Korea is set to make its third and final attempt to launch a satellite using the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, a carrier rocket developed with the assistance of Russia. If weather conditions allow, the KSLV-1, also called the Naro-1, will blast off from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, on the southwestern coast of the nation, Friday afternoon to put a science satellite into orbit 302 kilometers above the earth. All necessary pre-launch preparations and checks have been made, except a final dry-

It goes without saying that South Korea has to deal resolutely with any unprovoked security threat from North Korea. It has every right to retaliate against a North Korean attack many times more, as it promises. Failure to do so would make the South Korean military look like a paper tiger, encouraging bolder hostilities from the North.But North Korea’s latest threat to launch an artillery strike against the Imjin Pavillion in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, was a different situation. It was a response

Only a month is left until registration starts for presidential candidates. Park Geun-hye is set to register with the National Election Commission as the standard-bearer of the ruling Saenuri Party on Nov. 25 or 26.However, it is not clear yet who will register as Park’s main adversary ― Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party, the popular, independent Ahn Cheol-soo, or both. Moon and Ahn, who have promised to make a deal on who of the two will represent the opposition, have y

Korea had a string of successes last week on the international stage. It was selected Saturday to be home to the Green Climate Fund, a U.N. fund launched in 2011 to help fight global warming by funneling money from developed to developing countries. A day earlier, Korea won the right to host the next biennial meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at the end of its 11th session in Hyderabad, India. On Thursday, the country was elected as a non-permanen

The issue of how to coordinate investigative authority between the prosecution and the police is resurfacing as major presidential candidates have expressed their intent to address it as part of campaign pledges to reform the prosecution.For the past decades, the two powerful agencies have been at the loggerheads over whether to allow the police independent investigative rights. The latest clash came last year when a parliamentary committee on judicial reform pushed to revise the code of crimina

South Korea’s election as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the years 2013-14 is another manifestation of its growing influence on the global stage. The Security Council is the most powerful U.N. organ. It is entitled to make legally binding decisions on issues related to international peace and security. Only the council can authorize military action or economic sanctions against a country that threatens global peace or engages in acts of aggression.As such, a se

North Korea has started to drop tax bombs on South Korean companies operating in the Gaeseong industrial complex in the North.According to reports, Pyongyang has recently imposed corporate income and business taxes totaling $160,000 on eight of the 123 South Korean companies in the complex.Of the eight firms, one was slapped with $87,000 while another was levied $30,000. One company has already paid about $20,000 in taxes to the North.Pyongyang has also told 21 companies to submit various docume

In Korea, autumn is ― more accurately, used to be ― called the season for reading for its pleasantly cool weather and extended night hours. Around this time of year, many events and programs were arranged by the news media and publishers to encourage people to read more books to deepen their thinking and improve their quality of life.In recent years, however, the intellectual description of autumn has hardly been heard of and efforts to boost the season for reading have dwindled. This fall, it s

Pictures of Japanese ministers and politicians visiting a war shrine in Tokyo this week remind us again of the deep-seated historical obstacle to building a friendly partnership among Northeast Asian neighbors whose ties have already been frayed over rekindled territorial disputes.Two cabinet members and 67 parliamentarians paid respects at Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 2.5 million war dead including 14 convicted Class A war criminals from World War II, Thursday, a day after opposition party lea

A government plan aimed at preventing large corporations from poaching skilled workers from small and medium-sized enterprises has sparked controversy.In a bid to stem the brain drain plaguing SMEs, the Ministry of Employment and Labor is set to unveil a guideline on compensation that big businesses will be required to pay SMEs for recruiting their core employees. The scheme is intended to address the free rider problem of large companies hiring away workers for whom SMEs have invested in traini

It was unfortunate that a Chinese fisherman was killed on Tuesday during a Korean Coast Guard raid on Chinese boats fishing illegally in South Korean waters in the West Sea.The fisherman was hit by a rubber bullet fired by a Korean Coast Guard officer, who felt threatened as Chinese fishermen wielded deadly weapons such as hacksaws and knives to stop the Coast Guard from seizing their boats.The Seoul government allowed Coast Guard commandos to fire rubber bullets against Chinese fishermen early

The ruling and opposition parties, crafting pledges for the upcoming presidential election, are moving to rein in the prosecution, which exercises near absolute power in legal proceedings against criminal suspects. The parties share with the public a belief that criminal justice cannot be properly administered without reforming the prosecution.Their desire to subject the prosecution to greater control reflects the growing public distrust in the law enforcement agency, which has often been denoun

Park Won-soon, who was elected Seoul mayor last year, will now have to make a choice between two of his key election promises ― cutting the city’s debt by 7 trillion won ($6.5 billion) and the building of 80,000 low-rent homes, both by 2014. That is the conclusion of a recent report on the metropolitan government’s finances.According to the report commissioned by the metropolitan government, Seoul had a debt of 18.7 trillion won at the end of last year ― not a small sum by any measure. No less t

Hundreds of African government officials and business leaders are gathering here to attend a variety of events aimed at enhancing ties between Korea and the continent.The designation of the Korea-Africa Cooperation Week, which continues through Thursday, reflects Seoul’s eagerness to get closer to the resource-rich region with a growing population and market. About 300 high-level figures from more than 50 African countries have been invited to discuss a broad range of cooperation with their Kore

Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin publicly apologized Monday for the undetected defection early this month of a North Korean soldier across the heavily armed inter-Korean border. He pledged to sternly punish military officers responsible for the incident and thoroughly investigate flaws in the front-line guard system. All necessary measures should be taken to prevent such grave border security failure from being repeated in the future. It cannot be excused for any reason that no one detected the Nor