EPA finds Hyundai, Kia overstated gas mileage

Published : 2012-11-03 13:31
Updated : 2012-11-03 13:32

Hyundai and Kia, Korea's two biggest automakers, overstated the gas mileage on 900,000 vehicles sold in the past three years, a discovery that could bring sanctions from the U.S. government and millions of dollars in reimbursements to car owners.

The inflated mileage was uncovered in an audit of test results by the Environmental Protection Agency, which ordered the Korean automakers to replace fuel economy stickers on the affected cars. The new window stickers will have figures that are one-to-six miles per gallon lower depending on the model, the agency said Friday.

"Consumers rely on the window sticker to help make informed choices about the cars they buy," said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator of the EPA's air-quality office. "EPA's investigation will help protect consumers and ensure a level playing field among automakers."

The EPA's inquiry into the overstated figures is continuing, and the agency would not comment when asked if the companies will be fined or if a criminal investigation is under way.

But the agency said it's the first case in which erroneous test results were uncovered in such a large number of vehicles from the same manufacturer. Only two similar cases have been discovered since 2000, and those involved single models.

Hyundai and Kia executives said the higher figures were unintentional errors. They apologized and promised to pay owners of the 900,000 cars and SUVs for the difference in mileage. The payments, which will be made annually for as long as people own their cars, are likely to cost the companies hundreds of millions of dollars.

The EPA's findings come at a bad time for Hyundai and Kia, which have seen explosive sales growth in the U.S. partly because of advertising campaigns that touted gas mileage. Hyundai even poked fun at competitors who promoted special high-mileage versions of their cars, claiming that its cars had high mileage across the model lineup.

The EPA said it began looking at Hyundai and Kia when it received a dozen complaints from consumers that the mileage of their 2012 Hyundai Elantra cars fell short of numbers on the window stickers. Staffers at the EPA's vehicle and fuel emission laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich., included the Elantra in an annual fuel economy audit.

The audit turned up discrepancies between agency test results and data turned in by Hyundai and Kia, the EPA said. As a result, the two automakers will have to knock one or two miles per gallon off the mileage posted on the window stickers of most of their models. Some models will lose three or four miles per gallon, and the Kia Soul, a funky-looking boxy small SUV, will lose six mpg from the highway mileage on its stickers.

The errors involve 13 models from the 2011 through 2013 model years, including seven Hyundais and six Kias. Window stickers will have to be changed on some versions of the following models: Hyundai's Elantra, Sonata Hybrid, Accent, Azera, Genesis, Tucson, Veloster and Santa Fe. Kia models affected include the Sorrento, Rio, Soul, Sportage and Optima Hybrid.

Michael Sprague, executive vice president of marketing for Kia Motors America, said the companies have a program in place to reimburse customers for the difference between the mileage on the window stickers and the numbers from the EPA tests.

If all 900,000 owners get cards for $88.03, it would cost the automakers more than $79 million a year. (AP)

N. Korea attempts to intervene in S. Korean election

North Korea on Saturday openly called for an opposition victory in South Korea's upcoming presidential election, accusing President Lee Myung-bak's conservative government of ruining inter-Korean relations.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, a powerful party organization, denounced South Korea's ruling Saenuri Party as a "disaster" that brews "all sources of misfortune" for Koreans.

"If Saenuri Party, a group of obsolete conservatives, takes the office, it would make the South Korean society and inter-Korean relations the same as that under the Lee Myung-bak administration," the committee said in a statement. "It is apparent that (its election win) would bring fascist suppression and war."

The statement was carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in a report, monitored in Seoul.

With the South's presidential election nearing, North Korea's propaganda outlets have recently stepped up their rhetoric against South Korea's ruling camp and its presidential contender, Park Geun-hye.

The 60-year-old Park, who aspires to become South Korea's first female president, has been in a tight race with Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party and software mogul-turned-independent politician Ahn Cheol-soo. 

There are speculations that the two male contenders may form an alliance before the election to boost their chances against Park.

Park's late father and former President Park Chung-hee is a rallying point for South Korean conservatives ahead of the Dec. 19 election.

"Saenuri Party has pushed for deceptive 'national unity', 'reform', and 'differentiation' from the Lee Myung-bak government," the North's committee said, calling it "ugly."

Inter-Korean relations have soured as Lee's government has tightened its policy toward the North, linking aid to progress in the communist country's denuclearization pledge. (Yonhap News)

S. Korea, India to provide $1.1 bln financial support for biz cooperation

South Korea and India agreed to provide a combined US$1.1 billion worth of financial support for their bilateral business cooperation, the finance ministry said.

The agreement was signed during the finance minsters' meeting held in central Seoul earlier in the day between the two countries, according to the ministry.

Under the agreement, both will provide the financial support through their own export-import banks over the next five years to companies seeking to join in infrastructure construction projects in India.

The move is especially aimed at helping companies interested in about $1 trillion worth of infrastructure businesses that India is pushing for under its mid-term economic development plan until 2016.

