Word: south
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...Those days came to an end in December 1997, when on his fourth try for the presidency he was elected - the first leader to be elected from an opposition party in South Korea's history. (A fellow dissident and political rival, Kim Young Sam, had thrown in with the ruling party when he was elected in 1992.) Kim's election, more than anything, showed that democracy had come to South Korea to stay. (See pictures of brawling legislators in Seoul...
...Still, for the country it was a tumultuous time. The Asian financial crisis had devastated what had once been one of East Asia's fastest-growing economies. Kim privatized state-owned companies and jump-started South Korea's IT sector. After getting $60 billion in loans from the IMF in 1997, South Korea became the first East Asian country to, in effect, graduate from its oversight, paying its IMF loans back faster than any other East Asian country, in 2001. (See lessons from Asia's financial crisis...
...year 2000, Kim made a historic mark diplomatically. He traveled to Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il - the first meeting between North and South Korean leaders since the end of the war. The meetings came as part of Kim's so-called Sunshine Policy, which sought economic and diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang. His hope was that a more dovish stance toward the North would convince Pyongyang to rid itself of its nuclear-weapons program. He explicitly stated that reunification of the Korean peninsula would come only after a long period of "peaceful coexistence" with...
...policy also clashed with that of then incoming U.S. President George W. Bush, who famously told a journalist that he "loathed" Kim Jong Il. A summit meeting between the two ostensible allies went poorly. At one point in a 2001 summit, Bush publicly called the South Korean head of state "this man," instead of President Kim. Kim's supporters in Seoul were furious. Both sides would later acknowledge that the two Presidents had very differing views on how to deal with Pyongyang. (Read about Kim Jong Il's secret family...
...threats suppress voter turnout among the Pashtuns of the south, who make up 40% of the population, they could undercut the legitimacy of the election. It would spell trouble for President Hamid Karzai, who is still the favorite, though he is trying to avoid a troublesome runoff with Abdullah Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister and Northern Alliance candidate whose campaign has gained momentum of late. If southern voters stay home in large enough numbers, say analysts, there is a slight but not impossible scenario that northern voters could dictate the election's outcome in favor of Abdullah, further destabilizing...