[Editorial] FTA with Vietnam

Korea and Vietnam announced Monday the launching of negotiations on a free trade deal between the two countries. The announcement by their trade ministers in Hanoi followed six rounds of preliminary talks since June 2010.Formal negotiations are scheduled to begin in September, with a final conclusion likely to be reached within the first half of next year, according to trade officials here.We hope negotiations will proceed smoothly to ensure the early signing of the agreement, which would bring

Aug. 7, 2012

[Editorial] Echo generation

Armed with higher education, more certificates and better English skills, they should be expected to land jobs more easily and live more happily than their parents. In reality, however, they have more difficulty finding work, delay marriage and can scarcely dream of owning their own home.A recent research by Statistics Korea paints an ironical contrast between the lives of the baby boomer generation born in 1955-63 and their children’s generation born in 1979-92, which is termed by demographers

Aug. 7, 2012

[Editorial] By convention again?

The Supreme Court will have to restart the time-consuming process of filling a vacancy sooner or later, with only three of the four justice nominees approved by the National Assembly earlier this month. The other nominee, a former senior prosecutor, had withdrawn from nomination under mounting pressure over suspicions of lawbreaking and ethical lapses.Prior to starting the process anew, however, the court will have to make a very important decision ― one regarding whether to continue to honor or

Aug. 6, 2012

[Editorial] Economically incorrect

Electricity rates were raised 4.9 percent on average on Monday. As a consequence, an average urban household will have to pay 1,200 won more each month ― not a small burden for low-income families in particular. Businesses will be hit harder, with their energy bills raised more than 6 percent at a time when the global economy is in a protracted slump.But the increase is too small to cover the cost. Korea Electric Power Corp., which sustained 2.9 trillion won in operation losses during the first

Aug. 6, 2012

[Editorial] Money for candidacy

The ruling Saenuri Party has been rocked by allegations that one of its lawmakers bribed her way into parliament. If the suspicion surrounding Rep. Hyun Young-hee proves true, it would deal a serious blow not only to the party but to its leading presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye. Park led the party through the April general elections as interim party chief.The National Election Commission asked the prosecution last week to investigate allegations that Hyun became a proportional representative c

Aug. 5, 2012

[Editorial] Farming abroad

Concerns are mounting that continuous rises in international grain prices, prompted by severe droughts in the U.S., will heighten inflationary pressure on the economy. The country is expected to begin feeling the full impact of the price hikes in about four to six months when its current stocks are used up.Government officials are scrambling to cope with the increasing possibility of agflation, which would make the livelihoods of low-income families, in particular, more difficult.In a meeting of

Aug. 5, 2012

[Editorial] Falling property prices

Kwon Hyouk-se, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, has recently warned of a new financial crisis, which may be triggered by household debt. The warning reflects the possibility of delinquencies soaring in home-backed loans if home prices continue to fall as they do now.But it is not the home-backed loans alone that are posing a threat to the financial industry. A similar threat is coming from loans secured by commercial properties whose prices are also dropping.Currently, homeowners a

Aug. 3, 2012

[Editorial] Spurring demand

Top economic policymakers were undoubtedly taken by surprise when Statistics Korea said on Tuesday that industrial output, spending and corporate investment declined in June. Prior to the announcement, the policymakers had maintained that the economic conditions were not as bad as they looked.According to a report from the statistics agency, the June retail and investment in industrial facilities fell 0.5 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, from May. Adding to the nation’s economic woes was i

Aug. 3, 2012

[Editorial] Native teachers

The Seoul education office this week announced a plan to pull out nearly all native-speaking English teachers from public middle and high schools in the city. It cited low cost-effectiveness of hiring them at secondary schools where the focus of English class is put on reading and grammar.The measure will not affect native teachers employed at elementary schools, where education officials say English lessons are mostly speaking-based.It is necessary for the education office to reconsider the pol

Aug. 2, 2012

[Editorial] Elderly sex crimes

The rapid aging of society has brought about another embarrassing problem ― a sharp increase in sex crimes committed by aged men, which are targeted mainly at children and other vulnerable people.According to figures from the police, the number of sex offenders aged 61 or older increased by more than 50 percent from 710 in 2008 to 1,070 last year. More than one in 10 child sex crimes in 2011 were committed by people in their 60s or 70s.In the latest case, a 66-year-old janitor of a primary schoo