During the meeting, the ministry said that its officials asked their Indian counterparts to help South Korean companies participate in the five-year mega project. (Yonhap News)

Arabic popular for 2nd-language test

By Yun Suh-young More students are choosing Arabic as their second foreign language option for the national scholastic aptitude test. According to the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, around 40 percent of students selected Arabic as their option for a second foreign language in the College Scholastic Ability Test this year. A total of 668,527 students applied for the national college entrance exam and of those, 90,277 chose to take a second foreign language test as an option. Of the foreign language applicants, 36,000 chose to take the Arabic language test. The national CSAT will be held next Thursday. The main reason students select Arabic as their second foreign language choice is because it is easier to score higher on the test than other languages. The markings made after last year’s CSAT showed that the average score of Arabic language test was 80 points out of 100, higher than the average for Japanese at 66 points. “Because the language is rather unfamiliar to Koreans, fewer students take the test compared to other languages. So if we study just a bit, it’s easy to get a good score on the exam because it is graded on a curve,” said a second-year high school student surnamed Kim. Because of this advantage, many students are transitioning from other languages to Arabic. The percentage of students who take the Arabic language test is increasing every year. The rate of students taking Arabic out of eight foreign language options was at 15 percent in 2008 but jumped to 29 percent in 2009, 42 percent in 2010 and nearly reached 46 percent in 2011. Arabic was included as a second language option in the national college aptitude test in 2005. At that time only 531 students, which didn’t even account for 0.4 percent of the total foreign language applicants, applied to take the Arabic language exam. However, even if more students are choosing the language as their test option, many have difficulty learning Arabic properly as there aren’t many channels from which they can learn the language. There is currently only one high school, Ulsan Foreign Language High School, in the entire country that teaches Arabic properly. There aren’t even many private academies that professionally teach Arabic, so students resort to expensive private tutoring from Arabic-majoring university students.

Apple ordered to rewrite apology

Seen is a notice written by Apple saying that it has accepted the latest ruling by the United Kingdom Court of Appeal in London that ordered the Cupertino-based firm to revise its previous apology to Samsung on Apple’s U.K. website. The Financial Times published the statement in its Thursday edition. By Kim Yoo-chul An appeals court in the United Kingdom has ordered Apple to rewrite its apology to Samsung Electronics on its website. It is the latest ruling in the legal feud between the companies after Apple accused the Korean firm of infringing on patents for its iPad. British judges also warned Apple’s top-level executives, including CEO Tim Cook, that they risk being jailed if the California-based firm fails to comply with the latest court order. According to legal sources directly involved with the Samsung-Apple tussle, the court ordered Apple to rewrite its court-mandated apology to Samsung that mocked its rival for producing tablets that were ``not as cool’’ as the iPad, angering Samsung. Apple did post an apology stating that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets didn’t copy the design of Apple’s iPad but judges at London's High Court ruled Thursday that Apple should take down the earlier statement within 24 hours and ordered a new one to be posted within 48 hours. ``If Apple fails to accept the order by the court by the due date, then top management including CEO Tim Cook could be jailed at the worst case,’’ said an industry source familiar with the matter. ``Chances are low that its CEO could go to jail because its legal counsel agreed to correct the posting,’’ the source said Apple can’t appeal the latest ruling by the U.K. court that also ordered it to pay all expenses for Thursday’s legal proceedings. Apple spokesman Steve Park in Seoul declined to comment. The ruling comes just days after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) nullified Apple’s patent claim on a touch-screen ``bounce-back’’ feature. The feature was the critical issue in a previous California hearing, though the nine U.S. jurors agreed Samsung Electronics copied that feature. Samsung is involved in a global patent war with Apple in 50 cases spread across 10 countries over four continents. The two companies are expected to meet again in court on Dec. 6 in California, where Apple was awarded $1.05 billion worth of damages from Samsung Electronics. It’s uncertain whether the favorable decision by the U.K. court will serve to brighten Samsung’s chances of a similar victory in the upcoming decision by a U.S. Federal Judge Lucy Koh, presiding over the California case, according to experts and Samsung sources. But chances are slim that the two companies will work out a compromise in the foreseeable future. Brian J. Love, professor of law at Santa Clara University said, ``The dispute may well continue for years to come. Apple appears to be far more interested in sending a message to Google and Android mobile manufacturers than it is in winning money via these lawsuits. Therefore, settlement may be unlikely.” Samsung is also on course to sell more smartphones that support advanced long-term evolution (LTE) technology. According to the latest statistics announced by leading market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA), Samsung captured 37.6 percent of the LTE-enabled phone segment in the United States, followed by Apple with 24.5 percent. ``Samsung wants the California verdict thrown out or the company wants to at least pay less damages. Samsung will be much more aggressive in its phone sales next year, as a bigger market share means more advantages in a possible cross-licensing deal,’’ said a Samsung source, asking not to be named. Despite mixed decisions from the various courtrooms, Apple is still using Samsung’s flat-screens and chips for its popular i-branded devices, though the Cupertino-based outfit is gearing up efforts to diversify its parts procurement channels to Japanese and Taiwanese producers. Apple used Samsung-made displays in its latest mini iPad, though there was speculation that Apple was not going to use any parts from the Korean firm in it.

