Maybe while President Park is in Tehran she can tell the ayatollahs to stop selling missile and nuclear technology that is being used to threaten the existence of her country:
President Park Geun-hye talks to a foreign official before boarding the presidential plane at Seoul Airport on May 1, 2016, to leave for Iran. (Yonhap)
South Korean President Park Geun-hye left for Tehran on Sunday on a historic trip meant to boost political and economic relations between the two countries.
Park is set to meet with her Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, on Monday in the first meeting between the leaders of the two countries since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations in 1962.
The summit will set the tone for relations at a time when the Islamic Republic has emerged as a promising market following the lifting of international sanctions earlier this year.
“We expect the trip to serve as an occasion to take a new leap forward in bilateral ties, which have been stalled due to the international sanctions,” said Kim Kyou-hyun, a senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs.
The U.N. has lifted sanctions on Iran in a follow-up to a nuclear deal reached with the United States and five world powers over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. [Yonhap]
It is always tough to run against candidates that promise free stuff to the public without the responsibility that goes along with paying for it:
President Park Geun-hye warned against the dangers of populist campaign pledges Friday, stressing that maintaining fiscal soundness is a key factor that the government should take into account in setting its 2017 budget proposal.
“Laws containing populist ideas will burden not only the current generation but the next,” Park said chairing the national fiscal strategy meeting at the presidential office. She added excessive spending on welfare could have an impact on the country’s long-term fiscal health.
The chief executive also advocated special administrative rules like the “pay-go” system. The system makes clear that any additional outlays must be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases.
“The problem of maintaining long-term fiscal soundness is something that is agreed upon by the people,” the president pointed out.
At the meeting that sets government guidelines on spending, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said it will maintain its expansionary fiscal policy mode for the next five years to prop up the economy. It, however, said every effort is going to be made to cut unnecessary outlays.
The ministry moreover has been moving to streamline the public sector to get rid of overlapping institutions. This can save money and lead to a more efficient fiscal spending structure.
The chief executive’s latest remarks apparently came after the political parties spearheaded different welfare pledges in the lead-up to the April 13 parliamentary elections.
Kim Chong-in, interim chairman of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, stressed the importance of “productive welfare,” saying that the expanded welfare policy will eventually induce growth in related industries, such as health and medical services. [Yonhap]
It is now official that President Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party has lost their majority in the Korean parliament after recent elections:
Saenuri Party leaders — Reps. Kim Moo-sung (C), Won Yoo-chul (L) and Kim Tae-ho — attend a ceremony marking the disbandment of the party’s election campaign committee at the National Assembly on April 14, 2016 (Yonhap).
“We will make sure to get rid of our arrogance and self-righteousness by gravely reflecting upon the warning issued by the people through this election,” read a group text message a defeated Saenuri Party candidate sent to his constituents on Thursday.
Such humble words were echoed by a number of his colleagues, as the ruling party was reeling from the crushing defeat that stripped it of the status of majority and No.1 parliamentary party.
Indeed, protracting economic doldrums, the party’s factional fighting, and the Park Geun-hye government’s inflexibility and lack of interaction with the legislature, ordinary citizens and other members of society are blamed for the party’s landslide loss in Wednesday’s general election, observers said. [Korea Herald]
The big winner in the parliamentary election was former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo:
Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chair of the minority People’s Party, was seen as the biggest winner in the elections. His party won 38 seats, far more than the 20-seat requirement to form a parliamentary negotiating bloc.
The party pledged to become a “genuine representative” to realize people’s aspirations for a change in politics.
“We will pay back with the kind of politics that changes politics, the government and the lives of the people,” he said during a meeting with his party officials. [Yonhap]
Ahn’s parliamentary electoral success may end up being a good jumping board for him to launch another presidential election campaign, especially if the economy continues to be flat in Korea. Ahn could use his businessman background much like Donald Trump does in the US to burnish his credentials to be the next President.
From a US perspective what I think people should look at is whether the election results will cause any softening in President Park’s current hardline policy on North Korea and the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to Korea.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye enters a voting booth in Seoul on April 13, 2016. The quadrennial polls are to elect a new 300-member National Assembly and take on extra significance as the results will affect how Park wraps up her remaining term in office, as well as set the tone for who will succeed her. (Yonhap)
How many nations openly discuss assassinating the leader of a neighboring nation like the North Koreans do? The rhetoric from North Korea recently seems to have reached a new level which makes me wonder if the sanctions really are beginning to bite?:
North Korea threatened Wednesday to wage a retaliatory war against President Park Geun-hye in the latest show of defiance against tougher U.N. sanctions and joint military drills between Seoul and Washington.
North Korea vowed to “launch a retaliatory battle of justice to resolutely eliminate” the United States and Park, warning that it is ready to turn South Korea’s presidential office into a sea of fire.
“The powerful large-caliber multiple rocket launching systems of invincible Korean People’s Army artillery units are highly alerted to scorch Cheong Wa Dae… in a jiffy,” the North’s committee handling inter-Korean affairs said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency. [Yonhap]
President Park Geun-hye (front) waves to newly commissioned officers during a joint officer commissioning ceremony for South Korea’s army, air force and naval academies at Gyeryongdae, South Korea’s main military compound, in the city of Gyeryong, central South Korea, on March 4, 2016. (Yonhap)
The North Koreans keeping getting more and more lewd in regards to their comments about South Korean President Park Geun-hye:
North Korea responded to an unusually harsh verbal attack by South Korea’s president against the North’s leader and its recent nuclear test and rocket launch with a characteristically colorful invective of its own Saturday, calling her policy traitorous and adding that Washington’s newly enacted sanctions are “laughable.”
The North’s official reaction — including the insult “senile granny” — was expected, though it took several days for Pyongyang to announce it through its state-run media.
North Korea regularly condemns South Korean President Park Geun-hye through sexist and violent language, saying recently that she lives upon “the groin of her American boss.” [Associated Press]
President Park Geun-hye (front), wearing a military uniform, visits an observatory at a front-line Army unit in Yeoncheon, just south of the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, on Dec. 24, 2015, to check up on the military’s preparedness against North Korea’s possible provocations. (Yonhap)
Tatsuya Kato, a Japanese journalist accused of defamation against the South Korean president, walks into the Seoul Central District Court on Dec. 17, 2015, for his sentencing trial. The court found him not guilty, saying that while his article was inappropriate, it falls under the freedom of the press. Kato, former Seoul bureau chief for Sankei Shimbun, was charged with defamation against President Park Geun-hye for his report in August suggesting that she was with her personal confidant when the passenger ferry Sewol sank on April 16, 2014. The whereabouts of the president at the time of the tragedy are one of the criticisms leveled against the government by the family members of the victims and civic groups. The prosecution had demanded a 18-month prison term for the Japanese reporter. (Yonhap)
