The Korea Herald > Opinion > Editorial
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The pension funds for public servants and soldiers are like bottomless vessels. The government has to keep pouring money into them as payouts far exceed contributions. Reform of the two underfunded pension schemes is urgent, as their deficits have been snowballing due to the continued incr...
Updated : 2014.04.15 20:42
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Among the 16 standing committees of the National Assembly, the most unproductive one is the Science, ICT, Future Planning, Broadcasting and Communications Committee. Surprisingly, the committee has not passed a single legislative bill in the past eight months.The committee’s long name sug...
Updated : 2014.04.15 20:42
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The two recent cases in which children lost their lives at the hands of their stepmothers broke the hearts of many people. These cases should serve to bolster our efforts to protect children from domestic violence and other dangers. It was truly painful to learn about the details of the tw...
Updated : 2014.04.14 20:02
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The primary authority and power of lawmakers comes from Article 40 of the Constitution: “The legislative power shall be vested in the National Assembly.” Under the Constitution and relevant laws that protect and guarantee the National Assembly’s exclusive right to make laws, its members...
Updated : 2014.04.14 20:02
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Tear gas has not been used by police to disperse protesters in Korea since 1999. The decision to ban its use was made by the government of late liberal President Kim Dae-jung, who had devoted his political life to the country’s pro-democracy movement.Over the decades before the military-b...
Updated : 2014.04.13 19:43
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Japan’s conscientious civil society members last week got a significant boost to their campaign for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the country’s postwar pacifist constitution. A group formed to recommend the Japanese people as prize candidates for their efforts to maintain the constit...
Updated : 2014.04.13 19:42
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Tension is running high on the peninsula over the North Korean threat of another nuclear test. A U.S. think tank said its examination of tunnel construction work at the nuclear test site in Punggyeri indicates that the North is ready to conduct “successive” nuclear bomb tests. North Kore...
Updated : 2014.04.11 20:17
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Human capital is one of the most important factors in determining the competitiveness of a nation. It is against this backdrop that governments try to recruit and retain highly educated professionals. It is depressing, therefore, to learn that Korea is suffering from a serious brain drain,...
Updated : 2014.04.11 20:17
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Top envoys from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan warned North Korea not to take further provocative steps at talks in Washington early this week. The three countries agreed to make “united and effective” efforts to prevent the North from making further provocations, according to South Kor...
Updated : 2014.04.10 20:36
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The Finance Ministry’s announcement this week that Korea’s national debt rose to a record-high 1.117 quadrillion won ($1.06 trillion) in 2013, up from 902 trillion won a year earlier, should alarm candidates in the June local elections, who have been competitively pouring out populist ca...
Updated : 2014.04.10 20:35
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At first, the spying missions North Korea was found to have conducted using unmanned aerial vehicles were regarded as isolated cases. However, another crashed drone that was found in Gangwon Province on Sunday, and drone sightings reported by residents, now bolster the belief that the Nort...
Updated : 2014.04.09 20:39
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On Tuesday, Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, cochair of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, backed down from his demand that the opposition party forgo the selection of nominees for the upcoming municipal elections. Instead, he agreed with his cochair, Rep. Kim Han-gil, to settle the issue through...
Updated : 2014.04.09 20:38
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A bill guaranteeing the basic rights of unregistered foreign children, most of whom live with illegal immigrant parents here, was not enacted during the parliamentary session last February. There is little likelihood that it will be passed in the extra session that started on April 1, as t...
Updated : 2014.04.07 20:35
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Korean voters last week saw the rare scene of a main opposition party leader visiting Cheong Wa Dae without an appointment to ask for talks with the president.Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, cochairman of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, filled out a request for a meeting with President Park G...
Updated : 2014.04.07 20:35
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North Korea has warned again that it would carry out another nuclear test. Ri Tong-il, the North’s deputy U.N. ambassador, said Friday that the world would have to “wait and see” what his country meant when it said late last month that it would conduct a “new form of nuclear test.”On ...
Updated : 2014.04.06 20:23
