Political circles appear to be hurrying ― without thinking fully ― to adopt a controversial idea of introducing a tax on foreign exchange transactions, known as the Tobin tax. The steep appreciation of the won against the U.S. dollar, partly caused by the surging inflow of foreign capital in the wake of massive stimulus by the world’s key economies, has prompted the parties and major presidential candidates to consider enacting it.The measure would have a certain degree of effect on curbing shor

Delivering two key speeches during his visit to Seoul this week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his strong wish to contribute to a peaceful and nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.In his address before a National Assembly plenary session Tuesday, Ban said that as the U.N. chief, he was ready to play every role required of him to promote peace on the peninsula. He affirmed he was considering visiting North Korea “as soon as conditions are met.”In his acceptance speech after being awarded

The National Assembly has started deliberations on the 2013 budget bill. The government has proposed to spend 342.5 trillion won out of the expected gross revenue of 373 trillion won, using the remainder for debt repayment. This year, the government is expected to face fierce attempts by both the ruling and opposition parties to expand welfare spending and increase taxes on the rich in their bid to gain more votes in the coming presidential election.The government should rein in these populist m

Although less than 50 days are left before the Dec. 19 presidential election, major candidates have not yet presented comprehensive and detailed manifestos that show what their key policies are and how they are going to implement them. Last week, six major candidates, including the big three ― Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party, Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party and independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo ― did disclose their top 10 election pledges through the Nation

During his visit here earlier this month, Glyn Davies, U.S. special envoy for North Korea policy, took time out of his official schedule for talks with Foreign Ministry officials to hold a series of informal meetings with diplomatic and security advisers to the three major presidential candidates.According to diplomatic sources and aides to the presidential contenders, the U.S. envoy sought to grasp what policy initiatives the next administration in Seoul would take toward Pyongyang in the two d

Territorial and historical disputes between Korea and Japan have recently spilled over into an unexpected area ― U.S. soil. A wooden stake written with a slogan claiming Japan’s sovereignty over the Dokdo islets controlled by Korea was found at the entrance of the Korean consulate in New York on Saturday. A day before, a similar stake was spotted driven in beside a monument for Korean comfort women in Palisades Park in New Jersey.A right-wing Japanese activist came forward Monday to claim his gr

As international cereal prices continue to rise, the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has come up with a plan to increase the production of winter cereals, such as wheat and barley, and coarse fodders. The ministry’s response calls for increasing the sown areas of winter grains and roughage from 250,000 hectares last year to around 300,000 hectares this year using farmland that lies idle in winter.The ministry seeks to boost the self-sufficiency rate of wheat from 2 percent

A recent report of the Korea Development Institute has again called for reform of the Basic Old-age Pension plan.The pension is intended to provide income support to elders who were unable to prepare for a comfortable life in their old age. It grants the bottom 70 percent of people aged 65 or older a monthly fixed benefit of up to 94,600 won ($86).Yet the KDI report has found that the program pays benefits to many wealthy seniors who do not need them, while excluding a large number of elders who

After five months of efforts, officials at the National Archives of Korea last week succeeded in restoring a deteriorated map printed by the Japanese government in the 1930s, which shows the Dokdo islets as Korean territory. The map drawn up by the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army draws a thick line between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, which was under its colonial rule at that time, and places Dokdo and nearby Ulleungdo on the peninsula’s side.The archive officials should be praised

After the board members of the Green Climate Fund voted earlier this month to place its secretariat in Songdo, a newly developed international town in Incheon, officials here were quick to trumpet the potentially huge economic benefits of hosting the global body.Strategy and Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan said its economic impact could be considered the same as a global corporation coming to the country. Researchers estimated that hosting the secretariat of the GCF, a U.N. fund established in 201

Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. is taking applications for early retirement ― the first since it started as the shipbuilding division of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. in 1970. POSCO has dropped out of the vaunted club of corporate behemoths with 1 trillion won or more in quarterly operating profits.The two companies are among the top Korean business conglomerates that are taking a beating from the deepening global slump of European origin. But it appears that the worst is yet to come. Wi

President Lee Myung-bak’s son, Si-hyung, returned home Thursday night after 14 hours of questioning as a criminal suspect by investigators working for an independent counsel. In a new investigation into a property scandal involving the president and his family, the independent counsel is set to summon the president’s older brother, Lee Sang-eun, for questioning soon.The widening investigation is juxtaposed against an earlier decision by the prosecution to file criminal charges against none of th

Doubts are mounting over the appropriateness and efficiency of the measure to allow Koreans living abroad to cast ballots for presidential and parliamentary elections at home, as only a meager proportion of them have shown interest in exercising their voting rights.An additional amount of money can be justified to give the rising number of overseas Koreans more opportunities to express their political preference and thus increase the voter turnout to strengthen the representativeness of each ele

Independent presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo recently proposed reducing the number of parliamentary seats, now set at 300, preferably by 100. He said the money to be saved from the cut, which is estimated to reach up to 100 billion won ($90 million) per year, could be used to help alleviate youth unemployment and work out better policies.This suggestion, along with his other proposals to cut state subsidies for parties and abolish their central organizations, appears aimed at highlighting hi

Whichever of the top three candidates is elected as the next president, the administration is likely to be significantly expanded. The three candidates ― Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party, Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party and independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo ― all favor a big government and make no bones about expanding it. This is disturbing in light of Parkison’s law ― that bureaucracies tend to get bigger even when no conscious efforts are made to expand t