[ed] Limiting pardon power To be fair, President Lee Myung-bak would not be the first chief executive to grant 11th-hour pardons for political and personal reasons. His three predecessors more or less did as such. Nor is he violating any laws or rules by exercising the presi..
[ed] Thorough verification Serious doubts have arisen against Prime Minister nominee Kim Yong-joon due to real estate speculation and draft irregularities involving him and his family.
[ED] Park Geun-hye's choice Pyongyang is intensifying verbal attacks on Seoul and Washington in the aftermath of the U.N. Security Council resolution against its rocket launch. North Koreas state media reported Sunday that Kim Jong-un has expressed firm resolve to take ``su..
[ed] Respect your children One year after Seoul City introduced an ordinance for students rights, the Magna Carta for teenagers stands at a crossroads. A new, conservative education chief is vowing to water down its key provisions, and equally conservative Supreme Court ca..
[ed] Prime minister naming A safe choice but one that leaves something to be desired.
[ed] Good lesson A Seoul court Tuesday handed a two-year jail term to Lee Sang-deuk, President Lee Myung-baks elder brother, for receiving illegal political funds from two savings bank and Kolon Group. Lee, a former six-term lawmaker, was also ordered to pay 750 ..
[ed] Tackling low growth Five years ago, Lee Myung-bak was elected president thanks partly to his tantalizing 747 plan of achieving 7 percent economic growth and $40,000 in per capita GDP and making Korea the worlds seventh largest economy.
[ed] Stirring up speculation Difficult economic times force ordinary people to rely on chance. Economists note that the deeper a recession becomes, the more prosperous the gambling industry.
[ed] Looming nuclear test The prospects for inter-Korean relations are becoming darker because North Korea vowed Wednesday to end efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and hinted at conducting another nuclear test.
[ed] Don't touch textbooks The Lee Myung-bak administration began its tenure with a controversial revision of school textbooks five years ago. Now, it is attempting to finish its term by establishing the governments right to do so in law. Will Koreans again elect an admini..
[ed] Smaller Cheong Wa Dae President-elect Park Geun-hyes vision for her new presidential office structure, unveiled Monday, can be summed up as slimmed down and simplified. This direction is reflected well in the fact that the title of the bureaucratic unit at Cheong Wa D..
[ed] Oppressors of labor For most employers, labor unions are troublesome. For some, they are even far worse than a mere annoyance and become an archenemy. One employer with this experience is the retail giant Shinsegae Group.
[ed] A bargain is a bargain ``Election promises are empty promises. Such is the widely accepted view among Koreans, politicians and even voters alike. But how long should this would-be advanced country share this self-deprecating joke?
[ed] Kickbacks for doctors The government is stepping up its crackdown on the long-standing practice of offering and receiving kickbacks in the medical community. Yet it remains to be seen whether the illegal practice will be uprooted this time, given that it is endemic and ..
[ed] Currency war The Bank of Japan will open a two-day Policy Board meeting Monday to finalize measures for further credit easing and raise its inflation target to 2 percent.
[ed] Dying alone Last week, the skeleton of a man was found in the southeastern port city of Busan about six years after he apparently committed suicide. The man, identified only as Kim, was 49 when he hung himself at a rented house in 2006. Kim, an unmarried manua..
[ed] Shoddy in every way President Lee Myung-baks signature project of remaking the nations four largest rivers has proved to be a near total failure. Whats shocking is not the diagnosis itself but the fact that it was made by the top state auditor, not an environment..
