Since the government unveiled its “low carbon, green growth” vision in August 2008, the nation’s renewable energy industry has achieved impressive growth. Between 2007 and 2010, the industry’s aggregate sales jumped 6.5-fold, its export revenue surged 7.3-fold and the size of its workforce expanded 3.7-fold.The industry’s rapid growth prompted major Korean corporations to jump on the clean energy bandwagon. They announced large-scale investment plans one after another. This rush boosted expectat

Policymakers often cause confusion by announcing well-intended but not-fully-thought-out measures. A case in point is one of the measures announced Sunday by the Prime Minister’s Office to help baby boomers push back retirement. The office announced that the government would grant workers aged 50 and older the right to request reduced hours in the run-up to retirement and thereby extend employment.The PMO said the scheme was intended to help senior workers prepare for their new jobs after retire

Memorial services were held in Annapurna this week for Park Young-seok and his two younger colleagues, who went missing in the Himalayas. Korea lost another public hero, but the tragedy will not stop the legion of Korean men and women from continuing to challenge extreme conditions in the world’s highest peaks, deserts and polar regions. During the 1990s, Park and his rival climbers Um Hong-gil mounted a thrilling competition to scale all the highest mountains in the Himalayas. Park became the e

As Danica, one of the babies chosen by the United Nations to symbolize the 7 billionth person in the world, was crying at the bosom of her mother Camille in a maternity hospital in Manila, experts and government policy makers presented forecasts and countermeasures about the still fast-growing world population.It was in 1999 that then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan held an infant boy in Bosnia-Herzegovina in his arms to congratulate the 6 billionth birth to the world while at the same time is

Few would be surprised if the ruling Grand National Party resorted to its majority power to ram the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill through the National Assembly at any time. The GNP must believe it has accumulated enough justification to do so while the main opposition party has weak logic to ask for public support for its rejection of the bill. Rep. Chung Dong-young is in the center of the DP’s illogical and unreasonable behavior in the KORUS FTA tussle. By early last week, the two partie

Extremely contrasting economic and environmental forecasts for the new “Ara Canal” between Incheon on the West Sea and Gimpo at the mouth of the Han River make it hard for the public to assess the project. When the 18-kilometer waterway opened Saturday after on-and-off construction work over nearly two decades, the minister of homeland and marine affairs and the chiefs of Gyeonggi and Incheon provincial governments joined in celebrations. A cruise boat was launched with hundreds of curious sight

One surprising aspect of the Oct. 26 Seoul mayoral by-election was young voters’ massive support for the unified opposition candidate, Park Won-soon. Exit polls showed he received support from 69.3 percent of voters in their 20s, 75.8 percent of voters in their 30s and 66.8 percent of voters in their 40s. This contrasted with 43.1 percent support he received from voters in their 50s and 30.4 percent from voters aged 60 and older. Young voters in Korea have traditionally preferred liberal candida

The government has rolled up its sleeves to foster the domestic software industry. On Thursday, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy unveiled a package of measures that called for, among other things, banning large system-integrating companies affiliated with chaebol groups from participating in public-sector information system projects.The ministry’s plan caused an immediate uproar in the system-integration industry as it would prohibit starting next year the 65 SI units of the nation’s 55 largest

The Korean economy is losing vitality fast, making it impossible to attain this year’s growth target that has already been revised downward to 4.3 percent. The year-on-year growth dropped to 3.4 percent in the third quarter, the lowest since the third quarter of 2009.Given that the three-quarter average stood at 3.7 percent, the nation’s economy would have to push up the final quarter’s growth beyond the 6 percent level to attain the 2011 growth target. That would be an impossible job, with the

One quote popularized by Mark Twain says: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” This quote should undoubtedly appeal to well educated young Korean people with no jobs, who question the validity of official statistics about youth unemployment.A young man fresh out of university may find that half his former classmates have yet to land jobs. But he is told by Statistics Korea that the unemployment rate among young people stood at a mere 6.3 percent in September. What h

For too long, Korea’s political parties have failed to meet the people’s needs, engaging in endless conflict with each other and within themselves and neglecting their legislative missions. In elections, voters resignedly swung from one party to another, but in the latest Seoul mayoral by-election, they had an alternative; a “people’s candidate” emerged and the frustrated electorate chose him. The victory of lawyer-activist Park Won-soon meant the defeat of the two major parties to people power

The chief defense officials of Korea and the United States hold their annual security talks in Seoul today with Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at the head of each side. Ministers and top generals of the two allies have got together each year without interruption for over four decades to review the security situation on and around the Korean Peninsula and discuss efforts to meet common challenges. The Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting not only sign

With the important Seoul mayoral by-election over, rival parties are now required to tackle a still more important issue without further delay ― the ratification of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. To thrash out the differences among the parties, the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee organized four rounds of intensive debate from Oct. 20-24. Lawmakers and experts from the government and academia discussed the merits and demerits of the trade deal for more t

Cho Hyun-oh, commissioner general of the National Police Agency, has declared war on organized crime. The police chief told a press conference on Tuesday that he has launched a sweeping crackdown on the 220 gangs that operate in the nation. The members of these factions are estimated at some 5,500.Cho said he has ordered police officers to use all devices and equipment available, including firearms, to round up these gangsters.The war against organized gangsters was prompted by the failure of po

When Seoul citizens go to the polls today, their minds will be more focused on which way the Republic of Korea should be directed rather than what the capital city administration should do.Both candidates Na Kyung-won from the conservative ruling Grand National Party and Park Won-soon supported by a coalition of opposition parties and liberal civic groups had jurist careers and no experience in municipal administration. They debated over some welfare and city development policies, but their two