Ryu So-yeon wins best rookie award Ryu So-yeon is Korea’s eighth player to become the Rookie of the Year on the LPGA Tour. / AP-Yonhap By Kang Seung-woo Ryu So-yeon has claimed the LPGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year award, it was announced Tuesday. The 22-year-old won with 1,306 points, 527 ahead of distant runner-up American Lexi Thompson, even though there are three tournaments remaining. An LPGA victory is worth 150 points in the best rookie race. Ryu is the eighth Korean golfer to claim the title on the U.S. women’s professional golf circuit since LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Pak Se-ri gained the honor first in 1998. She is the third Korean in four years following Shin Ji-yai in 2009 and Seo Hee-kyung in 2011. “First of all, I want to give thanks to Pak Se-ri, Han Hee-won, Grace Park and all of the first generation Korean players because they opened up our road and we can follow in their steps,” Ryu said on the LPGA Tour website. “This year the rookie class was so strong with Lexi Thompson, Sydnee Michaels and a lot of really, really great players, so it’s an honor to win the award.” The Seoul native, who earned her U.S. tour card after winning the U.S. Women’s Open on a sponsor’s invitation last year, has made an immediate impact in the United States, placing among the top 10 in several statistics. Ryu, who claimed the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic in August, the only victory by a rookie this year, is first in birdies, top-10 finishes and under-par rounds, fourth for scoring average and ninth on the money list with $1,141,506 from 22 tournaments. “Winning the U.S. Women’s Open last year as a non-member was a really huge thing for me, but I really worried that some people might think it was just one lucky win,” she said. “That was a huge pressure on me, so I set a goal to win this award and add another trophy. I’m so proud to be the eighth Korean to win the Rookie of the Year.” The eight-time Korea LPGA Tour winner is also ninth in the world rankings.

Park behind Ahn, Moon in 2-way races By Kang Hyun-kyung Rep. Park Geun-hye is a frontrunner in a three-way race but is behind her two rivals in hypothetical two-way races with each of them, according to a survey published Wednesday. The Korea Times poll found that in a three-way race, the ruling Saenuri Party candidate received support of 36.3 percent, followed by independent Ahn Cheol-soo with 24.7 percent and Rep. Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) with 20.5 percent. The Korea Times, in collaboration with polling agency Hankook Research, conducted the survey on the occasion of the 62ndanniversary of the founding of the newspaper which falls today. It has a plus or minus 3.1 percentage points of a margin of error. The survey found that in a hypothetical two-way race, Park is behind Rep. Moon by a razor-thin margin of 1.1 percentage points. Support for Park was relatively high among female voters, elderly citizens aged 50 or older and residents of the eastern part of the country, namely North and South Gyeongsang and Gangwon provinces. Moon scored relatively high support from male voters, people aged under 40 and people in the greater Seoul area. In a hypothetical two-way race between Park and independent Ahn, the software millionaire-turned-presidential candidate was ahead by 5.3 percentage points _ Park garnered 41.8 percent to Ahn’s 47.1 percent. Ahn received relatively wide support from male voters, people in their 20s and 30s and residents of the western part of the nation, such as South and North Jeolla Province. The region has long been viewed as a DUP stronghold. The latest survey found that voters want their next leader to put top priority on economic policy. Nearly four out of 10 respondents said economic growth is the number one task that the next government should focus on, followed by political reform and expanding the social safety net. Only 6.2 percent of respondents answered priority needs to be given to “economic democratization” by curbing conglomerates and corporate greed. This showed a big gap between politicians and voters in their perception of policy priorities. The economic democratization debate has dominated the three presidential camps and all three candidates have been in favor of layered regulations on conglomerates’ business practices. The poll found fatigue on a reciprocity-oriented North Korea policy, which the Lee Myung-bak government has pursued since February 2008. Some 55.5 percent of voters said the next government needs to expand inter-Korean cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, while 40.2 percent backed continuity of Lee’s North Korea policy in the next government. Under the incumbent leader, Mt. Geumgang tourism has been halted since July 2008 after a South Korean tourist was shot dead near the resort area while taking a walk early in the morning. The government also suspended food aid to the North. Before the Lee government, Seoul sent 400,000 tons of rice annually to the impoverished nation. North Korea’s sinking of the warship Cheonan near the maritime boundary in the West Sea in 2010 and artillery attacks on Yeonpyeong Island in 2011 led to the tightening of sanctions. Eight out of 10 voters said South Korea “must” achieve unification with the North.

White collar voters favor liberal candidates By Lee Tae-hoon The majority of office workers and students will vote for either the main opposition Democratic United Party candidate Moon Jae-in or independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, a poll showed. The survey jointly conducted by The Korea Times and pollster Hankook Research  Monday found that only 23.9 percent of white collar workers would support ruling Party candidate Park Geun-hye in a hypothetical three way race against Moon and Ahn. Similarly, a mere 12.9 percent of student voters said that they will vote for Park, suggesting that there remains strong distrust over the conservative party’s pledge to slash college tuition by half. The survey found that student voters favor Ahn, a software tycoon-turned politician, the most with 37.8 percent backing him, followed by Moon with 24.3 percent and Park.

Galaxy beats iPhone in U.S. ‘torture tests’

Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3 defeated Apple’s iPhone 5 in “torture tests” that were posted by U.S. tech media site CNET on the video-sharing portal YouTube. 

CNET has performed various extraordinary experiments on the latest smartphones and tablet PCs to publicize the results online. 

Both the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3 passed three experiments ― being put in a fridge for two hours, plunged into a fish tank and wrapped and roasted in an oven for an hour, according to the report.

(left) Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5

Although a temperature warning signal popped up on the iPhone 5 during the roasting test, urging the user to cool off the device, the device worked fine after it cooled down. The Galaxy S3 also passed the roasting test, though it did not display a warning message.

But the score gap widened as the two models endured machine-washing, scratching and throwing.

In the washing machine test where the electronic devices were put in a running drum washer, the Galaxy S3 restored its normal functions after the staff removed the battery from the main body, wiped off water and kept the device in a plastic bag with a dehydrating agent. The iPhone 5, however, would no longer turn on after the test.

