New jobs are being added as the nation’s economy gains momentum. Last month, the number of people with a job was at 23,336,000, up 469,000 from a year ago. It was the largest monthly gain since July last year. But the government has a long way to go before the jobless rate falls to a tolerable level. According to a report from Statistics Korea, the employment rate, as a percentage of the working...

When the main opposition Democratic Party proposed to rein in rising rent prices by capping their increases in January, the ruling Grand National Party accused its adversary of pushing for an irrational populist idea. In an about-face, the ruling party is now moving to adopt the proposal as its policy. Now what will the GNP say about itself? On Wednesday, the ruling party’s task force, working o...

The crisis in Japan stemming from a triple disaster ― a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a subsequent giant tsunami and blasts at a nuclear power plant ― is deepening, causing concern that it could take a toll on the Korean as well as the global economy. Korean policymakers initially said the impact of the Japanese disaster on the national economy would be temporary and limited. They need to change the...

The nuclear crisis in Japan shows no signs of abating. Fears of a major radiation leak heightened on Tuesday following two separate explosions at the earthquake-hit nuclear power plant in Fukushima. The blasts, which occurred at the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, raised radioactive levels in the surrounding areas, leading Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to urge people within 30 km of the facility to...

It seems that Seoul Education Superintendent Kwak Noh-hyun has felt an acute need to use an official residence since his election last June. This week, the Seoul Metropolitan Education Office proposed the revision of a decree on official properties to enable the acquisition of official residences for the education superintendent and vice superintendent. The office offered two reasons: First, the...

Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun came out in support of former Prime Minister Chung Un-chan in the ongoing debate on “profit sharing” between conglomerates and their subcontractors. The government’s chief economic policymaker told a National Assembly committee on Monday that he believed Chung’s idea should be given support. Yoon’s sympathizing with Chung was particularly noteworthy, as he was re...

It is ironical that President Lee Myung-bak attended the groundbreaking ceremony yesterday for a multibillion dollar nuclear power plant Korea is to build in the United Arab Emirates while world attention is directed at nuclear power stations on the northeastern coast of Japan, which was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami Friday afternoon. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan told President Le...

Cronyism is definitely a most serious social malady in this country. It is everywhere, in bureaucracy, academia, the art world, and even in court. Close personal ties between judges and lawyers lower public trust in the justice system. “Not guilty with money; guilty without money” has been the most-quoted dictum among critics of the deplorable state of our courts. Judges and prosecutors start pr...

It should not come as a surprise that many of the baby boomers, those born from 1955 to 1963, will face extreme financial difficulties when they go into retirement. They have not saved enough for retirement, into which they will start going in a couple of years. But not many realize what is in store for them. The number of baby boomers stands at 7 million, or 14 percent of the total population. ...

State-run corporations never cease to amaze us. According to a report released by Rep. Kwon Kyung-seok of the ruling Grand National Party, 22 state-run corporations spent 1.75 trillion won last year to pay bonuses to their employees, in crass disregard for their snowballing debts. These corporations paid 14.5 million won on average to each employee last year, an increase of 46.5 percent from the...

Was she a mere visa broker or a spy of a Chinese intelligence agency? This question comes to mind first when we hear that several Korean diplomats at the consulate in Shanghai are accused of having affairs with a Chinese woman and leaking classified information to her. The scandal first surfaced in November last year but the ministries whose officers were suspected of being involved in it did no...

Translating legal documents from one language to another is anything but easy, and all the more so, given that less than clear-cut wording found in the original is often a source of legal dispute. It may be human to err in such a case. But a mismatch between figures in the original and the corresponding ones in a translated version is not a matter concerning translation. Such an error results fr...

Jang Ja-yeon, an aspiring actress, killed herself in March 2009, claiming that she had been forced into prostitution by her management agency. Those who had allegedly been provided with sexual favors included top business managers and news media representatives. Her suicide caused a public uproar, forcing the police to launch a seemingly extensive probe into the sexual slavery case. But the inve...

The anti-Gadhafi uprising in Libya entered its fourth week and the nation is sliding toward a civil war while the international community can find no effective way of intervening in the situation to stop the violence. The outside world is unable to estimate casualty figures even approximately, as fighting goes on in population centers along the northern coast. All the Western powers and the Unite...

In the highly confrontational politics in this country, the ruling and opposition parties rarely act in unison over a legislative plan. The almost only exceptions are when bills are proposed to raise the allowances of the members of the National Assembly or to create new positions for legislative aides. Parties were about to make an important entry in the short list of legislations with bipartis...