A political storm is brewing over the fate of a 103-year-old public hospital in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, which faces a forced closure due to its chronic operational deficit.Kicking up the storm is Hong Joon-pyo, former chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party, who was elected the province’s governor in December. The pushy politician is determined to shut down the nation’s second-oldest public hospital despite calls for caution from the central government.Under Hong’s instruction, the provin

The Bank of Korea is under growing pressure from the ruling Saenuri Party and the government to lower the benchmark interest rate at its meeting scheduled for April 11. The bank has left the policy interest rate unchanged at 2.75 percent after a 25 basis point cut in October. Earlier this month, Lee Hahn-koo, floor leader of the ruling party, openly urged the central bank to “play a role in stimulating the economy” by lowering the key interest rate and raising the aggregate lending limit for sma

Maybe it’s spring fever or maybe it’s the centrifugal force from all that Sheryl Sandberg-led “leaning in,” but it’s been a big week for outrage about women and their place.Last week, Princeton alumna and parent Susan A. Patton published a letter in the Daily Princetonian urging female students to “find a husband on campus before you graduate,” lest they’re forced to search for a mate among the teeming masses of the outside world. The letter triggered such a severe case of blogospheric dyspepsia

The president and a few other prominent Democrats are openly suggesting that Social Security payments be reduced by applying a lower adjustment for inflation, and that Medicare be means-tested.This is even before Democrats have begun formal budget negotiations with Republicans ― who still refuse to raise taxes on the rich, close tax loopholes the rich depend on (such as hedge-fund and private-equity managers’ “carried interest”), increase capital gains taxes on the wealthy, cap tax deductions or

As the American baseball season begins, it seems appropriate to borrow an analogy from the sport: Will the “can’t miss” young phenomenon of the political world, Senator Marco Rubio, be able to play in the big leagues? The immigration battle affords a good test. The conservative Florida Republican is part of a small group of lawmakers trying to fashion a comprehensive immigration measure that creates a pathway to citizenship for most of the estimated 11 million undocumented workers, changes the c

The Obama administration is reacting responsibly to a series of provocations from North Korea, shoring up defenses while seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis. But even if North Korea is deterred from attacking South Korea or U.S. forces for the foreseeable future, the defiance it has demonstrated in the last several weeks renders more elusive than ever achievement of the administration’s ultimate goal: a Korean peninsula without nuclear weapons.Last month the U.N. Security Council ― inclu

Putting an age restriction on buying the most common emergency contraception over the counter was never sound from a medical point of view. Now a federal judge has upset the political calculus behind the restriction, as well. By the time the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided, in late 2011, to lift the rule that girls under age 17 need a prescription for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s Plan B, the pill’s safety was well-established. What’s more, research had shown that the drug, whi

CAMBRIDGE ― The election of the first non-European pope is long overdue. After all, Pope Francis’s native region, Latin America, is currently home to nearly half (44 percent) of the world’s Catholics. But the Catholic Church is increasingly losing out to Protestant competition there and elsewhere.Just look at the statistics. Evangelicalism is the fastest-growing world religion by conversion ― a trend that underlies the strong expansion of Protestantism in traditionally Roman Catholic Latin Ameri

PARIS ― Be careful about how you interpret what you’re seeing, as your eyes might be deceiving you. That’s the advice I offered viewers the other day on Russia’s global TV network’s flagship program, “CrossTalk,” when explaining that capitalism isn’t facing any sort of crisis, but rather is just being subverted by socialists, Wall Street con artists and various anti-capitalist wishful thinkers who are corrupting the once-straightforward relationship between work and benefit.It has become common

ISTANBUL ― Talking with members of Congress at a gathering here last week was an education in the public’s wariness of new foreign entanglements ― especially in Syria. It was a reminder that the post-Iraq era is only beginning, and that it may limit America’s ability to exercise power for the next few years. The great advantage (and on occasion, disadvantage) of the House of Representatives is that its members are so close to their constituents. Most of them spend every nearly weekend back home

