For every South Korean president, dealing with superpower neighbors like China and Japan always poses challenges. Yet, no Korean leader in recent years has faced as tough a challenge as President Park Geun-hye will encounter when she hosts the Korea-China-Japan summit and the bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.  A look at some background of the three-way talks and the Park-Abe summit will indicate how heavyheartedly Park and the other two leaders will be taking their seats. 

We have already got used to downbeat economic data -- be it the growth rate, exports, youth unemployment or household debt. But the news that the combined sales of manufacturers in the country contracted last year -- for the first time since 1961 -- should ring alarm bells, and ring them very loud. The Bank of Korea said that manufacturers posted combined sales of 1,726 trillion won ($1.5 trillion) last year, 1.6 percent down from the previous year. It is hard to believe that this is the same se

We are dumbfounded to hear that trillions of won in taxpayers’ money has to be poured into Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering again as the company reels under mounting debts and losses.The company reportedly suffered operating losses of more than 3 trillion won ($2.66 billion) in the first half of the year alone. By year-end, its losses are expected to reach 5.3 trillion won.We are left speechless by the totally irresponsible behavior of the troubled company’s management and workers. Des

The third-quarter economic growth data released by the Bank of Korea last Friday had both good news and bad news.The good news is that Korea’s economic growth hit a five-year high in the July-September period. Korea saw its gross domestic product expand 1.2 percent on quarter, the fastest pace since the second quarter of 2010, when GDP grew 1.7 percent.The third-quarter growth rate compares favorably with the 0.8 percent in the first quarter and 0.3 percent in the second quarter. The GDP expansi

Debate is raging online over how to deal with street cats following the recent death of a “cat mom” in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.A cat mom refers to a person who provides food to stray cats. The police at first suspected that the Yongin woman was killed by one of her neighbors who hated people taking care of stray cats, given that she was hit by a brick while setting up a shelter for feral cats in a garden at the apartment building. But the suspect identified by the police on Friday was a 10-yea

The persisting drought has begun to take an increasingly heavy toll on crops across much of the nation. As weather forecasters warn that the drought is highly likely to last until next April, the government needs to step up efforts to secure water resources and minimize damage.The hardest hit region has been South Chungcheong Province, where the accumulated rainfall from January to September this year totaled 754 millimeters, slightly more than 60 percent of the 30-year average of 1,188 millimet

The first-ever Korean adaptation of the “Black Friday” sales in the U.S. appears to be just another sales period.While the Black Friday event in the U.S., which takes place the day after Thanksgiving, is a once-a-year deal offering steep discounts of up to 80 percent on a wide range of items, the same event here which kicked off Thursday for a two-week run is not much more than the regular autumn sale under a different name. People who flocked to department stores in search of bargains Thursday

Saenuri Party chairman Kim Moo-sung, embroiled in a highly public and bitter exchange of words with the Blue House over secure mobile phone polling for party nominations in elections, appears to have offered an olive branch, at least for now. Boycotting all official functions on Thursday, including the Armed Forces Day ceremony attended by President Park Geun-hye and a meeting of the Saenuri Party Supreme Council, Kim met with reporters at the National Assembly and rebutted the Blue House critic

Overhauling opposition　NPAD far from becoming an election-winning forceRep. Moon Jae-in, chairman of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, said the passage of reform measures by its executive members this week reflected their demand that the party should be overhauled to win future elections. But the liberal opposition party, which has been embroiled in chronic internal feuding, still seems far from becoming a credible alternative to the conservative ruling Saenuri Party. It i

Youth employment fundEfforts should focus on creating more jobsPresident Park Geun-hye has demonstrated her commitment to increasing the country’s youth employment by pledging to give 20 percent of her monthly salary each month -- on top of a 20 million won ($17,000) initial donation -- to an envisioned fund meant to help young people find jobs. Her monthly contribution will amount to about 3.4 million won, given that her annual salary is set at 205 million won this year.Disclosing the president