The structural difference between Galaxy S3 adopting a detachable battery and iPhone 5 with an in-body battery accounts for the different results, CNET said. 

The iPhone 5 significantly underperformed compared to the Galaxy S3 in a scratch test, where they were severely scratched on the backs with metal keys. In the throwing test, the glass and sides were heavily cracked while its Korean rival survived both tests. 

The test results on the iPhone 5 were released on YouTube on Oct. 3, and for the Galaxy S3 on July 10.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)

Over 40% of Korean adults have been to university

About 40 percent of South Korean adults have attended college or university, according to recent research, a significant jump from 7 percent 40 years ago. 

Statistics Korea announced on Monday that 43.2 percent (15.87 million) of the total adult population (36.7 million) in 2010 had attended college or university. The number includes dropouts and recipients who did not yet earn their diplomas. In 1970, only 6.6 percent (0.99 million) among the total adult population of 15.1 million were college or university-educated. 

The percentage of adults with higher education has steadily increased over the past four decades, marking 10.3 percent in 1980, 18.8 percent in 1990 and 31.4 percent in 2000. 

The increased demand for a highly educated workforce during the industrialization and informatization periods as well as the notable educational fever here has led the change, Statistics Korea said in a report. 

The data also showed that about 32.5 percent (11.93 million) of the total adult population in 2010 were high-school graduates; 9.3 percent (3.42 million) were middle-school graduates; and 10.7 percent (3.93 million) elementary-school graduates. 

Those who did not receive any education has decreased from 29 percent (4.38 million) in 1970 to 4.3 percent (1.59 million) in 2010. 

The number of colleges and universities likewise increased over the past 40 years, from 224 in 1980 to 241 in 1990; 349 in 2000; and 360 in 2005. However, Over 40% of adults attended university: data the number fell to 345 in 2010, as the nation became oversaturated with higher-learning institutes. 

Korea flies high in international higher-education rankings: An OECD report showed that in 2009, 39 percent of Koreans aged between 25 to 64 attained a university or college education or higher. The figure surpassed the OECD average of 30 percent. 

The nation’s educational zeal is leading to a significant side effect: the soaring cost for private education. Last year the total coast for below-university-level private education marked over 20.12 trillion won ($18.35 billion). About 9.46 trillion won was used for elementary students; 6.6 trillion won for middle-school students; and 5.79 trillion won for high-school students. 

By Park Min-young  (claire@heraldcorp.com)

Top 1% of firms pay nearly 90% of corporate taxes

Corporate taxes paid by the top 1 percent of South Korean businesses made up nearly 90 percent of the total, data showed Monday, suggesting that a small number of large conglomerates are dominating markets.

According to the data provided by the National Tax Service, the country’s top 1 percent out of 460,614 corporations paid a combined 32.7 trillion won ($29.8 billion) in corporate taxes last year.

The amount, from which tax exemptions and reductions were subtracted, accounted for 86.1 percent of total corporate tax payments, totaling about 37.96 trillion won.

Companies falling into the top 1 percent group paid an average of 7.1 billion won in taxes. The number of companies that did not pay taxes due to losses and other factors came to 212,895 or 46.2 percent, according to the data. 

Meanwhile, corporate taxes paid by businesses in the top 2 percent grew to 34.33 trillion won, but the growth is far smaller than the increase in the number of companies belonging to the category, the data showed.

This suggests that the income gap between the top-ranking businesses and their immediate runners-up are quite large, pointing to the fact that a small number of large conglomerates are dominating markets, experts said. (Yonhap News)

FDA probes deaths tied to energy drink

Reports of five deaths and a heart attack linked to Monster Energy drinks should bolster efforts to get the Food & Drug Administration to regulate caffeinated energy drinks, health and safety advocates say. The Food & Drug Administration says it has received five "adverse event" reports of death and one report of a heart attack "associated" with Monster Energy Drinks. FDA spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said Tuesday that the agency takes all incident reports seriously, and "we ... investigate each report diligently." Monster Beverage said in a statement Tuesday that "neither the science nor the facts support the allegations that have been made. Monster reiterates that its products are and have always been safe." The FDA reports were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Wendy Crossland of Hagerstown, Md. Crossland said in a lawsuit against Monster Beverage that her 14-year-old daughter, Anais Fournier, died in December after drinking Monster Energy for two days in a row. Crossland "wanted to do everything in her power to make sure young people don't drink energy drinks," says her attorney, Kevin Goldberg. Monster said in its statement that it "does not believe that its products are in any way responsible for the death of Fournier." Anais Fournier, who died in 2011, with her twin brother Dorian. Still, some say the deaths could lead to FDA action on energy drinks, something Sens. Richard Durbin, D- Ill., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., have been urging since early this year. "Sometimes, tragedy prompts action even from entrenched bureaucratic skeptics," says Blumenthal. "These tragedies put a face and voice to a very severe danger." Jim Shepherd of Toronto became an outspoken opponent of energy drinks after his 15-year-old son, Brian, died of a heart arrhythmia in 2008 after drinking a Red Bull free sample at a paint ball tournament. Red Bull says it sympathizes with Shepherd but is not responsible for his son's death. (USA Today)

