The financial regulator is inspecting the nation’s top four commercial banks as they are plagued by allegations of corruption. It is unusual for the Financial Supervisory Service to inspect the four largest banks ― Kookmin, Hana, Shinhan and Woori ― at the same time.For Kookmin Bank, the FSS has launched an intensive probe into the recent allegations that the bank’s branch in Tokyo had been involved in irregularities to create slush funds.The Tokyo branch is suspected of having extended illegal

Editorial Nov. 14, 2013

Most of us accept that we live in a world where food is no longer just grown, it is engineered. Even scarier, much of our food is bio-engineered and not grown, but bred.Given this reality, it is reasonable for a consumer to want to know something about the engineering, which produces foods that are known as GMOs, an acronym for products that contain genetically modified organisms.This is not an argument about GMOs, about whether they are safe for people or animals to ingest, whether they are env

Viewpoints Nov. 14, 2013

MENOUFIA, Egypt ― A year ago, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders in this region of the Nile Delta seemed confident that they owned the future. But then came the military coup on June 30 that toppled President Mohamed Morsi and killed hundreds of his supporters. The story of this tumultuous counterrevolution is clarified by a visit to this town in the heart of the Delta. You encounter an odd combination of a bottom-up popular rejection of the Brotherhood and a top-down military putsch. I was happy

Viewpoints Nov. 13, 2013

PARIS ― The Geneva talks on Iranian nukes have turned into a “pull my finger” charade. Iran says that it’s only making electricity, not nuclear bombs. The U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are somehow all supposed to agree on reeling Iran in ― but let’s face it: Russia and China are close Iranian allies and trading partners, while even Germany and France have significant geopolitical ties to Russia through, for example, the European defense conglomerate EADS and the Nord Stream pi

Viewpoints Nov. 13, 2013

World Diabetes Day is Nov. 14, and we urgently need to address this plague right here at home.Diabetes is a major public health problem ― an epidemic ― in the United States. One out of 10 people over the age of 20 now has diabetes ― primarily Type 2 or “adult onset” diabetes ― and the disease is rapidly increasing. This increase has been particularly striking in the several Southeastern states comprising what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls the “Diabetes Belt.” In Kentucky,

Viewpoints Nov. 13, 2013

Regarding the Nov. 12 editorial “Dying alone,” it seems that the elderly desperately cope with scant resources to finance their later life. As highlighted in the article, by the time they are ready for retirement, the elderly have already spent sizable finances on their children’s upbringing ― that is, with little doubt, education and marriage. Although their children may luckily finance the traditionally high-cost Korean marriage once they establish a career, education is another pain. In Korea

Viewpoints Nov. 13, 2013

On the list of U.S. military priorities, Africa has always ranked right smack at the bottom. Now that appears to be changing. As Eric Schmitt recently reported in the New York Times, “thousands of soldiers once bound for Iraq or Afghanistan are now gearing up for missions in Africa.” Before the gearing up proceeds much further, Americans might want to ask a few questions. Chief among them are these: Why the sudden shift in priorities? What’s the aim? Who stands to benefit? What risks does the mi

Viewpoints Nov. 13, 2013

The main opposition Democratic Party has packed up its tent in front of Seoul City Hall. The party set up the tent more than 100 days ago as a symbol of its street protests against the National Intelligence Service’s alleged meddling in the December presidential election. The party folded up the tent not because it has ended its campaign to bring the truth to light. Quite the opposite. As its “tent protest” has failed to drum up much support from the public, the party is now seeking to escalate

Viewpoints Nov. 12, 2013

The nuclear industry is not the only industry in Korea plagued by the malpractice of parts suppliers fabricating test certificates. The Defense Agency for Technology and Quality has found that similar irregularities had been committed by defense contractors as well.The arms acquisition watchdog has recently scrutinized all the parts and raw materials used in the 136,844 military items supplied by defense contractors in the last three years. Through the unprecedented inspection, the agency discov

Editorial Nov. 12, 2013

On the morning of Oct. 11, I woke up at 4 a.m. in Potonggang Hotel in Pyongyang, excited and nervous. I found myself repeating, “My son is here. I am going to see him today.” I could not believe I was there to visit my son, Kenneth Bae, who has been held prisoner in North Korea.Sunday, Nov. 3, was the anniversary of the day my son, a tour operator, was detained. He has now been in a North Korean prison for more than a year. He is the longest detained American prisoner in North Korea in recent hi

Viewpoints Nov. 12, 2013

The reports coming out of the Philippines are all too familiar. Shattered villages, corpses strewn across battered beaches, dazed survivors picking through the wreckage of their former lives. As I write, Typhoon Haiyan (described in some news reports as a “supertyphoon”) appears to be the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history, and one of the worst ever in Asia ― a region that has known no shortage of calamities.Many of the survivors are talking about a “wall of water” ― most of the dama

Viewpoints Nov. 12, 2013