[Editorial] GNP blame game

Every weekday morning, executive members of the Grand National Party gather at the party headquarters in Yeouido near the National Assembly to start their daily meeting along with the heads of departments. Party chairman Hong Joon-pyo sits at the center, flanked by floor leader Hwang Woo-yea and the other executive members, Yoo Seung-min, Na Kyung-won, Won Hee-ryong and Nam Kyung-pil. Korea’s most unproductive “partisan politics” starts here.For years and decades, party executives have behaved a

Nov. 8, 2011

[Editorial] Seoul mayor and FTA

It is natural that Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, now in his second week in office, does not have a full grasp of the bounds of his duties and powers, let alone the scope of his public mission. So, he needs to be reminded that while Seoul is the political, economic and cultural center of the Republic of Korea, it is still just one of the 16 major divisions of the country and that there is a categorical difference between the central and local governments.In this sense, Park’s “statement of opinion”

Nov. 8, 2011

[Editorial] Lawlessness in Assembly

Members of the five opposition parties continued their “seizure” of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee chamber for a full week. They were trying to deter the ruling Grand National Party from passing the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill through the legislative panel. Lawmakers and staff from the opposition parties are joining in the illegal obstruction of the legislative procedures in violation of the National Assembly Law as well as Criminal Code provisions regarding the perfo

Nov. 7, 2011

[Editorial] Truths, half-truths and lies

In 2008, government authorities fought a losing battle against the campaign of misinformation about mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease that fueled demonstrations against U.S. beef imports. Blogs and mobile phone text messages were widely used by the protesters. Two and a half years later, opposition parties and leftist civic groups have even more effective weapon in their fight against the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. They are liberally using social networking services, which have

Nov. 7, 2011

[Editorial] Fresh start demanded

It is not an overstatement to say that the nation’s major political parties are exposed to the risk of disintegration ahead of the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for April. Such an argument is supported by an opinion poll recently conducted by the Munhwa Ilbo, a Seoul-based daily.The survey shows that many of the traditional supporters of the conservative ruling Grand National Party and the liberal main opposition Democratic Party are ready to jump ship for a new alternative party.Almos

Nov. 6, 2011

[Editorial] Cutting tuition fees

An ongoing audit of 35 universities ― 29 of them private and the remainder either national or public ― has confirmed that there is substantial room for cutting tuition fees without any increase in subsidies from the government.The Board of Audit and Inspection, which is looking into the books, says the universities have collected an additional annual average of 655.2 billion won ($589 million) during the past five years by bending accounting rules. This accounting fraud is one of the preliminary

Nov. 6, 2011

[Editorial] Korea-Russia gas pipeline

The proposed construction of a gas pipeline linking Russia and South Korea via North Korea is expected to gain momentum following a summit between President Lee Myung-bak and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.At the meeting, the two leaders reaffirmed joint efforts to promote the project, saying it would benefit all three countries. The scheme calls for laying a 1,700 km-long pipeline to transport 10 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas per year to South Kor

Nov. 4, 2011

[Editorial] A die-hard practice

Bad practices die hard. For example, you need not look further than the kickbacks pharmaceutical companies give to doctors and pharmacists in return for prescribing their medicines. To root out this deeply entrenched corrupt practice, the government revised the law in November last year. It made doctors and pharmacists, as well as pharmaceutical companies, subject to punishment when found to have been involved in illegal deals.Under the amended laws, doctors and pharmacists who receive illegal m

Nov. 4, 2011

[Editorial] Gender equality ranking

The “glass ceiling” refers to a barrier ― invisible, yet unbreakable ― that prevents women from climbing the corporate ladder. But many highly educated Koreans are denied access to the corporate ladder itself, let alone rising above the glass ceiling, simply because they are women.A recent recruitment survey shows how much Korean women are discriminated against in their search for jobs. According to the poll, women accounted for 18.5 percent of those fresh out of university that were recruited b

Nov. 3, 2011

[Editorial] New labor group

It is a matter of course that all labor groups, be they national or local, put the interests of workers before anything else. But the two national labor umbrella groups ― the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions ― have often been accused of pursuing their own political agenda or those of their leaders at the expense of the interests of unionized workers.Against this backdrop, a third national labor umbrella group was launched earlier this week. In its in

