The Korea Herald > Opinion > Editorial
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Korea’s most recent democratization movement peaked in 1987, when popular protests forced the then-dictatorial regime to revive the direct vote to elect the president. The wave of electing leaders and representatives by direct vote spread to many institutions, including universities and n...
Updated : 2014.04.23 19:50
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No human society is free from villains. Yet seeing all the rumors, misinformation, aggravations and scams that flourish around the Sewol ferry disaster, one cannot help but wonder how airheaded, pitiless and barbaric human beings can become. Since the Sewol sank more than a week ago, the I...
Updated : 2014.04.23 19:50
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It was an expected conclusion that a parliamentary subcommittee ended three months of discussion on whether and how to reduce working hours with no concrete conclusion. Members of the subpanel under the National Assembly’s Environmental and Labor Committee failed to settle differences at ...
Updated : 2014.04.22 20:40
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It can hardly be possible to fathom, let alone help relieve, the agony of families of the victims in last week’s sinking of a ferry with 476 passengers on board, many of whom were teenagers on a school field trip.For most grieving parents, the 250 dead or missing students are their only s...
Updated : 2014.04.22 20:40
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The tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry is raising questions about school trips. Parents are reportedly bombarding schools with phone calls to urge them to cancel their planned field trips. Their reaction is understandable, as on board the ill-fated ship were 325 students from Danwon High Sc...
Updated : 2014.04.21 20:48
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The ferry disaster off the southern coast has laid bare the nation’s utter unpreparedness for major disasters. Although the government launched a new disaster response system in February after a reform last year, it has proven to be totally ineffective in handling the maritime tragedy.The...
Updated : 2014.04.21 20:48
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Accidents can happen and there could be calamities for which little can be done or explained, as in the latest case of the missing Malaysian airliner. The sinking of the ferry Sewol is not such a disaster, which deepens the pain over the loss of the lives of innocent people, many of them h...
Updated : 2014.04.20 20:07
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Korea’s financial sector is in sheer disarray. There have been so many serious cases of poor management and corruption recently that public confidence in the nation’s financial system is at rock bottom. Therefore, when the head of the top financial watchdog called a meeting with the chie...
Updated : 2014.04.20 20:07
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Korea and Japan have resumed the diplomatic dialogue that had been suspended following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in December. Diplomats from the two countries met in Seoul on Wednesday to discuss the Japanese imperial army’s coercion of Korean wome...
Updated : 2014.04.18 21:13
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The ferry that sank off the nation’s southern coast Wednesday with 475 passengers on board again brought home to us the lack of safety awareness prevalent in Korean society.The main cause of the tragedy has yet to be determined but investigators suspect that the 6,325-ton ferry Sewol lost...
Updated : 2014.04.18 21:12
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Smoking is an everlasting subject of debate. The debate usually concerns just how harmful it is to human health and the extent to which the tobacco industry should be regulated. This longstanding debate has been intensifying in Korea lately in the wake of two landmark litigations, one of w...
Updated : 2014.04.17 20:37
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The government has announced a package of measures to reduce the fiscal deficit that has been threatening the sound management of the national economy. The measures, announced earlier this week, include plans to reduce the number of government-funded projects by 600, or 10 percent, over th...
Updated : 2014.04.17 20:36
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Seoul and Tokyo have been stepping up three-way security consultations with Washington ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama’s trip to Asia next week.Senior defense officials from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan plan to hold a two-day meeting starting on Thursday in Washington. Last week, ...
Updated : 2014.04.16 20:19
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It was a belated but due step for opposition leader Kim Han-gil to issue a warning Tuesday to a party lawmaker who downplayed the Defense Ministry’s probe into the three crashed drones recently found in inter-Korean border areas as “comedy.”Rep. Jung Cheong-rae of the New Politics Allia...
Updated : 2014.04.16 20:19
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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
