Youn Mee-hyang, a civic activist-turned-lawmaker, stirred up public outrage here last year when she fell under suspicion of embezzling money donated to help South Korean women forced into wartime sexual enslavement for imperial Japanese troops. She was indicted in September 2020 on charges of embezzlement, fraud and other misconduct. Youn denied all of the accusations against her during her first trial held at a Seoul court in August. The Justice Ministry had not made public details of Youn&rs

We are sadly sending off “Twenty-Twenty” and entering 2021 with very little hope for a better year. In the New Year, people will continue to live with the inconvenience of wearing face masks and in fear of inhaling the often lethal coronavirus, until community immunity has been established with universal vaccination, which still looks remote. Enviously watching TV footage of vaccines being given in the United States, Europe and some countries in Asia, 50 million South Koreans, once

Recently, I came across two insightful sijo poems written by Americans who won prizes at the sijo contest sponsored by the Sejong Cultural Society in Chicago. One was “Social Distancing” and the other was “In Middle School.” Although written in English, the two sijo poems successfully exhibit the unique sensitivity and atmosphere of the traditional Korean poetic form. “Social Distancing,” written by Julie Shute, is an excellent sijo poem that painfully capt

Dear Dr. Yellen: Congratulations! You’re probably the next treasury secretary of the US. That’ll throw you into daunting policy cauldrons -- from financing America’s massive deficits to managing China and taming the tax code. With so much in your inbox, we urge you not to forget about one large group of Americans: us. We’re US expats, and there are 9 million of us. If we were a state, we’d be the 11th largest. And we’re suffering from a problem that you can f

Having spent the past four years with the political equivalent of heavy metal music blasting outside their psychic windows late into the night, millions of Americans are hoping that the Biden administration will usher in a new era of calm. They are likely to be disappointed. To a limited extent, such wishes will be granted. Under President Joe Biden, the White House will no longer generate a cacophony of incompetence. Tweet tantrums will yield to process and predictability. Outright falsehood w

The National Pension Service announced last week that the number of its beneficiaries exceeded 5 million in April, 33 years after the pension system was introduced. It seemed to be striking a celebratory tone in making the announcement. But concerns are mounting over the long-term sustainability of the state pension fund. The gap between the numbers of beneficiaries and subscribers paying insurance premiums is expected to widen at an accelerating pace in the coming decades. According to data

The range of pending issues between South Korea and Japan are so complex and deep-rooted that they cannot be expected to be solved by a meeting between their leaders.Still, Tuesday’s summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe produced critical momentum for the dialogue needed to resolve the long-standing disputes between the two countries.The first Moon-Abe summit in 15 months had been scheduled for half an hour, but instead lasted 45 minutes.

As the US Congress returns from a 10-day break, the question of whether the House of Representatives (controlled by the Democrats) should formally commence the process of impeaching President Donald Trump for misdeeds committed during his tenure -- and perhaps before -- has split the party. Theoretically, impeachment by the House would be followed by a trial in the Senate. But the Senate, controlled by the Republicans, is considered highly unlikely to convict their party’s standard-bearer,

President Moon Jae-in may feel that he has adhered to a principled approach to historical issues with Japan. Nevertheless, he may also be realizing that it has come round to undermine his position on the diplomatic stage of Northeast Asia.If he has an ulterior motive -- if, as critics charge, he intends to use the inflammatory issues to his domestic political advantage -- he stands to pay substantial costs in practical terms.Since he took office two years ago, the bilateral relationship between

The Green New Deal promoted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fast-rising star in the US Congress, and others among her fellow Democrats, may trigger a welcome reset of the discussion on climate-change mitigation in the United States and beyond. Though not really new -- European Greens have been pushing for such a “new deal” for a decade -- her plan is ambitious and wide-ranging.It may be too ambitious and wide-ranging. But, unlike economists’ favorite approach to climate change -- set the right pr

Here is the most glaring takeaway from the collapse of the North Korea summit in Hanoi: You can’t negotiate with a wily dictator as if he were a real-estate mogul in New York.President Donald Trump has famously touted his personal relationships with autocrats as the prelude to great deals. “We fell in love,” he said of the half-dozen or so “beautiful letters” he received from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.Clearly, love was insufficient.The president and his team appeared blindsided by the gap

Koreans often enjoy mocking their ex-presidents by parodying their governing styles and characteristics. Recently on the internet, I came across a funny poster featuring photos of our ex-presidents with brief descriptions that metaphorically compared their leadership to driving. The metaphor seems appropriate because the leader of a nation is like the driver of a bus or the captain of a ship, both of which could be a microcosm of a country. On the poster, our first President Syngman Rhee was ide

The race for the Democratic nomination for US president in 2020 grows by the week, and more potential candidates are waiting in the wings. Each week also brings a new round of grand proposals: universal health care, free public college, the Green New Deal, universal child care, infrastructure, and reparations for slavery. The energetic left and its friends in the media are enjoying the proposals in the hope of “reshaping” American society. Candidates promise much, but offer few specifics other t

President Moon Jae-in was quick in accepting the resignation of his economic adviser Kim Hyun-chul last week, after Kim came under fire for his controversial remarks in a lecture to a group of local business executives.Kim tendered his resignation as soon as he came to work the next day after his remarks sparked public ire, particularly among young and middle-aged job seekers, and Moon accepted it immediately, according to a presidential spokesman.During the lecture, he urged unemployed people i

During the 2017 presidential election following the exit of Park Geun-hye, candidate Moon Jae-in promised the relocation of the presidential office to the central Seoul location of Gwanghwamun from its secluded present position. A year and seven months after he won the election, President Moon scrapped the plan.His campaigners said Cheong Wa Dae was too big and its area too wide to serve as an effective workplace for the chief executive of the state. Compared to the White House in Washington, El

Official data showing a continuous widening of income inequality have strengthened calls on the Moon Jae-in administration to scrap its income-led growth policy.Economists urge President Moon and his economic aides to focus on accelerating regulatory reforms and other efforts to reinvigorate corporate activity rather than sticking to the policy that they say has increased the problems of poorer people.According to data released by Statistics Korea last week, the average monthly income of the poo

The Moon Jae-in administration’s employment policy has precipitated the weakening of the Korean economy’s ability to create new jobs, experts say.According to the Bank of Korea, the country’s employment elasticity, which is calculated by dividing the rate of increase in the number of employees by the economic growth rate, is estimated to fall to a nine-year low of 0.11 this year. The higher the figure is, the more jobs are added by economic output.The central bank recently fore

Korea needs to step up efforts to increase exports in the service sector to offset a possible decline in the outbound shipment of its major manufactured goods, experts here say.Exports have shored up the slowing Korean economy so far this year, as decreasing investment and slumping consumption decelerate its growth.According to data recently released by Korea Customs Service, the country’s goods exports increased 22.7 percent on-year to $54.9 billion in October, mainly on the back of a ris

Local companies are struggling to adapt to a shorter workweek and calling for greater flexibility in its application, but their calls face vehement objections from the country’s umbrella labor groups.Under a recently revised law, the maximum weekly working hours have been reduced to 52 from 68. The revisions took effect in July for companies with 300 or more employees and will also affect smaller businesses in the coming years.There seems to be public consensus here that Korea’s noto

Controversy is intensifying over a move by the government and ruling party to encourage large corporations to share profits with their subcontractors and suppliers.Government policymakers and lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Korea last week agreed to work together to introduce what is called the cooperative profit-sharing system. The controversial scheme is to be put into practice as early as February, if a law designed to provide incentives to participating companies is enacted within the