Word: seoul
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Pride is a difficult concept to quantify, but for China, the Olympics provide a simple calculation for its ascent. Two decades ago in Seoul, China won just five golds. By 2004 in Athens, the country's 32-medal gold rush was second only to that of the U.S. Now China is hoping its home-turf advantage in Beijing will vault it into first place. If the People's Republic succeeds, the controversies over protests in Tibet, arms for Darfur, Steven Spielberg's pulling out as adviser to the Games--all that loss of face to date will have been worth...
...economic reform, tough love for North Korea and a higher international profile for his country. But a mere three months later, the man South Koreans call "the Bulldozer" has bogged down. In the past few days, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of downtown Seoul to demonstrate against him. Lee's public approval rating has sunk to around a miserable 20%, and it looks like he'll have to reshuffle his Cabinet to placate critics. That air of invincibility is gone. In an exclusive interview conducted June 3 at the Blue House, the presidential residence...
...difficult to imagine Lee - a conservative free-trade advocate who has strong views about South Korea's need to reform its economy - as a consensus-seeker. After all, when he served as mayor of Seoul earlier this decade, he ordered that one of the city's major highways be demolished so a stream could be restored. As CEO of Hyundai Engineering & Construction, the country's largest construction company, Lee wielded a lot of power - as was customary. Korea a couple of decades ago was ruled by a handful of men: the government by a dictator and his aides...
...country's top conglomerate, was forced to resign after being indicted for tax evasion and breach of fiduciary duty. Under the circumstances, even the most well-meaning official must tread with heightened sensitivity to interest groups. Says Hahm Sung Deuk, an expert on presidential politics at Korea University in Seoul: "Korea needs a leader who can compromise, negotiate and be persuasive to govern completely effectively. Lee should be playing the role of the broker rather than the commander...
...important free-trade agreement with the U.S. But to many Koreans, it looked like the President was selling out to Washington, in the process endangering public safety as well as hurting Korea's agricultural industry. On June 1, an estimated 40,000 demonstrators clogged the main thoroughfares of downtown Seoul to protest the decision; police were forced to disperse the unruly crowds with water cannons. Lee was forced to retreat himself, effectively reimposing a ban on imports of U.S. beef from cattle more than 30 months old, which are more susceptible to mad cow disease...