One of the first things an undergraduate is required to learn is give due credit whenever he uses another person’s ideas, thoughts or expressions. Otherwise, they will be accused of presenting them as their original work and, by doing so, purloining them.They are also required to give credit to any piece of information, be it a fact or a statistic, when it is not deemed to be common knowledge. It is the same with paraphrased words, either spoken or written, of another person. They must adhere to

Rep. Chung Mong-joon of the ruling Saenuri Party declared his bid for the presidency on Sunday. He was the second politician, after Gyeonggi Gov. Kim Moon-soo, to make public his plan to fight for the ruling party’s presidential nomination. With Kim and Chung apparently aiming to get the advantage of moving first, competition is not likely to get into full swing until after it holds a national convention on May 15 to elect its leadership.It is the same with the main opposition Democratic United

The war between Korea and Japan over the name of the sea separating the two countries is shifting into a new phase as the International Hydrographic Organization, the global authority on the names and locations of seas and oceans, has delayed a decision on the naming dispute to 2017.The IHO held a general meeting in Monaco to update its publication dubbed “Limits of Oceans and Seas,” a document considered the most authoritative when it comes to oceanic boundaries and names. Better known as S-23,

Each year, the National Tax Service launches a special tax probe on self-employed professionals suspected of underreporting their incomes. In 2010, it zeroed in on 150 luxury businesses, such as plastic surgery clinics, skincare clinics and beauty parlors.Wrapping up its two-year-long probe, the tax office announced on Tuesday it has collected a total of 100.2 billion won in back taxes from the businesses. The investigation result is disturbing as it suggests rampant tax evasion among people eng

Moral perfection, together with omnipotence, is in the realm of deity. It is beyond the power of humanity. Nonetheless, President Lee Myung-bak had the audacity to claim that his was the “morally perfect administration.”On Sept. 30, 2011, he was quoted as saying at a conference with his top aides, “Ours is a morally perfect administration. As such, not even the smallest blemish should be left upon it.”When this remark was made public, his aides rushed to tone it down: He meant to say that he too

Prudence appeared to have prevailed when President Lee Myung-bak’s administration decided not to take any action to halt customs clearance of U.S. beef imports immediately after mad cow disease was found in a dairy cow earlier in the week. Korean officials cited a lack of sufficient information as the reason.In making the decision, the Korean administration apparently accepted the U.S. assurance, at least for now, that meat from the dairy cow did not enter the food chain and that there was no ca

The Bank of Korea has released a report highlighting the negative impact of the sustained growth of household and government debt on the economy. One of the report’s main points is that the Korean economy is already caught in a debt trap.The bank does not see the household debt bomb detonating any time soon to trigger a fresh financial crisis. Yet it urges concerted government efforts to defuse it because it has begun to undermine the fundamentals of the languishing national economy, The nation’

On Tuesday, lawmakers of the rival political parties were supposed to hold the last plenary session of the 18th National Assembly before its term expires on May 28. Yet the session was canceled due to their differences on a bill aimed at preventing physical clashes between legislators.The cancellation of the session has put the fate of many important bills in limbo, including those related to people’s livelihoods. They included a bill on making over-the-counter drugs available at non-pharmacy ou

North Korean hysteria against the South has reached new heights with its military, government and party organizations competing to hurl the worst-ever verbal provocations, with threats of imminent “retaliatory attacks” on President Lee Myung-bak and other “anti-North” forces here. The harsher its words become, the calmer our response should be.On Monday, a People’s Army outfit called the “Special Operations Action Group” made a “notice” to the South via the North’s official Central News Agency,

Choi Si-joong resigned from his second term as chairman of the Broadcasting and Communications Commission earlier this year when one of his close aides was accused of corruption. The former journalist who is known as a “mentor” of President Lee is now under investigation for receiving hundreds of million won from a construction businessman while he was helping Lee’s presidential campaign in 2007.Over the past four years, Choi is considered a senior member of the president’s inner circle, along w

For millennia, East Asians called the sea located to the east of the Eurasian continent East Sea, and in more recent centuries, Western navigators called it the equivalent of the East Sea or Sea of Korea or Corea. Only from the late 19th century when Japan became an imperial power, did growing political influence lead “Sea of Japan” to overtake “East Sea” in international usage. Japanese official emphasis on the Sea of Japan is connected with Tokyo’s territorial claim to Dokdo, which it calls Ta

The race for the Dec. 19 presidential vote has begun. The election management commission opened its registry for “provisional candidates” Monday. Earlier on Sunday, Gyeonggi Province Gov. Kim Moon-soo declared his candidacy first for the Saenuri Party. Park Geun-hye, Chung Mong-joon and Lee Jae-oh will follow soon.Both Saenuri and the main opposition Democratic United Party will hold nomination conventions in August. The focal issues in the two parties will be what rules they will adopt for the

The government has come up with another package of measures to bring down soaring fuel prices. The latest steps announced on Thursday, however, are unlikely to have much impact.Government officials have long blamed high fuel prices on the dominance of the four refiners ― SK Innovation, GS Caltex, Hyundai Oilbank and S-Oil ― in the domestic oil product distribution market.These big refiners earn high margins, officials explain, by forcing exclusive supply contracts on gas stations. They can impos

On Thursday, the military did something quite unusual. It released a video clip of two South Korean-developed missiles ― a cruise missile that can strike any place in North Korea from any corner of the South and a ballistic missile that can devastate an area as large as dozens of soccer fields in a single blow.The military stopped short of disclosing the names and specifications of the new missiles; it just said that they have already been deployed. But the cruise missile was believed to be the

The administration has started the process of selecting a private operator of KTX high-speed trains departing from Suseo in southern Seoul, ignoring the political community’s demand that the matter be fully debated in the National Assembly before a final decision is made. It is emerging as a national issue of contention.On Thursday, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said a consortium will be selected in July or August and that it will be given the right to operate KTX trains r