The Philippines sent a special envoy to Taipei on Monday to explain away a misunderstanding in regard to its deportation of 14 Taiwanese nationals to China rather than Taiwan for trial on fraud charges. Manuel Roxas, a former senator and confidant of Filipino President Benigno Aquino III, refused to apologize on Wednesday for what Manila calls a regrettable incident. It all started right after 24

According to a recent newspaper opinion poll, 44.7 percent of the respondents approved of President Lee Myung-bak’s performance in the past three years of his presidency. On the other hand, the rate of disapproval stood at 51.4 percent.Responses to another poll, this one commissioned by a business daily, were far less favorable. More than 54 percent of the respondents said they were worse off now

Fear of a bank run is subsiding after the five savings banks whose capital adequacy ratios are lower than the 5 percent mark, and three other insolvent ones, were forced to suspend operations during the past two months. But the financial regulators still have much work to do before they declare the crisis over.The latest case involved a Chuncheon-based savings bank, which the Financial Services Co

It’s good to see the boys of summer back on the baseball field. It will be even better if more players take the field without a pinch of chewing tobacco tucked under their lower lips.Sure, that puffed-out jaw of Lenny “Nails” Dykstra will live in the memory of every Philadelphia Phillies’ fan who ever watched him tear up the base paths. And ballplayers’ chewing habit goes back more than a century,

The expanded Kansai regional alliance, which has the promise of becoming the first such organization to achieve efficient administration beyond prefectural boundaries, is hard at work.In this connection, there is no need to be obsessed with prefectural administrative borders in effect since the Meiji era (1868-1912). Transport conditions and the communications environment have changed drastically

China has taken giant strides toward economic and social development. This has expedited its transformation from the previous class structure of workers, farmers, cadres and intellectuals to a more complicated one that comprises more classes and groups. To find the best way to handle and coordinate the interests of all classes and groups in today’s changed and pluralistic society and form a vigoro

A 50-strong Indonesian government and business delegation visited Seoul for three days last week to promote trade and cooperation in defense industry projects. The group, which included defense, industry, trade, economic planning and investment ministers, came here under an agreement between President Lee Myung-bak and Susilo Yudhoyono in Bali last December.They made a courtesy call on the Blue Ho

Moammar Gadhafi of Libya looked firmly in control when popular protests brought down the autocratic ruler in Tunisia to the west and toppled another long-running regime in Egypt to the east weeks ago. Even when angry residents of some Libyan cities stormed into the construction sites of Korean firms, injuring workers and destroying furniture, it was seen as a simple outburst of discontent at the g

President Obama’s new budget contains no serious proposal for solving two of the biggest fiscal problems facing the federal government: Medicare and Social Security. And though Republican leaders in Congress are happy to take swipes at his proposals, they haven’t come up with a serious plan of their own to fix those popular programs either.But one potential Republican presidential candidate recent