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 regar

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 earli

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 No

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 compr

Early last month, I was in Hanoi to attend the annual meetings of the Asian Development Bank. Hanoi was all spruced up for the visit by thousands of bankers, academics and press. The city is a blend of the old and the new. Hanoi has preserved much of its colonial French architecture, while building the new outside the city centre. Everyone seemed to be on the move, a city chock full of young peopl

NEW HAVEN ― The basic principle of financial risk management is sharing. The more broadly diversified our financial portfolios, the more people there are who share in the inevitable risks ― and the less an individual is affected by any given risk. The theoretical ideal occurs when financial contracts spread the risks all over the world, so that billions of willing investors each own a tiny share,

Student activists forcibly occupied the Seoul National University president’s office in protest against the university’s forthcoming incorporation. The illegal intrusion into the office was anything but a defensible means of conflict resolution.The university is set to be incorporated into a national university corporation in December under a law enacted last December to provide it with greater au

Tax revenues are projected to surpass this year’s target by 10 trillion won to 20 trillion won ― a blessing for a nation which had to borrow and spend its way out of the global financial crisis. With economic recovery gaining momentum, taxes collected during the first quarter increased by 4 trillion won from a year ago.Now where to spend the surplus is an issue of contention between the administra

The fate of Rep. Kang Yong-suk is hanging in balance as the National Assembly Ethics Committee has almost unanimously agreed to expel him for a series of remarks insulting specific female professionals and other acts inappropriate for a lawmaker. The committee decision made by a vote of 12 in favor and one void will be referred to the plenary session where a two-thirds approval will finally remove

Three hundred representatives of student unions staged demonstrations at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun intersection Sunday. “Cut tuition by half, provide jobs for us,” the students chanted, as they were taken to police stations. On Monday, the national association of universities and colleges held an executive council meeting to demand that the government drastically expand financial support for their schoo

North Korea has fallen victim again to floods, severe cold and failed harvests ― and the case for food assistance to stave off famine is again being dictated by strategic considerations. Serves the North right, critics of Pyongyang’s duplicitous ways would say.South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has shocked his people’s kin sensibilities by withholding any form of cooperation (not just food shipm

It’s risky to read too much into Kathy Hochul’s upset victory in a special congressional election in western New York on Tuesday ― it was, after all, just one race. Still, Hochul’s fellow Democrats are touting the outcome as a voter rebellion against the House Republican plan to transform Medicare into a subsidy program for private health coverage. If the election prompts Republicans to rethink th

KABUL, Afghanistan ― The talk of talks with the Taliban has taken on new momentum in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden.Even as the Taliban was mounting its spring offensive, Afghan officials told me of recent meetings in Qatar and Germany between U.S. officials and a Taliban official named Tayyeb Agha, who may ― or may not ― be an emissary of Mullah Omar.And there lies the rub.Secretary of

No. 1: One way to sail through the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden with peace of mind is purchasing security services. Protection Vessels International, Ltd. is one of such security corporations founded by former British special forces personnel. It provides escort and protection services to merchant ships. PVI is a maritime version of Blackwater Inc., which provides security services to officials an

The conservative ideologues in Washington discovered last week that their fond dream of privatizing Medicare is political suicide.This should not have come as a surprise. Back in early April, when the tea-partying House Republicans were preparing to vote yes on a plan to eradicate guaranteed health care for seniors ― one of the most popular government programs of the last half-century ― their own

Apparently, a lot of people consider President Obama to be bumblingly inarticulate. “The guy can’t talk his way out of a paper bag!” a reader wrote to me recently. “Sarah Palin is a brilliant speaker. It’s the president whose sentences are undiagrammable,” said another in response to a column I wrote about Palin.It’s not just my readers, nor is it exclusively conservatives, who hold this view. A G

A few days ago, U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens hosted a farewell dinner party for Patrick J. Linehan, minister-counselor for public affairs, who has been newly assigned to Osaka as consulate general. Since Linehan is my good friend, I decided to attend the dinner to bid farewell to him. When I met Linehan at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, he seemed to be genuinely sad to leave Korea, where he

Only a few days after Kim Jong-il returned to Pyongyang from a week-long tour, it may be premature to assess the outcome of the North Korean leader’s latest China visit, his third in about a year. News dispatches by official Chinese and North Korean outlets provide few clues to substantial economic gains for the North but the visit again demonstrated the deepening ties between the two neighbors an

The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-il paid a successful visit to China from May 20 to 26. The attention-grabbing event marks the further consolidation of relations between the two neighbors. It also sends a strong signal to the outside world that the two will make joint efforts to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. This is Kim’s third visit to China

Voices critical of Prime Minister Naoto Kan appear to be getting louder within the Democratic Party of Japan. One cannot give high marks to Kan for his performance as the nation’s leader in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.Even so, as Japan faces the difficult task of reconstruction and bringing the nuclear accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant under control, DPJ poli