Both the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party committed themselves to upholding preset criteria when they started screening applicants for parliamentary nomination last month.But the processes are so ridden by factional strife that many applicants have threatened to run in the elections as independents if they fail to win nomination. Claiming that the processes are biased against them, they are revolting against party leaders and other powerful figures that are su

It is unthinkable for an incumbent court judge to ask a prosecutor to charge a person he has a grudge against ― so unthinkable that the code of ethics for judges has no mention of it in its guidelines.But a podcaster has recently accused Judge Kim Jae-ho of doing just that. He accused him of calling on a prosecutor to take action against an investigative reporter who was critical of his wife, Na Kyung-won. Na made an unsuccessful bid for the post of Seoul mayor last October.Kim is keeping silent

The prosecutors’ office has decided to launch a criminal investigation against Rep. Lee Sang-deuk. The law-enforcement agency says it will look into the large sum of money of unknown origin that is deposited in the bank account of one of his secretaries. Few believe the investigation will be limited to that individual case, given all the bribery suspicions against him, both old and new.The investigation will undoubtedly draw great public attention, not only because he is a senior lawmaker but be

Chalk up another win for the law of unintended consequences. When federal courts ruled in 2010 against restricting donations to political action committees, Republican strategists rejoiced. Here, they thought, was a way for the GOP’s deep-pocketed donors to gain an advantage over President Obama’s fundraising machine.But look what happened. “Super PACs,” as the newly empowered political action committees are known, have mutated like election-year Godzillas, wreaking havoc in an increasingly bloo

Washington had Watergate, Italy bunga bunga-gate, London Murdoch-gate. Now, Hong Kong brings us basement-gate. It’s a scandal that many of us outside the city of 7 million might find hard to fathom. Henry Tang, the favorite to be Hong Kong’s next leader, has an illegal basement. In my mind, that’s only a problem if you are storing drugs, trafficking humans or evading taxes. For Hong Kong residents squeezed by surging rents and living costs, Tang’s underground aerie, which he built without a gove

What is the logic behind the Obama administration’s policy toward Afghanistan? On its face, it makes no sense.In 2009, President Obama ordered a major buildup of forces to counter alarming gains by the Taliban and the Haqqani network. The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan increased from 34,000 when he took office to nearly 100,000 in 2010. To oversee the buildup he sent two top Army generals, Stanley A. McChrystal and then David H. Petraeus, to design and implement a comprehensive counterinsu

Marie Colvin and I covered our first combat together in 1986, after the U.S. bombed Libya. She was 30, pretty, ambitious and talented. She soon had Col. Moammar Gadhafi and his aides in her thrall and parlayed her many scoops for United Press International into a job as a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London.I last saw her a year ago, in Cairo during the revolution. Three decades of bearing witness to war showed in her face: I recognized her only from her black eye patch, which s

It seems cosmically appropriate that gambling house odds are on “The Artist” to win this year’s Academy Award for best picture. The Weinstein Co.’s paean to the end of the silent movie era is an apt metaphor for an industry upended by new technologies. Whether or not “The Artist” gets an Oscar statuette, the film can teach Hollywood an important lesson: Once technical barriers are broken, they can never be rebuilt. The arrival of talkies required the industry to rethink an antiquated business mo

Imagine if you could hear directly, albeit anonymously, from the normally secretive bankers and traders who manufactured and sold the trillions of dollars in toxic debt securities that pushed the world’s financial system to the brink of disaster in 2008. Would they defend themselves and their actions, or show a degree of remorse for what they caused and have not been held accountable for? Well, you can find the answer to that question in “Conversations With Wall Street,” a compact ― and largely

Should the U.S. be willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for Taipei? It’s horrendous to contemplate, but it’s the kind of question that underlies a simmering debate over U.S. policy toward Taiwan. As China’s economic and military power grows, and Taiwan’s long-term future remains unclear, that debate deserves a wider airing. The tension, and the stakes, will only increase as the Obama administration undertakes its much-trumpeted “pivot” to Asia. Taiwan didn’t surface as a big issue in Chinese Vice Pr

After a recent trip to the Middle East, President Lee Myung-bak has repeatedly urged Korean companies to grab new business opportunities in the region, saying it is in the midst of an oil boom reminiscent of the 1970s and ‘80s. He has also encouraged young people looking for a job to lift up their gaze and look beyond the small domestic market.Lee, formerly president of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co., has recently visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the three key