[Editorial] Recycled prime minister

All the fuss over the two prime ministerial nominees, who withdrew their names after their credentials were called into question, ended up with President Park Geun-hye retaining the incumbent Prime Minister Chung Hong-won.Chung offered to resign on April 27 to hold himself responsible for the government’s botched handling of a ferry disaster that took place 10 days earlier. At the time, Park accepted his resignation but asked him to remain in the job until she found his successor. Her two failed

June 27, 2014

[Editorial] Leadership convention

“Change the Saenuri Party!” That’s the slogan the ruling party has chosen for the July 14 national convention, where it is to elect its new leadership. Yet the candidates are rendering the catchphrase hollow by relying on old-fashioned tactics.What is at stake at the convention is the ruling party’s future. The party was given a yellow card in the June 4 local elections. Many supporters withdrew their backing for it due to the government’s abysmal response to the Sewol ferry disaster. But the pa

June 26, 2014

[Editorial] Ugly practices

The corrupt business practices of Lotte Homeshopping Co. that have been brought to light through a recent prosecutorial investigation are simply shocking. Lotte officials, from the president down to merchandisers, have squeezed money out of suppliers, abusing their superior bargaining position.Prosecutors indicted 10 Lotte officials on charges of taking kickbacks and embezzling company money. They also charged 14 vendors and suppliers with paying bribes to the Lotte officials and helping them ra

June 26, 2014

[Editorial] Lessons from fiasco

Moon Chang-keuk’s withdrawal of his name as the nominee for prime minister put an end to the two-week-long controversy over him, but it has left questions to be answered and things to be discussed. Moon’s withdrawal has forced President Park Geun-hye to search for her third nominee in less than a month. This means the two-month administrative vacuum created by Chung Hong-won’s announcement of his resignation in the wake of the Sewol ferry disaster will not be filled for weeks. The debacle over t

June 25, 2014

[Editorial] Dealing in credit grades

It has long been suspected. Still, it is shocking to learn that all the three major local credit ratings agencies manipulated the credit worthiness of corporations and their debt. The agencies either gave higher grades than their actual assessment or delayed downgrades for companies in return for securing business contracts with them. More specifically, in some extremely foul cases, agencies approached firms saying that they would give favorable credit ratings if they were given contracts to eva

June 25, 2014

[Editorial] Budget efficiency

Concerns are growing that the increase in Korea’s national debt will hamper long-term fiscal soundness. With demand for fiscal spending rising to finance expanded welfare programs amid the rapid aging of the population, there is bound to be a limit to raising tax revenue when economic growth is slowing.In the aftermath of the deadly ferry sinking on April 16 that claimed more than 300 lives, state budget planners are also struggling to find ways to put aside money to enhance safety systems acros

June 24, 2014

[Editorial] Responsibility for Kopinos

A recent ruling by a local court that confirmed a Korean man was the father of two half Filipino children may have vexing implications for other Korean men with a similar story. The court found that he was the biological father of the children, whom he had with a Filipino woman in the Philippines and severed contact with after returning home a decade ago. One can expect that many Kopinos ― children of mixed Korean and Philippine parentage ― will follow suit in the years to come.The ruling was th

June 24, 2014

[Editorial] Shooting rampage

Five soldiers were killed and seven others wounded in a shooting spree that took place at a front-line Army unit in Goseong, a town on the east coast, on Saturday evening.The perpetrator was an Army sergeant surnamed Lim, who had only three months left before the end of his military service. The motive for the shootings is yet to be known. A Defense Ministry official said Lim opened fire on his comrades after doing his six-hour sentry duty at a general outpost near the inter-Korean border. Befor

June 23, 2014

[Editorial] Unwarranted struggle

Defying the recent court verdict revoking its legal status, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union has declared an “all-out struggle” against the government. Yet its resistance is unwarranted and will only do grave harm to students.On Thursday, the 53,000-strong progressive teachers’ organization was deprived of its status as a union. The Seoul Administrative Court upheld the government’s decision last October to outlaw it, which was prompted by the union’s acceptance of fired teachers

