In Korea, the Cabinet has recently approved a free trade agreement with the United States ― a formality undertaken before the bilateral pact is sent to the National Assembly for ratification. On the other side of the globe, the European Parliament has been taking final steps to approve a similar accord with Korea. The Korean legislature will soon have to act on the two free trade agreements. But...

The term “summit talks” has made a comeback in Korean politics. It refers to a meeting between the president and the head of the main opposition party aiming to settle pending political issues in one stroke. Yet, the ongoing maneuvers involving the two major parties and the Blue House in arranging a meeting between President Lee Myung-bak and Democratic Party Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu are only making...

The situation in Egypt remains hazy after two weeks of protests while a caretaker vice president is announcing a series of concessions on behalf of President Hosni Mubarak. The cabinet was replaced, the top leaders of the ruling party were purged and many promises were made to guarantee freedom of the press and other civil liberties. Most importantly, Vice President Omar Suleiman is meeting repre...

Changing the republic’s Constitution needs a national consensus. As we perceive it, what stands in the way to constitutional amendment now is national indifference. In his televised roundtable a week ago, President Lee Myung-bak revealed his wishes to have the basic law revised during his tenure, but his political desire is not shared by a significant number of lawmakers even in his own party. P...

It is regrettable that President Lee Myung-bak’s remarks on the “science-business belt” plan in his New Year roundtable brewed strong protests from the Chungcheong-Daejeon region. The live-televised “free discussion” session on Feb. 1 designed to improve the president’s communication with the people only caused deep disappointment to those who had believed their province would host the 3.5 trilli...

The National Assembly is required to open an extraordinary session on each even-numbered month. As such, it should have opened a session on Feb. 1, then gone into recess for the Lunar New Year holiday. But it was put back until Feb. 14, after objections from the opposition Democratic Party, which had been angered by the railroading in December of the 2011 budget bill by the ruling Grand National ...

After a long lunar New Year holiday, ranging from five days to nine days, corporate enterprises are returning to business as usual. But some of them may have to brace for disruptions on their work sites, because the days of industrial peace may be numbered for them. The reason is that the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, a hitherto nonviolent labor umbrella group, has started to flex its muscl...

By all accounts, Hosni Mubarak’s days are numbered in Egypt. The outside world sees two possibilities about the future of the largest country in the Middle East: It could become a second Iran, a nightmare for the globally-caring United States and the Western community in general, or the predominantly Islam nation of 80 million could gain democracy while remaining a friend and ally of Washington a...

In January 2008, when the transition committee for president-elect Lee Myung-bak decided to abolish the Ministry of Science and Technology to put his campaign pledge of small government into practice, an array of academics and industrialists raised strong objections. They feared that absence of a central administration agency responsible for promotion of science and technology would inevitably ca...

When he faced a high wave of public protests over the U.S. beef import issue in 2008, the just-inaugurated President Lee Myung-bak vowed to enhance “public communication.” The president had a painful recognition that the arrogance from having earned the highest supporting rate in recent elections had quickly turned the people away from the new administration. About the harm of mad cow disease, th...

The Federation of Korean Industries, the lobbying body for larger businesses, has been virtually headless for the past seven months since its chairman, Cho Suk-rae, 75, of the Hyosung Group, expressed his intent to resign for health reasons. None of the heads of leading corporations is willing to take over. It is ironic that the honorable position that traditionally represented the business worl...

The government has hinted at a delay in launching a greenhouse gas emission trading system. A government bill put on public notice last November set the start date on Jan. 1, 2013. The Presidential Committee on Green Growth reported to President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday it would make the bill more flexible regarding the timing of implementation and allocation of emissions permits before submitti...

The decision by Standard & Poor’s to cut Japan’s sovereign credit rating by a notch to AA minus has again highlighted the fiscal mess that the Tokyo government has gotten itself into. Japan’s public debt is expected to hit 204 percent of GDP this year, the world’s highest ratio. The liabilities are forecast to surpass 1,000 trillion yen next year and, according to the International Monetary Fund...

North Korea’s chronic food shortage is no secret. Still, few would have imagined that underfed soldiers go AWOL, take farm animals away from nearby houses for food or rob civilians of their personal possessions. That is what Radio Free Asia of the United States has recently reported, quoting North Korean residents. It also reported the North Korean military has virtually canceled an annual winter...

The foot-and-mouth disease does not show any sign of subsiding. It has already spread to almost all regions in the nation. Shielded so far from the scourge of the animal disease are only two regions ― the two Jeolla provinces and Jeju Island. More than 2.7 million head of cows and pigs have been culled since the first case of the disease was reported in North Gyeongsang Province in late November...