The Ahn Cheol-soo phenomenon took a new turn as the potential presidential candidate made a commitment for a 150 billion won ($135 million) donation to charity Tuesday. His surprise action encouraged his supporters in the vast ranks of Korean society and further alerted political parties. The donation makes clearer his intent to enter the 2012 presidential race. In a press conference at the Grad...

Registration started Sunday for overseas Korean residents who want to vote in the parliamentary elections next April. On the first day, about 600 people visited designated Korean missions abroad for registration. We cannot predict how many of the 2.24 million eligible Koreans living abroad will have registered by the Feb. 11 deadline and how many of those registered will actually cast their vote...

Weekly podcast “Nakkomsu” is entertaining, as most gag programs and politically tinted talk shows are. It ridicules President Lee Myung-bak, Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee and others that stand for power in today’s Korea. Its hosts and guests, often including political bigwigs, amuse their audience of millions with sarcasm and piercing criticism at conservative politicians and the mainstream ...

As winter approaches, the specter of blackouts looms again. On Sept. 15, Korea suffered rolling blackouts. The cause of the disaster was heavy use of air conditioning due to an unseasonable heat wave. A sudden spike in power demand overshot the nation’s supply capacity, forcing the grid operator to cut electricity supply to avert a total blackout. The chances of such a disaster taking place in w...

Jeju Island has been voted as one of the new seven wonders of nature by people across the world. The scenic island was chosen along with the Amazon Rainforest and River (in Brazil and several other countries), Halong Bay (Vietnam), Iguazu Falls (Argentina and Brazil), the Komodo National Park (Indonesia), the Puerto Princesa Underground River (the Philippines) and Table Mountain (South Africa). ...

Self-imposed isolation from the outside world has long been a hallmark of North Korea, a destitute, reclusive communist state, in which individuals are denied basic freedoms. Yet the walls of separation have been raised higher since the Jasmine Revolution started to shake despotic Arab countries. One of the latest such cases is the recent suspension of direct flights between North Korea and Kuwa...

One of the first things a politician elected to the National Assembly does when his election euphoria recedes is to tailor all his public behavior in such a way as to ensure his reelection four years later. To him, nothing else counts as much. This explains why moderate lawmakers affiliated with the main opposition Democratic Party stopped talking one day after they proposed a compromise over th...

Controversy is growing over a government-backed private commission’s campaign to restrict the entry of large corporations into certain markets in its bid to protect small and medium-sized enterprises. A week ago, the Commission on Shared Growth for Large and Small Companies, which was established in September last year to promote win-win cooperation between big firms and SMEs, categorized 25 pro...

Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan described the October job data as an “employment jackpot.” On the surface, the minister’s description is justified ― according to Statistics Korea, the economy gained 501,000 more jobs last month compared with a year ago, while the jobless rate fell to 2.9 percent. The job growth in October is notable as it more than offset the on-year population growth of 454,000. ...

Predictability is a rare commodity in Korean politics. Change in voter sentiment is so abrupt, as seen during the recent Seoul mayoral election, that correct predictions are elusive. Few would have believed several months ago that a social activist trained in law would gain so much popularity so swiftly and grab the post of Seoul mayor as an independent. Nor would it have been thought that a uni...

When millions of animals exposed or presumed to be exposed to foot-and-mouth disease were culled and buried late last year and early this year, the potential leakage from the burial sites and its pollution of ground water were of great environmental and health concern. That fear has become a reality. Moreover, the Ministry of Environment, which conducts tests on 300 new sites each quarter, is ac...

Every weekday morning, executive members of the Grand National Party gather at the party headquarters in Yeouido near the National Assembly to start their daily meeting along with the heads of departments. Party chairman Hong Joon-pyo sits at the center, flanked by floor leader Hwang Woo-yea and the other executive members, Yoo Seung-min, Na Kyung-won, Won Hee-ryong and Nam Kyung-pil. Korea’s mos...

It is natural that Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, now in his second week in office, does not have a full grasp of the bounds of his duties and powers, let alone the scope of his public mission. So, he needs to be reminded that while Seoul is the political, economic and cultural center of the Republic of Korea, it is still just one of the 16 major divisions of the country and that there is a categoric...

Members of the five opposition parties continued their “seizure” of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee chamber for a full week. They were trying to deter the ruling Grand National Party from passing the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill through the legislative panel. Lawmakers and staff from the opposition parties are joining in the illegal obstruction of the legislative proced...

In 2008, government authorities fought a losing battle against the campaign of misinformation about mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease that fueled demonstrations against U.S. beef imports. Blogs and mobile phone text messages were widely used by the protesters. Two and a half years later, opposition parties and leftist civic groups have even more effective weapon in their fight against...