June 23, 2014

[Editorial] Cowardly hypocrite

Resorting to its wrong-headed historical revisionism once again, the Japanese government went ahead with the announcement last Friday of a report on a 1993 statement that acknowledged and apologized for its forced sexual enslavement of women by the Japanese military during World War II.Japanese officials said the review of the so-called Kono statement found that the Tokyo government fine-tuned some key wording of the statement, which admitted that the imperial army forced Korean women into sex s

June 22, 2014

[Editorial] More than pandas

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Seoul next week, his first trip to South Korea since he formally took office in March last year. Technically, he is returning President Park Geun-hye’s state visit to Beijing last June. Xi’s visit carries significant bearing not only on the bilateral relations between Seoul and Beijing but also on the dynamics in the region. The Chinese leader is coming to Seoul at a time when Northeast Asia is entangled in a web of diplomatic challenges, from North Ko

June 22, 2014

[Editorial] Another Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court is pushing to create a new court of third instance to alleviate the heavy workload of its justices and help them focus on cases of great public importance. The top court’s move is based on a recommendation of the Judicial Policy Advisory Commission. In a reform proposal, the panel said that the court of last resort should focus on important cases that involve conflicts of law or have considerable impact on people’s everyday lives. For this, it proposed that a new court of third

June 20, 2014

[Editorial] Lawmaker under probe

Corruption allegations against Rep. Park Sang-eun of the ruling Saenuri Party are snowballing. The two-term lawmaker representing an Incheon constituency is one of the politicians suspected of having received bribes from coastal shipping companies, including Chonghaejin Marine Co., the operator of the capsized Sewol ferry. The legislator got himself into hot water on June 11 when he reported to police that his briefcase containing 20 million won had been stolen.The next day, however, his driver-

June 20, 2014

[Editorial] Futile efforts

It is no news that Korea is a fast-aging society and has one of the world’s lowest birthrates. The government has spent 53 trillion won over the past eight years to raise the birthrate. It has brought about little results, however, as seen in recent international statistics. The World Factbook published by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency said Korea’s total fertility rate, the average number of babies born to a woman over her lifetime, is estimated to be 1.25 this year, 219th out of 224 coun

June 19, 2014

[Editorial] Crisis in Iraq

The armed insurgency in Iraq is showing signs of developing into a major regional and international crisis as the fighting between government forces and Sunni Islamic militants is escalating. The United States and neighboring countries like Iran and Syria are stepping into the conflict between government forces and the insurgents, which also unnerves such neighboring countries as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. As things stand, the crisis, which began as what seemed to be a religious war between Iraqi

June 19, 2014

[Editorial] Ties with Central Asia

Coincidentally or not, President Park Geun-hye has shown a pattern of going on overseas trips when sensitive issues or situations arise at home. She embarked on a six-day trip to Central Asia on Monday, a day before a motion calling for the parliamentary confirmation of her prime ministerial nominee was to be sent to the National Assembly.Last month, Park left Seoul for an overnight visit to the United Arab Emirates shortly after announcing measures to cope with the aftermath of a deadly ferry s

June 18, 2014

[Editorial] Elderly crime

It may be normal for the number of elderly crimes to increase in an aging society. Korea is no exception to this phenomenon, with the proportion of aged people in its population rising at the fastest pace in the world.What differentiates Korea from other societies is that it has seen a sharp increase in felonies by the elderly. Over the past decade, the number of robbery and rape cases committed by senior citizens has grown fourfold, government figures show. Arson and murder have also increased

June 18, 2014

[Editorial] Mortgage reform

The debate over housing market regulations has been rekindled as Finance Minister nominee Choi Kyoung-hwan is suggesting the need to ease them as part of efforts to reenergize the sputtering economy.Upon his nomination on Friday, Choi said he would push for short-term stimulus measures to bolster the weakening pace of economic recovery and ensure that ordinary citizens could benefit from economic growth.The nominee, a confidant of President Park Geun-hye, spoke of boosting the housing market and

June 17, 2014

[Editorial] Endangered ties

Korea is bracing for the worst in its ties with Japan as the Tokyo government is set to disclose the results of its controversial scrutiny of the background of the Kono Statement, one of Japan’s key apologies for its wartime atrocities. In the statement, the Japanese government acknowledged for the first time that the Japanese Army was involved in forcing women from Korea and elsewhere into sexual slavery for its soldiers during World War II.The statement, issued in 1993 by then-Chief Cabinet Se

June 17, 2014