KORUS FTA | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education

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Candlelight vigils return in protest of FTA

By Nathan Schwartzman Fri, Dec 02, 2011 10:15AM UTC View Comments

Activists in Korea have turned again to the candlelight vigil to express their opposition to a government policy, holding one at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul on Friday. This one was nowhere near as large as those over the importation of US beef, however. In fact, the picture in this link...

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Korean newspapers react to KORUS FTA

By Nathan Schwartzman Thu, Dec 01, 2011 12:45PM UTC View Comments

Here’s a round-up of editorial reaction to the FTA: 1. The Kukmin Ilbo said that the government must create an overall vision of how to upgrade the economy and prioritize action to minimize the negative effects on those who may lose out from it. 2. The Kyunghyang Shinmun praised those who are calling for the...

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Young Koreans fear Korea-US FTA will lead to mad cow disease

By Nathan Schwartzman Thu, Nov 10, 2011 9:14AM UTC View Comments

Original article in Korean is at this link. The results of this survey are somewhat contradicted by the brisk business in American beef in Korean supermarkets. The Chosun Ilbo commissioned the Millward Brown Group to conduct a mobile phone survey of 500 adults between the ages of 20 and 49 nationwide, finding that 49.0% said...

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Presidential hopeful Moon Jae-in publishes book on his time in the Roh Moo-hyun administration

By Andy Jackson Wed, Jun 15, 2011 10:56PM UTC View Comments

The release of the book "Moon Jae-in's Destiny" helped fuel his surge in support

Progressives looking to challenge moderate Democratic Party chair Sohn Hak-kyu for a presidential nomination will likely have to go through the very former president Roh Moo-hyun. Roh had been shunned by virtually every established politician (a and four-fifths of the general public) by the time he left office in the spring of 2008. However, his...

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Divided Korean National Assembly passes EU Free trade agreement

By Andy Jackson Fri, May 06, 2011 12:13AM UTC View Comments

Sohn Hak-kyu's Democrati Party boycotted a vote on the Korea-EU FTA that they had helped set

After a long and contentious process, Korea’s National Assembly passed a free trade agreement with the European Union on a 163 to 1 vote with five abstentions. That sounds like a pretty impressive level of support until you remember that the National Assembly has 299 seats. So what happened to the other 130 members? The...

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