Lee's elder brother to be grilled over property deal

By Yi Whan-woo The special counsel’s office said Sunday it had issued a summons to the eldest brother of President Lee Myung-bak to report for questioning over his alleged involvement in irregularities in a land deal for his younger brother’s now-scrapped retirement home project. Lee Sang-eun, the 79-year-old chairman of automotive seat maker DAS, is suspected of loaning the President’s only son, Lee Si-hyung, 600 million won ($542,000) for him to buy the land in Naegok-dong, southern Seoul, which he was allegedly going to purchase at a lower than market price. “We asked Lee Sang-eun to turn in himself for questioning, Tuesday, although I have yet to hear any answer from him,” said special counsel Lee Kwang-bum during a press conference. His team will find out when he loaned the money to his 34-year-old nephew, and also how he planned to get the money back. The land to build the President Lee’s retirement home and auxiliary facilities for security personnel was jointly purchased by Lee Si-hyung and the Presidential Security Service (PSS). The President’s son is suspected of not having shared the cost evenly with the security service, which used taxpayer’s money for its part of the purchase. During questioning Thursday, he told the special counsel that he planned to pay the loan back to his uncle. However, in a written statement answering prosecution’s questioning last year, Lee Si-hyung claimed he was unaware of the details of how the cost was divided between him and the PSS. He also stated that the land was purchased under his name because he was going to reside there and transfer the owner’s name to his father after a certain period of time. Lee Sang-eun returned home from a controversial business trip in China after leaving the country on Oct. 15, the day before the special prosecution team was launched.

Key questions surround president’s eldest brother

Moon rebuffs Ahn’s reform proposals

Opposition presidential candidates engaged in a tense tug of war to take a better position in expected negotiations to unify their candidacy that could start around Nov. 10.

The main opposition Democratic United Party’s nominee Rep. Moon Jae-in used his weekend campaign to counter independent rival Ahn Cheol-soo’s policy to curtail political parties and the National Assembly.

He also began realigning the party’s election organizations to maximize his advantage as a party-based candidate over Ahn.

Democratic United Party presidential candidate Moon Jae-in gestures in a ceremony to launch a regional campaign office in Sejong City on Sunday. (Yonhap News)

“To scale down politics and parties would not be the right direction to achieve political development,” Rep. Moon said Sunday in a ceremony to kick off his regional campaign office in Sejong City.

“Instead, we have to reform the current political system and reinforce the role of political parties.”

The candidate thus expressed his disapproval over the political platform of Ahn, who recently called for the reduction of parliamentary seats and state subsidies for political parties, and the abolishment of the central party system.

Also, Rep. Moon is quickening the establishment of regional election campaign bodies in major cities and boosting ties with influential party figures.

Last week, he met with former party chiefs Sohn Hak-kyu and Rep. Chung Sye-kyun, as well as former South Gyeongsang Governor Kim Doo-kwan ― a move expected to promote his campaigns in Gyeonggi, Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces respectively.

Independent presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo calls for the extension of voting hours in a rally in Seoul on Sunday. (Yonhap News)

Meanwhile, Ahn is still distancing himself from the candidacy merger talks, perhaps worried that an early start to negotiations would put him at a disadvantage.

Ahn has been focusing on developing campaign platforms and building campaign organizations to compete the powerful DUP machine in upcoming unification

The former software entrepreneur and professor has recently been more assertive over the proposed alliance.

“If the people suggest the process of the merger, I will win and complete the race,” he said last week.

It is speculated that the candidate is putting off the discussion with Moon until after Nov. 10, when he is scheduled to announce his major campaign pledges.

“The DUP has been asked to reform itself and is now to prove its sincerity and display visible results,” said Cho Kuk, law professor at Seoul National University.

“Candidate Ahn, on the other hand, is free from such burdens.”

The DUP is concerned that the two sides will not have enough time to address a full range of issues related to their alliance, thus forced to rush into the merger immediately before the candidacy registration on Nov. 25-26.

“In order to form a true alliance and to gain the people’s trust, we need sufficient time to discuss and exchange visions on policies,” said an official in Moon’s election camp on Sunday.

Ahn urges long voting hours

Kim Jeong-suk, left, wife of Democratic United Party presidential candidate Moon Jae-in, and Kim Mikyung, wife of independent contender Ahn Cheol-soo, pose at the “With Baby Walkathon” at the Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul, Sunday. / Yonhap

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Independent Ahn Cheol-soo teamed up with Rep. Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), Sunday, to press the ruling party to join the campaign to extend voting hours.

Ahn urged the National Assembly to rewrite the election law to extend voting hours by two hours to encourage the self-employed and temporary workers to participate in the election.

The software millionaire-turned-presidential candidate said that people with their own business or workers on short-term contracts are hard pressed to find time to vote during their working hours.

“If major parties agree to revise the election law to extend voting hours from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. from the current 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., the new rule can be applied in the upcoming presidential election,” he said.

The independent candidate said the current rule was set in 1971, and it’s time to change it as the landscape of the labor market has changed a lot since then.

“The number of self-employed workers has sharply increased and people now work longer. But there has been no change in voting hours,” Ahn said.

The National Election Commission said an estimated 10 billion won will be needed for the two-hour extension of voting hours.

But the Ahn camp said the figure was exaggerated, suggesting it will cost only 3 billion won.

Earlier, activists and labor unionists launched an online petition calling for extending voting hours to 9 p.m.

Right after this, Ahn unveiled his vision for the self-employed.

The founder of anti-virus software provider AhnLab pledged to establish a committee at local government level to ban rent hikes and ease financial burdens facing small business owners.

