A political storm is brewing over the fate of a 103-year-old public hospital in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, which faces a forced closure due to its chronic operational deficit.Kicking up the storm is Hong Joon-pyo, former chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party, who was elected the province’s governor in December. The pushy politician is determined to shut down the nation’s second-oldest public hospital despite calls for caution from the central government.Under Hong’s instruction, the provin

Editorial April 8, 2013

The Bank of Korea is under growing pressure from the ruling Saenuri Party and the government to lower the benchmark interest rate at its meeting scheduled for April 11. The bank has left the policy interest rate unchanged at 2.75 percent after a 25 basis point cut in October. Earlier this month, Lee Hahn-koo, floor leader of the ruling party, openly urged the central bank to “play a role in stimulating the economy” by lowering the key interest rate and raising the aggregate lending limit for sma

Editorial April 8, 2013

As the American baseball season begins, it seems appropriate to borrow an analogy from the sport: Will the “can’t miss” young phenomenon of the political world, Senator Marco Rubio, be able to play in the big leagues? The immigration battle affords a good test. The conservative Florida Republican is part of a small group of lawmakers trying to fashion a comprehensive immigration measure that creates a pathway to citizenship for most of the estimated 11 million undocumented workers, changes the c

Viewpoints April 8, 2013

The Obama administration is reacting responsibly to a series of provocations from North Korea, shoring up defenses while seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis. But even if North Korea is deterred from attacking South Korea or U.S. forces for the foreseeable future, the defiance it has demonstrated in the last several weeks renders more elusive than ever achievement of the administration’s ultimate goal: a Korean peninsula without nuclear weapons.Last month the U.N. Security Council ― inclu

Viewpoints April 8, 2013

Putting an age restriction on buying the most common emergency contraception over the counter was never sound from a medical point of view. Now a federal judge has upset the political calculus behind the restriction, as well. By the time the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided, in late 2011, to lift the rule that girls under age 17 need a prescription for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s Plan B, the pill’s safety was well-established. What’s more, research had shown that the drug, whi

Viewpoints April 8, 2013

PARIS ― Be careful about how you interpret what you’re seeing, as your eyes might be deceiving you. That’s the advice I offered viewers the other day on Russia’s global TV network’s flagship program, “CrossTalk,” when explaining that capitalism isn’t facing any sort of crisis, but rather is just being subverted by socialists, Wall Street con artists and various anti-capitalist wishful thinkers who are corrupting the once-straightforward relationship between work and benefit.It has become common

Viewpoints April 7, 2013

Your editorial entitled “Walking a tightrope” (March 30-31) took issue with the recent remark of Korea’s new Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae that South Korea is preparing to propose a reunion of separated families and reopening of long-stalled dialogue with North Korea. The editorial said that it’s ill-timed and inappropriate to say so when the North is threatening a nuclear war against the South. It even said that Ryoo’s proposal “could be denounced as a policy of appeasement.” However, we r

Viewpoints April 7, 2013

The Bank of Japan’s new governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, didn’t disappoint investors with his announcement on Thursday: He laid out plans for the biggest, fastest unconventional monetary stimulus any large economy has ever seen. By definition, financial markets never expect “shock and awe,” but they expect it least of all from the hyper-cautious BOJ. For once, for the first time anybody can recall, “shock and awe” is what they got. On balance, this bold move is the right one. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Viewpoints April 7, 2013

The shadow economy, or the sum of economic activities that are not declared for tax purposes and are usually carried out in exchange for cash, is estimated to be equivalent to 20-25 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. President Park Geun-hye’s administration, which has declared a war on the shadow economy, is aiming at reducing its size to 10-15 percent of GDP.In a report to President Park earlier in the week, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said the efforts to bring the shadowy

Editorial April 5, 2013