[Editorial] Improper motive

The main opposition Democratic United Party recently rekindled one of the most sensitive issues in Korean society by revealing that it is considering including the merger of all national universities in its presidential election pledges.Rep. Lee Yong-sup, the DUP chief policymaker, said Sunday the merger could be completed by 2017 if his party won the election on Dec. 19.His remark has drawn keen attention from the public and media as the measure would lead to the virtual abolition of Seoul Nati

July 3, 2012

[Editorial] No more tolerance

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling upholding prison sentences for two middle school students who bullied their friend until he killed himself is seen as a judicial message to toughen its stance against school violence.Sentencing them to prison terms, a lower court said it would be “too tolerant to subject them to measures other than criminal punishment for their acts, which are unthinkable between friends.”Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae suggested in May the judiciary would be stern in handling cases

July 3, 2012

[Editorial] Lee’s brother in a fix

Lee Sang-deuk, the elder brother of President Lee Myung-bak, is to be summoned by prosecutors today for questioning in connection with the ongoing savings bank scandal.Investigators have reportedly secured evidence suggesting that the former six-term lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party took hundreds of millions of won in bribes from Lim Seok, the disgraced chairman of Solomon Savings Bank, between 2008 and 2010. Solomon was suspended from operations in May due to capital shortages. The presiden

July 2, 2012

[Editorial] Delaying retirement

As baby boomers have begun to retire en masse, the government is pushing to introduce a new system to help them stay in work longer. Under the proposed scheme, workers aged 50 and older will be given the right to request a shorter workweek, which will involve a corresponding reduction in pay, in order to put off their retirement. Officials of the Ministry of Health and Welfare say the scheme will not only help baby boomers ― people born between 1955 and 1963 ― stay longer at their current jobs b

July 2, 2012

[Editorial] Electoral offenses

Rep. Park Joo-sun, an independent, who had been charged with breaching election law, was sentenced to two years in prison at a district court last week. He will be removed from office unless his sentence is reduced to a fine of less than 1 million won or he cleared on appeal.At the trial, the prosecutor demanded one year in prison. But the bench came up with a harsher ruling, apparently complying with the Supreme Court’s earlier advice against unwarranted leniency for those charged with electora

July 1, 2012

[Editorial] On the homestretch

President Lee Myung-bak’s administration needs to start wrapping up what it has been pursuing, instead of launching a new controversial project. But it appears to have ignored that it now has just eight months left until the end of its term in office, when it attempted in vain to conclude a treaty with Japan.On Friday, the Korean ambassador to Japan was scheduled to sign the General Security of Military Information Agreement with the Japanese foreign minister at a ceremony in Tokyo. To its humil

July 1, 2012

[Editorial] Boosting marine R&D

On June 24, China made a large stride in space exploration by successfully conducting a manual docking between a manned spacecraft and an experimental orbiting lab module. The feat, carried out by three Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, took China one step closer to its dream of building a space station by 2020. On the same day, China made another technological breakthrough under the sea, which carried just as much, if not more, significance than the space docking exercise. It

June 29, 2012

[Editorial] Guarding against theft

It is shocking that the state-of-the-art display technology of Samsung Mobile Display and LG Display has been leaked abroad, probably to some of their foreign rivals. According to prosecutors, circumstantial evidence suggests that circuit diagrams of the two companies’ active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, or Amoled, display technology have been leaked to their rivals in China and Taiwan, including the BOE Technology Group in China, and AU Optronics Corp. in Taiwan.Prosecutors say the susp

June 29, 2012

[Editorial] State & family debt

An opposition lawmaker, announcing his bid for the presidency on Tuesday, pledged to build a “debtless society.” Few would believe his utopian promise was feasible. But many would undoubtedly be tempted to vote for him if he only could freeze the level of national debt at the current level and reduce that of household debt to a manageable one.Controlling debt, both national and household, is one of the greatest issues of concern for the government. Public and private institutions are warning tha

June 28, 2012

[Editorial] Confirmed unfit again

It has been confirmed again that factions of the United Progressive Party rigged the vote for the selection of parliamentary nominees for proportional representation in the 19th National Assembly. But the faction that had the party under its control and managed the vote refuses to accept these findings by the party’s ad hoc investigation committee.The committee, which said in its first report in May that the pre-April 11 election vote by party members had been fraudulently conducted, reaffirmed