Aug. 2, 2012

[Editorial] Apology for torture

A diplomatic row is brewing between Seoul and Beijing over the claims by Kim Young-hwan, a South Korean activist for North Korean human rights, that he was severely tortured by Chinese security officials during his 114-day detention in the neighboring country.China’s Foreign Ministry flatly denied the claims on Tuesday, saying that the Chinese authorities that handled the case conducted an investigation “according to the law” and protected the legitimate rights of Kim and three other arrested So

Aug. 1, 2012

[Editorial] Workplace nurseries

Domestic corporations are half-hearted about establishing workplace nursery facilities. Under the current Infant Care Act, a company operating a workplace with more than 500 regular workers or more than 300 female employees is required to operate a nursery. When the company is unable to run such a facility on its own, it may entrust care of the employees’ children to a nearby day care center or pay an infant care allowance to its employees. But more than half of domestic companies failed to meet

Aug. 1, 2012

[Editorial] Sleepless in Seoul?

People find it difficult to sleep these days, as the temperatures refuse to fall in the evening after the scorching daytime heat. These tropical nights are nondiscriminatory.Still, some might sleep more easily than others. Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon recently said to senior officials of the metropolis and metropolis-invested corporations: “The daily debt interest payments alone amount to 2.1 billion won. How does sleep come easy to you?” He made the remarks at a brainstorming session on debt, to w

July 31, 2012

[Editorial] KT hacking

It should not come as a surprise that KT, the nation’s second-largest mobile carrier, was a target of hacking. Hackers have recently stolen confidential information from so many corporations, ranging from the Educational Broadcasting System to GS Caltex and Hyundai Capital.What is shocking, though, is that KT had been kept in the dark for as long as five months. The police said a man, whose identity was withheld, developed a hacking program with his coworker in February and that they had since u

July 31, 2012

[Editorial] On road to reform?

Recent moves in North Korea have been prompting speculations here on whether they are signs of the isolated regime taking the direction of serious reforms under its young new leader Kim Jong-un.In his first public speech in April, Kim pledged not to make his people tighten their belts. His speech has drawn attention anew as Pyongyang recently took measures to improve its economic management. They include giving more incentives to increase production at collective farms and transferring economic

July 30, 2012

[Editorial] Courageous youth

Young Koreans have been flocking to enter military academies in recent years.A total of 6,403 youths applied for the Korea Military Academy this year, recording the highest competition rate of 22.1 for each place in nearly three decades. Last year, the KMA decided to increase the number of entrants by 10 percent to 290 to give enthusiastic applicants more opportunities to become cadets.The Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy, which plans to select 160 and 175 cadets, respectively, also recor

July 30, 2012

[Editorial] An irredeemable party

Progressive politics has lost its way. So said Kang Ki-kab, the chairman of the embattled United Progressive Party, summing up the situation his left-wing party has got itself into by failing to expel two controversial lawmakers. Kang and his reformist group were thrown into a panic on Thursday when the 13 lawmakers of the minor opposition party unexpectedly voted down a motion to kick out Reps. Lee Seok-ki and Kim Jae-yeon, the main culprits of the party’s abysmal downfall. The 13 legislators c

July 29, 2012

[Editorial] Tortured in China

Kim Young-hwan, a South Korean activist for North Korean human rights, has claimed he was severely tortured in a variety of ways, including electric shocks, during his 114-day detention in China. Kim was arrested in Dalian on March 29 on charges of “endangering China’s national security” and was deported to South Korea on July 20. Yet he denied the charges, saying he did not commit any hostile act against China. In a news conference on Wednesday, Kim claimed he suffered physical abuse and sleep

July 29, 2012

[Editorial] From London to London

The 2012 London Olympics kicked off Friday with a spectacular opening ceremony inspired by William Shakespeare plays, assembling 10,490 athletes from 204 nations, who will compete for gold during the 17-day run to be filled with unscripted human dramas.London now has the record of hosting the Summer Olympic Games for an unprecedented third time, an honor that might well go to the British, who either invented or codified nearly every single international sport, as city mayor Boris Johnson once pu

July 27, 2012

[Editorial] Child protection

It made Koreans so sad and angry to see the reported scenes of Wednesday’s funeral for a 10-year-old girl kidnapped and murdered by a man in her neighborhood, who confessed to strangling her to death after failing to rape her.Public criticism has been raging over the lax monitoring of the 45-year-old convicted sex offender and other legal loopholes that are to blame for the latest in a series of child sex crimes. This time, law enforcement authorities should ensure that everything be checked and

July 27, 2012