is funny. The administration just issued a rule slashing foreign agricultural worker wages. And to justify it, in a public filing, Trump's Labor Department alleges that Trump's immigration enforcement has devastated the Ag workforce and caused a "risk of supply shock-induced food shortages."

Oh great. Thanks WSJ.

% of US men under 30 who say legal sports betting is a *bad thing* for society 22% in 2022 47% in 2025 No other demographic group has seen a bigger increase.

Recommended reading. Comes from largest conservative paper in ROK. It ends by targeting Lee admin. and its policies, but between the lines it is calling for much broader re-think of relations with US. Elements of this could have come straight from the Hankyoreh.

The unwillingness of political reporters to lean their head out the window to tell if it's raining has never been more damning.

This is pure cope by the ROK prez. The US IC concluded in 2017 (per @nktpnd.bsky.social) that a North Korean nuclear warhead would survive reentry. Every country that figured out how to build an ICBM also figured out reentry. WE SHOULD STOP DARING KIM TO PROVE IT.

The year I was born, 1990, was the year when tens of thousands of girls were aborted for no other reason than being girls. This is the story of the Year of the White Horse.

today i learned that the MP Materials CEO is the brother of the guy who founded Truth Social. do with that information what you will

Majority of Americans Favor Making Decisions Through the UN, Even at the Cost of Compromise. (@ckafura.bsky.social @global-affairs.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250924

As the General Debate opens at #UNGA, Council experts @leslievinjamuri.bsky.social, @busbyj2.bsky.social, @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social, @kfriedhoff.bsky.social, @ckafura.bsky.social and @profpaulpoast.bsky.social weigh in on the UN's power and relevance. ⤵️ globalaffairs.org/commentary-a...

It's also worth noting here that Korea's total trade with the US for one year is $240 billion.

As a child of the late 80s, can't help but reflect on the idea of "Disney programming....falls short of community values" and then remember it was Fox that brought us In Living Color and Married with Childern.

Especially excited for her to start slaughtering sheep on the White House dias to inspect the livers for bad omens.

And a nut that has been found before. www.vox.com/2015/7/24/90...

The US has treated South Korea like a mere foreign policy instrument for decades. Our political class has almost no interest in learning the details of South Korean society - and that’s a bipartisan problem that politicians never face until some international incident forces them to backtrack.