Before leaving the post of finance minister on Thursday, Yoon Jeung-hyun called on his ministry to serve as the last line of defense against onrushing demands for general welfare. His advice could not have been timelier, given that political parties and politicians, those with presidential ambitions in particular, are shifting their focus from selective welfare to general welfare with little rega...

For a man who billed himself as the CEO president, Lee Myung-bak of South Korea sure seems to lack business sense. In February 2008, voters turned to Lee, the former chief executive officer of several Hyundai Group businesses, to see through the reforms needed to break the economic gridlock. Who better to drive change than a guy famed for bulldozing the competition? Buyer’s remorse is setting in...

Now that Beijing has decided to send 14 Taiwanese fraud suspects back to Taiwan, the issue of the sovereignty of our country in handling their case is being raised again. Democratic Progressive Party leaders from their chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen on down have accused the administration of selling out our sovereignty by letting the Philippines deport the suspects to the People’s Republic of China earl...

Education equality is the foundation for more development opportunities for rural children in underdeveloped rural areas. It is an area that requires more attention from the government and society. State Councilor Liu Yandong called for more educational resources for the underdeveloped central and western regions to realize education equality when she visited the poverty-stricken rural areas in ...

Leaders of the Group of Eight wealthiest industrialized nations pledged over the last weekend to help Egypt and Tunisia with billions of dollars in aid, fearing that economic stagnation could undermine the transition to democracy. A joint communique produced by the G8 meeting promised $20 billion, but the breakdown on how much each of the eight countries will provide is not yet known. The G8 comp...

North Korea disclosed Wednesday that South Korea proposed three inter-Korean summits ― first at Panmunjeom in June, second in Pyongyang in August and third in Seoul in March ― at a secret meeting of officials from the two sides in Beijing on May 9. According to the North’s official media, Pyongyang rejected the offer because Seoul demanded an apology for the atrocities the North committed last ye...

The National Assembly opened a month-long extraordinary session Wednesday to discuss major state affairs, review the government’s policies and deliberate on the pending bills. But this session is likely to be dominated by one burning issue ― the savings bank scandal. The floor leaders of the ruling Grand National Party and the main opposition Democratic Party have agreed to start a parliamentary...

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that permits local officials to revoke the licenses of businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers. The decision makes sense in principle but not in practice. Under the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, business owners are required to use the federal E-Verify program to confirm if a person is authorized to work in this country. Employers...

MILAN ― The departure of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund has presented the G20 group of advanced and emerging economies with an opportunity and a challenge as they vie to select a new leader. It is a critical moment of transition because the emerging economies that have been in the shadows during most of the IMF’s existence will be dominant in the not-too-distan...

In the just-concluded fourth trilateral meeting of the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea, all three countries agreed to speed up the process toward finalizing a free-trade agreement (FTA). Promoting a trilateral FTA at this time is significant, mainly because major changes occurred in the world economy after the global economic crisis, and Japan and South Korea strongly hoped to “take a fr...