Your editorial entitled “Walking a tightrope” (March 30-31) took issue with the recent remark of Korea’s new Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae that South Korea is preparing to propose a reunion of separated families and reopening of long-stalled dialogue with North Korea. The editorial said that it’s ill-timed and inappropriate to say so when the North is threatening a nuclear war against the South. It even said that Ryoo’s proposal “could be denounced as a policy of appeasement.” However, we r

It was not long ago when I heard that Kim Jeong-hoon, former president of Bell Labs, had been offered a job in the new South Korean Cabinet. I later learned that he withdrew his candidacy and returned to the United States. After this experience, Kim contributed an article titled “A Return to South Korea, Thwarted by Nationalism” to the Washington Post, in which he advised his fellow Koreans to embrace diversity and use transnational resources to achieve a greater economy. In this article, Kim al

The Bank of Japan’s new governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, didn’t disappoint investors with his announcement on Thursday: He laid out plans for the biggest, fastest unconventional monetary stimulus any large economy has ever seen. By definition, financial markets never expect “shock and awe,” but they expect it least of all from the hyper-cautious BOJ. For once, for the first time anybody can recall, “shock and awe” is what they got. On balance, this bold move is the right one. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

On his first foreign foray as China’s new president, Xi Jinping visited Russia and then Tanzania, two countries with which China has frosty relations at best.“China and Russia, as the biggest neighbors of each other, share many commonalities,” Xi declared in Moscow. But in truth the two nations carry on carefully crafted civility, and that’s all.“All of Africa is China’s friend,” Xi said in Dar es Salaam, Tazania. But many Africans say they hold a different view.“China takes our primary goods an

The shadow economy, or the sum of economic activities that are not declared for tax purposes and are usually carried out in exchange for cash, is estimated to be equivalent to 20-25 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. President Park Geun-hye’s administration, which has declared a war on the shadow economy, is aiming at reducing its size to 10-15 percent of GDP.In a report to President Park earlier in the week, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said the efforts to bring the shadowy

’The industrial complex South Korea built for its small and medium-sized business enterprises in North Korea in 2003 is at a crossroads between its survival as a model of inter-Korean cooperation and its demise as a victim of escalating cross-border military tension. An entry ban imposed by Pyongyang on South Korean commuters has posed one of the greatest threats to the Gaeseong complex’s survival since its construction.On Wednesday, Pyongyang started to ban the entry of South Korean commuters a

The threats from Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s young, untested leader, are extreme even by the paranoid standards of the dynastic dictatorship that has led the country since 1945.Kim’s bellicosity is likely intended to consolidate domestic political and military standing, as well as to extricate concessions from a wary, weary global community. Even so, a military miscalculation could plunge the region into war. The global community must take the threats seriously and apply maximum pressure on North

Can the world just take a long, deep breath about North Korea? This isn’t a trick question, but a plea for a moment of sobriety amid Kim Jong-un’s tantrums. Rather than obsess over his nuclear capabilities, the firepower of his adjectives or the amount of foam at his mouth, let’s consider what Kim is up to. After barely a year running the family business, the Kim Dynasty, the Swiss-educated 30-ish dictator still has a bunch of trigger-happy generals looking over his shoulder. He’s showing them h

Government agencies are competitively pouring out measures geared toward venture companies. Economy-related ministries invariably present plans aimed at supporting venture businesses when they report their 2013 business plans to President Park Geun-hye.The policy focus on venture companies is natural as Park’s vision of building a “creative economy” cannot be attained without a prosperous venture sector. A creative economy is driven primarily by a brisk commercialization of innovative ideas, a j

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has boosted expectations here for an early revision of the nuclear accord between Seoul and Washington by saying that the thorny issue could be settled before early next month.After talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se in Washington on Tuesday, Kerry said in a news conference that he was “very hopeful that this can be resolved before the visit of President Park Geun-hye.” Park is scheduled to visit Washington in early May for a summit with U.S.