June 28, 2012

[Editorial] Missing discourse

With fears mounting over the possibility of Korea’s being engulfed by the global economic downturn, political circles are turning a deaf ear to the warnings.In an apparent bid to win voters’ hearts in the lead-up to the presidential election in December, the rival parties have focused on measures to tighten restraints on big businesses, adhering to their populist pledges to expand welfare benefits. What is more disappointing and worrisome is the lack of substantive economic discourse by presiden

June 27, 2012

[Editorial] Mental disorder

The average Korean will be subject to at least 19 state-administered checks on their mental health throughout his lifetime, under measures recently announced by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.From next year, a Korean will be asked to complete a mental health questionnaire twice before entering elementary school, twice in primary school, once each in middle and high school, three times in their 20s and twice every 10 years thereafter.It is rare in the world for a country to get its entire pop

June 27, 2012

[Editorial] Economic challenges

The government is to unveil its economic management plan for the second half tomorrow. Policymakers must have had difficulty drawing up the plan as they have to meet a raft of short- and long-term challenges facing the economy with a limited set of policy options. In the short term, their primary challenge is to keep the economy on a steady growth path despite worsening economic conditions at home and abroad.Recently, foreign and domestic economic research institutes lowered their growth estimat

June 26, 2012

[Editorial] Strike fever

The Korea Cargo Transport Workers Union went on a nationwide strike Monday, threatening to disrupt the nation’s export and import cargo transportation system. According to reports, the strike disrupted operations at the ports in Busan and Ulsan on the southeastern coast and at the inland container depot in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province.But disruptions were reportedly only minor at other ports and ICDs. The initial damage is limited because many of the union’s 4,000 members as well as most n

June 26, 2012

[Editorial] Fallout on the court

An unlikely victim of the delay in the opening of the National Assembly is the Supreme Court, with four justice nominees waiting for their confirmation hearings. The court’s operations will be hindered when the four justice posts are not filled upon being vacated. But a political standoff is holding the court hostage and, by doing so, hindering the right to a prompt trial.The court is composed of the chief justice and 13 justices. Petty benches, each with four justices, deal most of the cases ap

June 25, 2012

[Editorial] Time limit for murder

Exceptionally heinous crimes, such as murder, usually have no time limit within which the public prosecutor must initiate legal proceedings. But not in Korea. Instead, murder has a 25-year time limit, a legacy from the Japanese criminal procedure code, which Korea reportedly copied nine years after liberation from Japan’s colonial rule.Now the Ministry of Justice is in the process of revising the criminal procedure code aimed at abolishing the time limit. The ministry, which is set to finish col

June 25, 2012

[Editorial] Female workforce

The latest demographic projection released by the national statistics office last week warns of a sharp reduction in the country’s workforce in the coming decades.Due to the rapid aging of the population and the low birthrate, the number of people aged 15-64, which stood at 35.98 million in 2010, is forecast to decline to 32.89 million in 2030 and 28.87 million in 2040 after peaking at 37.04 million in 2016.The number of working-age people is estimated to further drop to 21.87 million in 2060, a

June 24, 2012

[Editorial] Strategic balance

The Japanese parliament’s passage of a controversial bill that might be interpreted as opening the way for Japan to produce nuclear weapons is a move of no help for regional peace and security. Above all, it could be used by North Korea to justify its nuclear program.But last week’s revision of Japan’s atomic energy law, which adds a phrase that the use of nuclear power should contribute to guaranteeing national security, appears to have no realistic likelihood of leading to its nuclear armament

June 24, 2012

[Editorial] ‘Economic democracy’

The main opposition Democratic United Party and the Federation of Korean Industries are engaged in a tense war of words, trading barbed accusations over “democratizing the economy.” The escalating tension shows no sign of letting up. Instead, it will probably continue to heat up in the months ahead, turning economic democratization into a major issue for the December presidential election.Economic democratization may sound an elusive concept. But it simply refers to business regulations in the c

June 22, 2012

[Editorial] Electoral fraud again?

Two members of the United Progressive Party are not the only ones accused of being elected to the National Assembly in April by fraudulent means. Similar charges are being hurled against five lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party.A text message service provider reportedly purchased the list of the ruling party’s 2.2 million members in March. It signed a contract on the provision of its text message service with 29 politicians seeking party nomination. Of the 10 of them that were nominated, five

June 22, 2012