South Korean policy-makers said on Thursday the US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates is unlikely to cause a significant blow to the country’s markets, but maintained firm action would be taken if needed.
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The ruling by the Seoul Central District Court comes as President Park Geun-hye faces criticism that she has clamped down on journalists.
Stressing that the right to criticize public officials should be guaranteed, the judge said the article comes under the scope of the protection of freedom of the press. “Given that the 18th [of December] marks the 50th anniversary of the Japan-South Korea Treaty on Basic Relations taking effect, the request from the Japanese side deserves serious consideration”, the judge said, reading the letter from the foreign ministry before handing down the ruling. Ms Park’s government has faced a huge public backlash for its handling of the rescue operation.
Kato wrote in an August 3 online report that the president was missing for seven hours on April 16, 2014, the day the Sewol ferry sank, and alleged that she was secretly meeting a recently divorced former aide.
President Park Geun-hye said Tuesday that history should be taught “correctly” for young South Koreans in what could be the latest move to advocate for state history textbooks.
Government officials in Japan and South Korea who had been trying to improve soured ties between the countries’ leaders over Japan’s wartime past breathed a sigh of relief after a Japanese journalist was acquitted for defamation on Thursday.
Park’s office has said she wasn’t with the man in question, a former adviser. South Korean media also have reported the ruling will benefit diplomatic ties with Japan.
Many South Koreans still resent Japan’s harsh colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
The Sankei – a center-right daily – has suggested it was being singled out by South Korean authorities for its campaign to reverse a Japanese apology for forcing Korean women into brothels during World War II.
“The results of the trial have made clear that the coverage in the Sankei Shimbun was false”, another South Korean government source said.
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Also on Wednesday, Park pressed the parliament again to approve a set of bills meant to reform South Korea’s labor markets and revitalize the economy.
