[Editorial] Bolstering defense posture

The United States has unveiled a new defense strategy that would slim down its military and rebalance it toward the Asia-Pacific region, away from Europe and the Middle East.Washington officials said the new strategy would have no impact on the U.S. forces stationed in South Korea. They reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and deter any provocations by North Korea.Yet policymakers in Seoul need to analyze the U.S. policy change carefully as it comes at a time

Jan. 8, 2012

[Editorial] Tying up loose ends

The prosecution has concluded that the cyber attack on the homepage of the National Election Commission on the day of the Oct. 26 Seoul mayoral by-election was jointly carried out by former aides to National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae and Rep. Choi Ku-sik.According to the prosecution, the National Assembly speaker’s aide, surnamed Kim, and Rep. Choi’s aide, identified only as Gong, plotted the distributed denial-of-service attack and had it executed through Gong’s friend, a computer expert. K

Jan. 8, 2012

[Editorial] Lee’s China visit

President Lee Myung-bak will embark on a three-day visit to China on Monday. His visit, coming several months ahead of the 20th anniversary of Seoul-Beijing diplomatic relations, will surely provide an opportunity for Lee and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to review past achievements and map out the future course of action.South Korea and China, the only military ally of North Korea, have come a long way since they established diplomatic ties in August 1992. A retired Chinese diplomat, who

Jan. 6, 2012

[Editorial] Cash in envelopes

When the ruling Grand National Party was holding a national convention to select its leader, rumors that candidates distributed envelopes containing cash invariably made the rounds. None of them had been vetted until recently, and few came out to acknowledge they had been offered cash during the convention.But some of the rumors are most likely to be checked out this time, with one first-term lawmaker having said in public that he received an envelope containing 3 million won from a person close

Jan. 6, 2012

[Editorial] Time to make sacrifices

Tensions are mounting in the ruling Grand National Party as the party’s emergency leadership council has started to discuss the highly sensitive issue of overhauling the process to pick candidates for parliamentary elections.Changing the nomination process is at the top of the reform agenda pushed by the emergency council, which was launched last month with the mandate to thoroughly reinvent the embattled party before the April general election.The task is basically about establishing a fair, tr

Jan. 5, 2012

[Editorial] Lesson in curbing inflation

President Lee Myung-bak has renewed efforts to curb inflation ― again resorting to a strong-arm approach. In the first Cabinet meeting of the year Tuesday, Lee instructed officials to introduce a system in which an official is appointed for each of the major daily goods to monitor and manage its prices. Under the system, a section chief of, for instance, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance would be made responsible for checking the price movements of, say, napa cabbage. If cabbage prices are fo

Jan. 5, 2012

[Editorial] Don't blame police

A refusal by police to follow a directive from prosecutors has renewed a debate on the roles the two law-enforcement agencies play in criminal investigations. But the police are not to blame if they have acted strictly in accordance with the law, as they claim.At the core of the dispute are the rules on initial inquiries, as opposed to pre-trial full-scale criminal investigations. A new presidential decree on the enforcement of the Criminal Procedure Act, which went into force on Jan. 1, does no

Jan. 4, 2012

[Editorial] Violence in school

In the olden days, Koreans were advised not even to step on the shadows of a schoolmaster, whom Confucianism put in stature equal to that of fathers and the ruling monarch. Nowadays, it would be anachronistic to demand such etiquette. Nor would schoolteachers expect any such respect from their students.Even so, it cannot be put aside as a simple educational problem if many schoolteachers often find themselves helpless in dealing with unruly students in classroom, some of them affiliated with sch

Jan. 4, 2012

[Editorial] Around the president

Korea’s presidents may believe it grossly unfair that people tend to assess their performances by the number of scandals involving their families and close associates instead of their positive achievements in domestic and external affairs.President Lee Myung-bak’s approval rating now hovers around the 30 percent mark, the average figure of his predecessors in the final year of their five-year tenures. Any improprieties that are exposed in the months to come ― or the lack of them ― will mean he i

Jan. 3, 2012

[Editorial] International matchmaking

It was in 2007 that a newspaper picture showed a dozen young women in a Southeast Asian country standing in line before a couple men from Korea in what was described as a matchmaking session. By the time the picture was published here, the international marriage brokerage that resembles human trafficking had created anti-Korean sentiment in the countries from which many brides came to Korea.It took five long years to bring legislation to prohibit such indecent practices. A revision to the Law on

