As the National Assembly is to pass the government reorganization bill today, President Park Geun-hye will be able to launch her pet ministry as planned. But it is questionable whether the new ministry, dubbed the Ministry of Future Creation and Science, will be able to play its expected role.That is because the ministry will not be created in the form envisioned by the president. Its scope of business and power have been curtailed in the process of negotiations between the ruling Saenuri Party

Recent months have seen the world’s major countries making fresh moves to reshape the global trade landscape. As these developments pose serious challenges to Korea, the new Seoul government needs to assess their implications carefully and draw up countermeasures. Among the latest developments, the most notable one may be Japan’s decision to participate in Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced his bold decision on March 15. The TPP is a comprehens

There’s a new political boss in Venezuela. So far, he’s acting just like the old boss.Hugo Chavez was purportedly still in his death throes last week when his designated political heir, eager to snatch the reins of power before anyone could stop him, signaled that he was just as capable of playing the anti-American card as the dying president by summarily expelling two U.S. military attaches from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.The stated reason ― that they were conspiring against the Venezuelan gov

With the confirmation of Xi Jinping as China’s new president this month at the National People’s Congress, the political transition from the outgoing leader, Hu Jintao, is complete. Indeed, the transition effectively took place last November when the Communist Party of China chose Xi as its general secretary, because all political power in China flows from the party. With the formal NPC confirmation of Xi as the country’s new president, he will become China’s most powerful leader by combining th

Since it made a top last September, Apple’s share price has crashed more than 40 percent. The chart shows the company’s stock is now in bear territory, with prices having broken a four-year trendline in December 2012. The powerful wave that started in early 2009 at $100 and carried Apple’s share to $700 has expired. Now, what lies ahead for the former Wall Street darling?Keeping the stock price as a reference, picture four scenarios and evaluate each likelihood. In the first, we imagine Apple’s

PARIS ― A chess piece has fallen in Latin America. The road to prosperity and peace for the citizens of many countries ― probably even yours ― runs through the recent death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and a counterintuitive deal between two nations.Depending on whom you speak to, Chavez was either a jerk or a hero whose face should be immortalized as a two-tone T-shirt decal. What cannot be denied is that Transparency International rates Venezuela the most corrupt country in South Americ

March 11 marks the second anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that killed 15,881 people and left 2,668 others missing.No fewer than 315,000 people have been forced to live as evacuees, and about 160,000 of them are from Fukushima Prefecture, where the nuclear crisis broke out at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.Let us together pray anew for the repose of the victims’ souls. Reconstruction from the disaster has been delayed, and the government

Justin Lin is a celebrity in China. He is a member of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which met last week to formalize the election of Communist Party General-Secretary Xi Jinping as president of the People’s Republic of China.Lin used to be a senior vice president of the World Bank. He is also honorary director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University. In Taiwan, where he was born in 1952, however, he is a military