Nov. 3, 2011

[Editorial] Push for renewable energy

Since the government unveiled its “low carbon, green growth” vision in August 2008, the nation’s renewable energy industry has achieved impressive growth. Between 2007 and 2010, the industry’s aggregate sales jumped 6.5-fold, its export revenue surged 7.3-fold and the size of its workforce expanded 3.7-fold.The industry’s rapid growth prompted major Korean corporations to jump on the clean energy bandwagon. They announced large-scale investment plans one after another. This rush boosted expectat

Nov. 2, 2011

[Editorial] Half-baked policy

Policymakers often cause confusion by announcing well-intended but not-fully-thought-out measures. A case in point is one of the measures announced Sunday by the Prime Minister’s Office to help baby boomers push back retirement. The office announced that the government would grant workers aged 50 and older the right to request reduced hours in the run-up to retirement and thereby extend employment.The PMO said the scheme was intended to help senior workers prepare for their new jobs after retire

Nov. 2, 2011

[Editorial] Undaunted climbers

Memorial services were held in Annapurna this week for Park Young-seok and his two younger colleagues, who went missing in the Himalayas. Korea lost another public hero, but the tragedy will not stop the legion of Korean men and women from continuing to challenge extreme conditions in the world’s highest peaks, deserts and polar regions. During the 1990s, Park and his rival climbers Um Hong-gil mounted a thrilling competition to scale all the highest mountains in the Himalayas. Park became the e

Nov. 1, 2011

[Editorial] Seven billion humans

As Danica, one of the babies chosen by the United Nations to symbolize the 7 billionth person in the world, was crying at the bosom of her mother Camille in a maternity hospital in Manila, experts and government policy makers presented forecasts and countermeasures about the still fast-growing world population.It was in 1999 that then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan held an infant boy in Bosnia-Herzegovina in his arms to congratulate the 6 billionth birth to the world while at the same time is

Nov. 1, 2011

[Editorial] Imminent FTA action

Few would be surprised if the ruling Grand National Party resorted to its majority power to ram the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill through the National Assembly at any time. The GNP must believe it has accumulated enough justification to do so while the main opposition party has weak logic to ask for public support for its rejection of the bill. Rep. Chung Dong-young is in the center of the DP’s illogical and unreasonable behavior in the KORUS FTA tussle. By early last week, the two partie

Oct. 31, 2011

[Editorial] Another white elephant?

Extremely contrasting economic and environmental forecasts for the new “Ara Canal” between Incheon on the West Sea and Gimpo at the mouth of the Han River make it hard for the public to assess the project. When the 18-kilometer waterway opened Saturday after on-and-off construction work over nearly two decades, the minister of homeland and marine affairs and the chiefs of Gyeonggi and Incheon provincial governments joined in celebrations. A cruise boat was launched with hundreds of curious sight

Oct. 31, 2011

[Editorial] Communication is key

One surprising aspect of the Oct. 26 Seoul mayoral by-election was young voters’ massive support for the unified opposition candidate, Park Won-soon. Exit polls showed he received support from 69.3 percent of voters in their 20s, 75.8 percent of voters in their 30s and 66.8 percent of voters in their 40s. This contrasted with 43.1 percent support he received from voters in their 50s and 30.4 percent from voters aged 60 and older. Young voters in Korea have traditionally preferred liberal candida

Oct. 30, 2011

[Editorial] Push for software industry

The government has rolled up its sleeves to foster the domestic software industry. On Thursday, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy unveiled a package of measures that called for, among other things, banning large system-integrating companies affiliated with chaebol groups from participating in public-sector information system projects.The ministry’s plan caused an immediate uproar in the system-integration industry as it would prohibit starting next year the 65 SI units of the nation’s 55 largest

Oct. 30, 2011

[Editorial] Back to budget work

The Korean economy is losing vitality fast, making it impossible to attain this year’s growth target that has already been revised downward to 4.3 percent. The year-on-year growth dropped to 3.4 percent in the third quarter, the lowest since the third quarter of 2009.Given that the three-quarter average stood at 3.7 percent, the nation’s economy would have to push up the final quarter’s growth beyond the 6 percent level to attain the 2011 growth target. That would be an impossible job, with the

Oct. 28, 2011

[Editorial] Dubious jobless stats

One quote popularized by Mark Twain says: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” This quote should undoubtedly appeal to well educated young Korean people with no jobs, who question the validity of official statistics about youth unemployment.A young man fresh out of university may find that half his former classmates have yet to land jobs. But he is told by Statistics Korea that the unemployment rate among young people stood at a mere 6.3 percent in September. What h

Oct. 28, 2011