Jan. 3, 2012

[Editorial] Sign of weakness

North Korea’s new leadership began showing raw bellicosity toward the South Korean government immediately after the mourning period for Kim Jong-il. Key state organizations issued statements attacking President Lee Myung-bak and the ruling group in Seoul for deterring South Koreans from paying tribute to the dead North Korean leader. A joint editorial of major official newspapers on the New Year’s Day also condemned the “traitors” in the South for their “inhuman and anti-national acts.”This was

Jan. 2, 2012

[Editorial] Seoul mayor’s proposal

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon has officially proposed that the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Chung Myung-whun visit Pyongyang for performances and the top soccer teams of Seoul and Pyongyang hold regular games in the two cities. The liberal mayor, who was elected to the office in a by-election on Oct. 26, made the proposal to the Unification Ministry here and the North Korean authorities in his New Year address. His idea may sound a bit untimely considering the present state of affairs be

Jan. 2, 2012

[Editorial] Year of elections

The year of 2012 is a year of elections, with the nation set to select members of the National Assembly in April and the next president in December. Having both elections in the same year happens every 20 years. Their outcomes will have a long lasting impact on the nation’s political landscape. The elections will determine which political groups, conservative or liberal, will lead the nation at a time when the world economy is coming out of one crisis only to be drawn into another. They will als

Jan. 1, 2012

[Editorial] Bracing for uncertainties

A new year has dawned. After a tough year, we naturally hope this one will be much better than the last. Yet 2012 promises to be just as demanding, if not more so, for the nation.This year, as in the one that just ended, economic growth is expected to be lackluster as the government will put the emphasis of economic policy on stability rather than growth in the face of escalating uncertainties.The government and the Bank of Korea both forecast that the economy would grow 3.7 percent this year, 0

Dec. 30, 2011

[Editorial] Talks on tour program

The period of national mourning over the death of Kim Jong-il is over in North Korea now, presumably opening a window of opportunity for improving the tension-ridden inter-Korean relations. The resumption of long-stalled South Korean tours to the Mount Geumgang resort in the North may serve as a first step toward this end.Ties with the North soured in 2008 when a South Korean woman was shot to death in the off-limits security area adjacent to the resort. Tours to the resort were suspended when N

Dec. 29, 2011

[Editorial] Growing distress

The year of 2011, which got off to a lively start with high expectations that the quality of life would soon improve significantly, is ending in woeful disappointment. Few Koreans are feeling that they are better off now than before, as income has dropped, prices have risen and not many jobs are to be found.Few would dispute that external economic conditions are mainly to blame. The domestic economy cannot fare well when the global economy is being buffeted by a crisis of European origin. The im

Dec. 29, 2011

[Editorial] GNP on reform track

The emergency leadership council of the ruling Grand National Party has taken a scalpel to the embattled party. In its inaugural meeting held on Tuesday, the council decided to deprive GNP lawmakers of an important prerogative ― immunity from arrest while the parliament is in session.The council’s spokesman said the decision would become the party’s official policy if its 169 lawmakers endorse it at a general meeting. He said the council wanted to show the electorate that GNP lawmakers were read

Dec. 28, 2011

[Editorial] Reforming lending practices

More than 30 years ago, Kim Seok-dong, chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission, tasted the bitterness of business failure. In 1978, he started a leather jumper exporting business after working for a trading company for a year. Kim’s company ran into trouble when the second oil shock hit the nation in 1979. As business soured, he faced funding problems. To keep his company afloat, he went to his bank to get trade financing. But the bank demanded that all his family members, including eve

Dec. 28, 2011

[Editorial] ‘A Light in My Heart’

Dr. Kang Young-woo is bidding farewell to his friends and the numerous people around the world for whom he demonstrated that physical disabilities pose no impediment to a successful life. The former policy advisor to President George W. Bush on disability and current vice chair of the World Committee on Disability has been struck with cancer.“I thank God for allowing me the time to say good-bye to the people I love after living the happiest life possible,” Dr. Kang, who has worked for promotion

Dec. 27, 2011

[Editorial] Kim Jong-il’s funeral

North Korea holds the funeral for Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang on Wednesday, 11 days after his reported death on Dec. 17. On Monday evening, DPRK’s new leader Kim Jong-un briefly met two visitors from Seoul offering condolences, former first lady Lee Hee-ho and Hyun Jung-eun, chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, the main business partner with the North until the suspension of inter-Korean economic cooperation in 2008.Despite the suddenness of the leader’s death from a heart attack, North Korea seems to

Dec. 27, 2011