South Korea's mounting crisis over a political funding scandal took a bizarre turn yesterday when a pro-government politician said he was on hunger strike to protest against the opposition party chief's own fast.
The head of South Korea's main opposition Grand National Party, Choe Byung-yol, stopped eating on Wednesday, saying he would start again only if President Roh Moo-hyun lifted a veto on parliament's bid to name a special investigative counsel.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The president argues that more time is needed for a separate prosecution inquiry that began as a probe into some of his aides, but then widened to take in big "chaebol" conglomerates and opposition parties just months before April parliamentary elections. Roh has vowed to cut ties between politics and the chaebol.
Now the chairman of the labor committee at the Uri Party, which split from the then-ruling party in September and backs Roh, has stopped eating to highlight what he sees as the disruptive nature of the opposition protest.
"If Choe thought about the future of South Korea and the people, he should stop and return to the National Assembly," said Kim Young-dae by telephone, referring to the opposition-dominated parliament that still has 1,205 bills to vote on before this year's session ends on Dec. 9.
"My hunger protest against Choe will last one day more than Choe's," said Kim. Both men are drinking water but not eating.
South Korean politics is often tempestuous. Labor-related protests can turn violent, providing graphic images that deter potential foreign investors.
The opposition boycott of parliament could hold up voting on next year's budget for Asia's fourth-largest economy. Political tensions also do little to help the North Korea nuclear crisis.
The presidential Blue House had no comment on the hunger strikes. It said an opposition call for prosecutors to probe Roh over bribery allegations was a matter for the prosecutors.
Roh said on Wednesday he would not duck an investigation or interfere with prosecutors already probing a number of his aides.
"We have to follow democratic rules which are written in the constitution before blaming and fighting each other," he said.
A close Roh aide is under investigation for taking 1.1 billion won (US$915,000) from the scandal-tainted SK Group.
Prosecutors investigating fund-raising practices during last year's December presidential election, in which Roh narrowly upset a conservative candidate, have raided units of South Korea's two largest chaebol, Samsung Group and LG Group.
Prosecutors yesterday searched the offices of unlisted Hyundai Capital, a leasing and lending arm of the country's top carmaker, Hyundai Motor. Hyundai Capital's chairman said the raid was linked to the political probe, local media reported.
In mid-October, Roh called for a referendum on his rule and ordered the inquiry. A Blue House official said it would be hard to stick to the mooted Dec. 15 vote because of political developments.
"It looks like the vote will be delayed until the prosecution investigation into the funding scandal is over," he said.
The constitutional court said on Thursday it had narrowly rejected a complaint about the referendum from a former parliamentary speaker and civic groups.
In a further twist, prosecutors said Lee Sang-ho, a brother-in-law of ex-president Kim Dae-jung, had been arrested on charges of accepting 100 million won from a Buddhist temple in return for a promise to secure renovation subsidies.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
RSS