Moon joined the effort to ratchet up pressure on ruling Saenuri Party presidential candidate Rep. Park Geun-hye to agree to revise the election law to extend voting hours.

Speaking at an event in Sejong City, he criticized the ruling party for blanking the plan to extend voting hours in the National Assembly.

“Earlier, the National Assembly discussed ways to extend voting hours to allow people who can’t find their time to exercise their right to vote for their preferred candidate. But the effort went in vain due to the ruling Saenuri Party’s opposition to the move,” Moon said.

The DUP candidate also called for extending voting hours to 9 p.m.

Despite his siding with Ahn over the voting-hour extension, Moon made it clear that he was not on the same page with Ahn in terms of their vision for politics.

“It might be true that politics has underperformed over the past few decades. Despite this, I believe weakening political parties or the role of politics is not the answer to the mounting calls to overhaul the political arena,” he said.

Rather, the former presidential chief of staff to the late former President Roh Moo-hyun, argued that parties need to be empowered to reform the political arena.

During a news conference in the southwestern city of Gwangju, Moon said he would share power with the prime minister by allowing the No.2 to have greater discretion and power, if elected.

The power-sharing plan came in the midst of Moon courting the independent Ahn to select a unified opposition candidate to prevent a vote split.

He also unveiled a vision calling for equal development between the nation’s capital and the other cities.

Ahn, Moon creep closer to unity despite conservatives’ attacks

The process of merging the campaigns of Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae-in and independent Ahn Cheol-soo appears likely to get underway early next month to complete the merger before the final candidate registration on Nov. 25 and 26.

According to sources, officials in the two camps have already been in contact regarding the issue.

While no official merger-related activity has taken place, even Ahn and his aides have been showing signs of warming to the idea despite their earlier position.

On Oct. 19, Ahn spoke up publicly on the issue for the first time saying “if unification occurs due to public demand, I will win there (the process of selecting the united candidate) and run to the end.”

Meanwhile, co-chair of Ahn’s election committee Rep. Song Ho-chang has stated, “The task is for the two candidates to put their strengths together before the candidate registration at the end of November.”

As Ahn’s camp creeps toward accepting the call to merge, Moon’s aides continued to take a more overt and active approach to bringing about the merger.

“Bold innovation is needed to realize the political wishes of the public. For this, we believe that a union of Ahn’s idealism and Moon’s experience must be achieved,” Rep. Jin Sung-joon, the spokesman for Moon’s campaign, said.

“We have suggested the formation of the joint political reform committee, and the offer still stands. If a committee is burdensome, beginning discussions with less formality is also possible.”

The pressure to merge their campaigns from outside the political arena is also rising.

On Thursday, a group of senior progressive figures including Seoul National University professor emeritus Paik Nak-chung, Father Ham Se-woong and Rev. Kim Sang-geun called for Ahn and Moon to “combine their strengths” when the official campaign period begins.

The announcement follows on the heels of a similar call from a group of 102 progressive arts and literary figures who said that the “unification (of Ahn and Moon’s candidacy) is the spirit of democracy and of the time” and that achieving regime change is the most important topic in the country.

As the progressives moved deeper into the campaign merger issue, conservatives stepped up their attack on both the merger and the two main opposition candidates.

Speaking on local radio, Rep. Rhee In-je of the Advancement and Unification Party disparaged the possible merger between Ahn and Moon as “collusion,” while referring to his and Saenuri parties’ planned merger as a “creative union.”

The plans to merge Rhee’s minority conservative party and the Saenuri Party were announced on Thursday,

“(Ahn and Moon’s merger) is taking an undesirable approach, to achieve the target of gaining power or effecting a regime change,” Rhee said. He also said that Ahn and Moon could have no other reason than to wrest power from the conservatives for considering a merger.

“At the base of Ahn’s support is to completely reject old politics and the desire to revolutionize politics. But people who are within the old frame of the DUP are pressuring for unification using the same standards. This is not desirable.”

Those who are already within the ruling party similarly attacked the Ahn-Moon merger, and those who support the idea.

“These people have the record of helping Kwak No-hyun get elected as Seoul’s education superintendent under the banner of candidate unification,” Saenuri Party’s Rep. Suh Byung-soo said referring to the senior progressive figures who urged Ahn and Moon to collaborate. 

U.S. states declare superstorm emergencies

SHIP BOTTOM, New Jersey (AP) -- Governors from North Carolina to Connecticut declared states of emergency and Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities as Hurricane Sandy lumbered north from the Caribbean -- where it left nearly 60 dead -- to threaten the eastern U.S. with sheets of rain, high winds and heavy snow.

Officials warned millions in coastal areas to get out of the way of the massive storm.

Sandy was expected to affect up to 60 million people when it meets two other powerful winter storms. Experts said it didn‘t matter how strong the storm was when it hit land: The rare hybrid that follows will cause havoc over 1,300 kilometers from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.

President Barack Obama was monitoring the storm and working with state and locals governments to make sure they get the resources needed to prepare, administration officials said.

Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the storm was a threat to the region’s interior, not just coastal areas: "This is a very large area," he said.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency Saturday as hundreds of coastal residents started moving inland and the state was set to close its casinos. New York‘s governor was considering shutting down the subways to avoid flooding and half a dozen states warned residents to prepare for several days of lost power.

Governors from North Carolina, where heavy rain was expected Sunday, to Connecticut declared states of emergency. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Sunday.

