Word: roh
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Unlike his predecessor, Roh Moo Hyun, Lee also promised to pursue the issue of South Korean citizens kidnapped by the North, and would vote for a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution this week to look into Pyongyang's human rights abuses. Sohn Kwang Joo, an editor at the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on North Korea, is confident Lee will continue to press the North, but adds, "Kim Jong Il will react negatively...
...Even if he wins support for the canal, other Lee initiatives could bog down. South Korea's notoriously prickly labor unions are vehemently against ratification of a free-trade agreement with the U.S. signed last year; Lee, who unlike his predecessor Roh Moo Hyun is unabashedly pro-America, says the agreement would increase trade. He also supports ongoing efforts to privatize the energy sector and railroads, which union members have vowed to fight. "We don't agree with the policies of the new government," says Lee Chang Geun, the international executive director of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions...
...graphite, a heat-resistant material used in steelmaking and other industrial applications. The first shipment of 200 tons of graphite arrived in the South's port of Inchon in mid-December, and despite the problems in the North, Wonjin Worldwide now wants to invest more, says Yoon Byung Roh, the company's president. Like other mining-company executives, Yoon knows that North Korea and China between them have roughly 80% of the world's supply of another key mineral used in producing iron, steel and other basic industrial products: magnesite, which Yoon's company refines into magnesium...
...investment Yoon seeks is precisely what the Roh administration has been pushing in its last months in office. Among its key initiatives are capital infusions geared toward improving transportation links between the North and South, adding to the $700 million the South has already spent on North Korea infrastructure projects over the past eight years. The projects are starting to bear fruit. On Dec. 11 a regular rail-freight service was inaugurated between Seoul and Kaesong, punching a symbolic hole in the heavily fortified DMZ that divides the countries. Work is also underway to repair a rail line linking Kaesong...
...Hoping to capitalize on the momentum at Kaesong, the Roh government is also pushing an ambitious plan to create a second special economic zone (SEZ) in and around the West Sea port city of Haeju. One idea floated was to build a man-made island to house factories in the West Sea. But Lee Myung Bak's transition team has all but ruled out any quick movement on a West Sea project, mainly because the geopolitics of the region are still deeply contentious. The maritime border between the two countries is contested - the North and South Korean navies have skirmished...