The Korea Communications Commission has recently selected a consortium formed by Yonhap News Agency as the sole successful applicant for a news-only cable TV channel license. The panel announced on Dec. 31 that among the five bidders, Yonhap News TV alone earned more than the cut-off score of 800 points. But serious questions are being raised about the fairness of the screening process. First of...

Few by now remember what the Sept. 19, 2005 and Feb. 13, 2007 agreements were in the six-party talks, while there are signs that the multilateral process will be resumed more than two years after it went into recess. To help readers’ memories, North Korea agreed, in the earlier accord, to abandon all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs and return to the NPT, while other parties vowed to provide...

Kim Young-ran, chairwoman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, cautioned everyone of the nation to guard against “the virus of corruption.” Upon her inauguration this week, the former Supreme Court justice observed that corruption was still a chronic malady in our society, although it seems fairly weakened. The new head of the corruption watchdog will now see for herself how the v...

About 10 presidential hopefuls made their entries in the opinion polls conducted by major dailies and broadcasters at the beginning of the year. Park Geun-hye of the governing Grand National Party commanded supporting rates ranging from a high of 42.3 percent (MBC) to a low of 29.8 percent (Seoul Shinmun) with Ryu Shi-min of the People’s Participation Party and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon trailing nec...

From sometime in the latter part of this year, Koreans will have four new cable TV broadcasters of general programs and a news cable channel, all of which will be owned by newspapers and a news agency. The Korea Communications Commission says that the media restructuring will contribute to improvement of broadcasting content and globalization of the TV industry as well as diversification of infor...

North Korea has called for an end to confrontation with the South, urging inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation. In a joint New Year editorial issued on Saturday, the North Korean press said, “Confrontation between north and south should be defused as early as possible.” The editorial, considered Pyongyang’s New Year policy statement, also said, “Active efforts should be made to create an atmosph...

The Seoul Metropolitan Council has committed a serious violation of law in passing the capital city’s 2011 budget bill. No matter what the reason may have been, the council cannot avoid criticism for its undemocratic practice. The council, which is under the control of the main opposition Democratic Party, approved the municipal budget of 20.6 trillion won during a session held in the small hour...