Christie, who was widely criticized for not interrupting a family vacation in Florida while a snowstorm pummeled the state in 2010, broke off campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in North Carolina on Friday to return home.

"I can be as cynical as anyone,’‘ Christie said in a bit of understatement Saturday. "But when the storm comes, if it’s as bad as they‘re predicting, you’re going to wish you weren‘t as cynical as you otherwise might have been.’‘

Sandy weakened briefly to a tropical storm Saturday but was soon back up to Category 1 strength, packing 75 mph winds. It was about 275 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and moving northeast at 14 mph (22 kph) as of 2 a.m. Sunday. Forecasters said the storm was spreading tropical storm conditions across the coastline of North Carolina, and they were expected to move up the mid-Atlantic coastline late Sunday. Experts said the storm was most likely to hit the southern New Jersey coastline by late Monday or early Tuesday.

Governors from North Carolina, where heavy rain was expected Sunday, to Connecticut declared states of emergency. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Saturday.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie broke off campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in North Carolina on Friday to return home.

"I can be as cynical as anyone,’‘ the pugnacious chief executive said. "But when the storm comes, if it’s as bad as they‘re predicting, you’re going to wish you weren‘t as cynical as you otherwise might have been.’‘

The storm forced the presidential campaign to juggle schedules. Romney scrapped plans to campaign Sunday in the swing state of Virginia and switched his schedule for the day to Ohio. First lady Michelle Obama canceled an appearance in New Hampshire for Tuesday, and Obama moved a planned Monday departure for Florida to Sunday night to beat the storm.

In Ship Bottom, just north of Atlantic City, Alice and Giovanni Stockton-Rossini spent Saturday packing clothing in the back yard of their home, a few hundred meters from the ocean on Long Beach Island. Their neighborhood was under a voluntary evacuation order, but they didn’t need to be forced.

"It‘s really frightening,’‘ Alice Stockton-Rossi said. "But you know how many times they tell you, `This is it, it’s really coming and it‘s really the big one’ and then it turns out not to be? I‘m afraid people will tune it out because of all the false alarms before, and the one time you need to take it seriously, you won’t. This one might be the one."

What makes the storm so dangerous and unusual is that it is coming at the tail end of hurricane season and the beginning of winter storm season, "so it‘s kind of taking something from both,’‘ said Jeff Masters, director of the private service Weather Underground.

Masters said the storm could be bigger than the worst East Coast storm on record -- the 1938 New England hurricane known as the Long Island Express, which killed nearly 800 people. Experts said to expect high winds over 1,300 kilometers and up to 60 centimeters of snow as far inland as West Virginia.

The storm was so big, and the convergence of the three storms so rare, that "we just can’t pinpoint who is going to get the worst of it," said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Officials are particularly worried about the possibility of subway flooding in New York City, said Uccellini.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to prepare to shut the city‘s subways, buses and suburban trains by Sunday, but delayed making a final decision. The city shut the subways down before last year’s Hurricane Irene, and a Columbia University study predicted that an Irene surge just one foot (30 centimeters) higher would have paralyzed lower Manhattan.

As the storm swirled away toward the U.S. East Coast, officials in the Caribbean reported that the hurricane cost at least 58 lives in addition to destroying or badly damaging thousands of homes.

While Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas took direct hits from the storm, the majority of deaths and most extensive damage was in impoverished Haiti. The country‘s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding when rains come.

Up and down the U.S. East Coast and far inland, officials urged residents and businesses to prepare in big ways and little.

The Virginia National Guard was authorized to call up to 500 troops to active duty for debris removal and road-clearing, while homeowners stacked sandbags at their front doors in coastal towns.

Utility officials warned rains could saturate the ground, causing trees to topple into power lines, and told residents to prepare for several days at home without power. "We’re facing a very real possibility of widespread, prolonged power outages," said Ruth Miller, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

Warren Ellis, who was on an annual fishing pilgrimage on North Carolina‘s Outer Banks, didn’t act fast enough to get home.

Ellis‘ 73-year-old father, Steven, managed to get off uninhabited Portsmouth Island near Cape Hatteras by ferry Friday. But the son and his 10-foot (3-meter) camper got stranded when high winds and surf forced state officials to suspend service Saturday.

"We might not get off here until Tuesday or Wednesday, which doesn’t hurt my feelings that much," said Ellis, 44, of Ammissville, Virginia "Because the fishing‘s going to be really good after this storm.’‘

Last year, Hurricane Irene poked a new inlet through the island, cutting the only road off Hatteras Island for about 4,000.

In New Jersey, Christie’s emergency declaration will force the shutdown of Atlantic City‘s 12 casinos for only the fourth time in the 34-year history of legalized gambling here. The approach of Hurricane Irene shut down the casinos for three days last August. 

Stronger won expected despite low growth

The Korean won is continuously appreciating against the U.S. dollar despite a series of gloomy indices over Korea’s economic growth for this year.

Though growth of the nation’s gross domestic product stayed at 1.6 percent in the third quarter of the year, falling below 2 percent for the first time since the third quarter of 2009, the dollar continued to lose ground against the Korean currency.

The dollar finally slid below 1,100 won last week after gradually losing value over the past few months ― 1,180.3 won on May 31, 1,134.7 won on Aug. 31 and 1,104.3 won on Oct. 18.

The dollar dropped again last Friday to close at 1,097 won after sinking below the 1,100-won mark to post 1,098.2 won a day earlier.

Theoretically, unfavorable economic indices invite currency depreciation.

