The state intelligence agency opened Pandora’s box when it unexpectedly disclosed Monday the controversial transcript of the 2007 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang between President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.The abrupt disclosure added a new twist to the already convoluted dispute over the remarks that Roh made during the summit regarding the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas in the West Sea.The National Intelligence Service made publi

Editorial June 25, 2013

The Financial Supervisory Services is set to launch a probe into executive compensation in the domestic banking industry as the pay of top officials at financial holding companies and banks seems not to be directly linked to performance.According to reports, KB Financial Group Inc. paid a total of 4.36 billion won last year to its chairman, Euh Yoon-dae, and its president, Lim Young-rok, with Euh’s share believed to be around 3 billion won. Euh, who is scheduled to step down next month handing o

Editorial June 25, 2013

LONDON ― Last year’s Libor scandal was a shock to the body politic in London. Despite all that had gone before, the public and their representatives were stunned to learn that bankers had systematically undermined the foundations of a global market benchmark ― one with London in its name to boot ― for personal gain. Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, felt compelled to launch a parliamentary inquiry. On June 19, after a year’s work, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Stand

Viewpoints June 25, 2013

The suspense did not last long: Soon after his flight from Hong Kong landed in Moscow, we were told that National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden had applied for political asylum in Ecuador. It was in Hong Kong that Snowden publicly disclosed the existence of Prism, a top-secret U.S. National Security Agency program providing the NSA with access to the servers of top Internet companies like Miscrosoft, Apple, Google and Yahoo! Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., wher

Viewpoints June 24, 2013

NEW DELHI ― The United States, still mired in a protracted war in Afghanistan that has exacted a staggering cost in blood and treasure, will formally open peace talks with the Taliban, its main battlefield opponent, in the coming days (apparently despite last-minute opposition from Afghan President Hamid Karzai). With the U.S. determined to withdraw its forces after more than a decade of fighting, the talks in Doha, Qatar, are largely intended to allow it to do so “honorably.”How the end of U.S.

Viewpoints June 24, 2013

There are two widely discussed scenarios that could unfold in Washington this summer. The first, embraced by the White House and some Democrats, is upbeat: The immigration bill passes the Senate with a big margin, making it almost impossible for House Republicans to resist; more people start signing up for President Barack Obama’s health-care law, and even though no fiscal grand bargain is in the offing, an improving economy gives the president a stronger hand in dealing with Republicans on exte

Viewpoints June 24, 2013

The protests in Turkey, which now involve an extraordinarily diverse group of people, illuminate an altered political landscape. Yet much coverage of the demonstrations betrays an intellectual lag ― worse than the one that plagued many journalists and pundits when anti-Mubarak protesters filled Tahrir Square in 2011. Hasty proclamations of a “Turkish Spring” have given way to sophisticated-sounding but shallow dualisms, which seem to come straight from Flaubert’s “Dictionary of Received Ideas.”

Viewpoints June 24, 2013

Fifty million Koreans will count on the Korean National Pension Plan in their retirement years. Clearly, managing the $406 billion national pension fund in the best manner possible is one of the most critical missions of the national government, right next to national defense and economic growth. Is the Korean national pension fund being managed well? Let’s consider the quality of the national pension fund by three criteria: safety of the assets, rate of return on the portfolio, and steadiness o

Viewpoints June 23, 2013

PARIS ― Anyone who knows anything about the real world of intelligence and espionage knows that James Bond is a joke who wouldn’t survive his first day on the job (and not just because he’d fall asleep during static surveillance). But just try explaining to people that Agent 007 bears absolutely no resemblance to the reality of espionage profession. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that intelligence-leaking NSA contractor Edward Snowden ― with his lack of understanding of the intelligence ap

Viewpoints June 21, 2013

There are two great centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today ― places where decisions that significantly affect large numbers of Americans are made in secret, and are unchecked either by effective democratic oversight or by market competition.One goes by the name of the “intelligence community,” and its epicenter is the National Security Agency within the Defense Department. If we trusted that it reasonably balanced its snooping on Americans with our nation’

Viewpoints June 20, 2013