But the current won-dollar exchange rates reflect “the dominant market projections that the won’s rally will go on for the time being,” according to Bank of Korea officials and research analysts.

An analyst predicted that a possible intervention in the currency market by foreign exchange authorities’ could not weaken the sentiment toward the won’s further appreciation against the greenback, at least until the end of this year.

In addition, export-oriented enterprises are also fanning the strong won as they recently become active sellers of the dollar-denominated assets which they earned.

“A number of exporters are betting the stronger won. Their selling of the dollar shows urgency in terms of profitability and price competitiveness in the overseas market,” a local currency dealer said.

Japanese products are gaining price competitiveness in the overseas market as the yen lost value against the greenback by 1.4 percent this year.

When the won appreciates by 1 percent against the dollar, the nation must suffer a drop of $520 million in its current account surplus and 0.72 percent in GDP growth, according to BOK economists.

A 10 percent rise in the exchange rate is translated into a 2.1 percent jump in export prices of the nation’s industrial goods, according to the Hyundai Research Institute.

When calculating this in September’s exports, handsets, semiconductor products and cars, the nation’s major export items, saw their profitability worsen by 4.4 percent, 0.7 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, the institute said.

The possibility that the won will rise in value up to nearly 1,000 won against the dollar is growing with the recent strengthened position of the won after quantitative easing by the U.S. government.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)

Anti-Dokdo stakes in U.S. spark furor

Recent bouts of vandalism in the U.S. aimed at claiming Japan’s sovereignty over the islets of Dokdo in East Sea have prompted an uproar in the Korean community there.

A white wooden stake was founded Saturday at the entrance of Seoul’s consulate general in Manhattan in New York, officials said. It reads “Takeshima is Japanese Territory,” referring to Japanese name of the outcrops.

A day earlier, a sticker with the same note was discovered near the signboard of the office’s petition room.

A similar pole was also removed Friday by the Korean American Civic Empowerment, a U.S.-based civic group, from beside a monument at a public park in New Jersey that commemorates Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during World War II. The memorial, a brass plaque on a piece of stone, was installed in 2010 at Palisades Park in front of a municipal library in the city.

An official of a Korean-American group points to the spot where a wooden stake was found placed near a “comfort women” momument in Palisades Park in New Jersey, U.S., Saturday. (Yonhap News)

Local police have launched an investigation into the incidents after receiving reports from the diplomatic missions, according to the New York consulate.

“The posts, as well as the sticker, were immediately reported to the police. We’ve also requested the police track down the culprit and strengthen vigilance in the neighborhood,” Jun Sung-oh, the mission’s public relations officer, told Yonhap News.

Korean civic groups there suspect a Japanese harboring anti-Korean sentiment or a group of nationalists with similar backgrounds had carried out the acts, given the nature of the incidents and similar appearances of the stakes.

“The stake was attached here, damaging the flowers next to the monument. I was so angry when I saw the message written on it. If I saw the person who did this, I wouldn’t have let him get away with what he did,” said Yoon Geum-jong, a member of a veterans’ group, in New Jersey.

U.S. authorities vowed a fact-finding mission.

“An event that turns into some sort of racist crime or some sort of biased crime, there would be investigation going on, and the perpetrator or perpetrators will be prosecuted in the event that turns out to be true,” Palisades Park Mayor James Rotundo told media.

The vandalism mirrors events in mid-June in Seoul when a right-wing Japanese activist left a wooden post in front of the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum and beside a bronze statue of a young girl before the Japanese Embassy. The sculpture symbolizes so-called comfort women and was erected by former victims and their supporters.

Japan illegally incorporated the islets in 1905 in the run up to its full-fledged occupation of the Korean Peninsula. Seoul regained them after its 1945 independence and mobilizes a small batch of coast guards there.

Tokyo has for decades insisted sovereignty over Dokdo via school textbooks, diplomatic and defense papers and other methods. The claim, together with the country’s repeated distortion of historical facts and failure to apologize for sex slavery and forced labor during World War II, has sparked anti-Japan protests across Korea.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com) 

‘Gangnam Style’ follow up single to be mix of English and Korean

Psy fans can expect new moves following the comical horse dance with Psy’s soon-to-be released bilingual track. In a recent interview with CNN, the “international singer” announced that his next single will be half in Korean and half in English.

There had been a lot of debate about whether or not Psy’s next song would in Korean or in English. It was reported that his agency, YG Entertainment, suggested he keep his songs in Korean, but Psy later announced that he was planning to produce a song in English.

K-pop breakout star Psy is featured on the cover of Nov. 3 issue of Billboard Magazine. (Billboard)

Psy cleared it up when he said in his latest interview which aired on Friday, “It’s half Korean, half English, so I kind of united them together. And it has another dance move. I cannot predict that it’ll be stronger than the horse, but still, I’ve got a really nice feeling about the choreography.”

He also revealed that he does not anticipate the new single, which is expected to be released before the end of November, to top “Gangnam Style.”

“I am not going to try to beat ‘Gangnam Style,’” he said. “I cannot beat ‘Gangnam Style,’ I don’t think so.”

Whether or not Psy’s next song will become another international sensation, his horse riding dance move has already landed him the cover of the latest issue of Billboard Magazine which will be published on Nov. 3. The cover story titled, “How the K-Pop breakout star harnessed the power of YouTube, SNL and more to become music’s new global brand,” hailed the rapping phenom as a “ready-made star.”

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)