1.
Park holds
lead in South Korea presidential vote count
CNN December 19, 2012
Seoul,
South Korea (CNN) -- With more than two-thirds of the votes counted in South
Korea's election, candidate Park Geun-hye has a slight edge over her rival --
giving hope to her supporters that she may become the country's first woman
president.
The
South Korean National Election Commission reported that with 70% of the votes
counted, Park leads by 51.57% to 47.98% for contender Moon Jae-in.
The
three major broadcasters in South Korea all project a win for Park, who heads
the governing conservative Saenuri party.
Voters
who headed to the polls amid frigid temperatures faced a choice between a
conservative and a liberal candidate to lead the strategic Western ally and
fourth largest economy in Asia.
Opinion
polls suggested Park, 60, had an edge going into the vote, held at a time of
rising economic anxiety.
But
she faces a stiff challenge from Moon, the 59-year-old, left-leaning candidate
of the Democratic United Party, who steadily gained support in the run-up to
the election.
The
winner of Wednesday's race will assume office in February 2013, in a country
grappling with income inequality, angst over education and employment prospects
for its youth and strained relations with Pyongyang.
"I
hope the next president can put what the people want and how the country can
develop before the interests of their own party," said Yong Sung-hwa, who
voted in the morning.
Like
many other elections around the world, the economy is the No. 1 issue for South
Korean voters. Though the Asian country has fared far better than other
countries, including the United States, during the economic crisis, its
export-led economy has still felt the pinch.
"This
country depends on the world's economy," said Jong Kun Choi, associate
professor in the department of political science and international studies at
Yonsei University in Seoul. "Eighty-nine percent of our GDP comes from the
international trade."
The
election could shape into a showdown of generations. Park enjoys broad support
from the older Koreans in their 50s and 60s, while Moon has strong support from
younger Koreans.
2.
Police: 20
children among 26 victims of Connecticut school shooting
CNN December 15, 2012’’
Newtown,
Connecticut (CNN) -- Dressed in black fatigues and a military vest, a heavily
armed man walked into a Connecticut elementary school Friday and
opened fire, shattering the quiet of this southern New England town and leaving
the nation reeling at the number of young lives lost.
Within
minutes, 26 people were dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School -- 20 of them children.
Among the six adults killed were Dawn Hochsprung, the school's beloved
principal, and school psychologist Mary Sherlach.
The
shooter, identified by three law enforcement officials as 20-year-old Adam
Lanza, also was killed, apparently by his own hand. Separately, his
mother's body was found at a Newtown residence.
"Stuff
like this does not happen in Newtown," a tight-knit community of about
27,000 just outside Danbury, said Renee Burn, a local teacher at another school
in town. In the past 10 years, only one homicide had previously been reported.
With
the death toll at 26, the Newtown shooting is the second-deadliest school
shooting in U.S. history, behind only the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech that
left 32 people dead.
"Evil
visited this community today," Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy said of
Friday's massacre.
Young
students described being ushered into bathrooms and closets by teachers as the
first shots rang out. Janet Vollmer, a kindergarten teacher, locked her
classroom doors, covered the windows and read a story to her 19 students to
keep them calm.
Third-grader
Alexis Wasik said police and teachers barged into her classroom and told
students to hide in the corner.
"Everybody
was crying," she said. "And I just heard the police officers yelling."
One
parent who was in the school at the time of the shooting said she heard a
"pop, pop, pop," sound around 9:30 a.m. In the room with her were
Hochsprung, the vice principal and Sherlach. All three left the room and went
into the hall to see what was happening. The parent ducked under the table and
called 911.
"I
cowered," she told CNN's Meredith Artley. The shooter "must have shot
a hundred rounds."
Responding
police officers helped evacuate the children, telling them to hold hands and
keep their eyes closed to the carnage as they exited the building.
3.
Japan's
New Old Hawk
The Wall Street Journal December 16, 2012
The
LDP regains power by promising a stronger foreign policy.
Japanese
voters swept the ruling Democratic Party of Japan out of power on Sunday, but the
question is what difference it will make. The answer is probably not much on
the economy as the election was fought more than anything over foreign policy.
Shinzo
Abe will return as Japanese Prime Minister as his Liberal Democratic Party was
expected to win about 300 out of 480 seats. Yet the LDP's share of the popular
vote was only around 30%, and the overall turnout was 60%, according to the
Kyodo news service, down from 69% in 2009 and equaling the postwar low in 1996.
Mr.
Abe's economic platform consisted of more fiscal stimulus spending, to be
financed by the Bank of Japan directly buying government bonds. In other words,
printing money to bring inflation up to a new target of 2%-3%, compared to the
BoJ's current target of 1%.
But
the central bank has expanded the money supply enormously, and demand for
credit is so weak that it has been unable to stop deflation. Deregulation and
trade liberalization have a much better chance of reviving the economy than
Keynesian or monetarist remedies, but the LDP is still tied to vested interests
in business and agriculture.
One
upside is that the current government's proposed consumption tax increase may
never happen. The first increase, to 8% from 5%, is due to take effect in April
2014, but only if there is an "upturn in economic conditions." Mr.
Abe could use this wiggle room to prevent this trainwreck.
In
many ways, Mr. Abe has China's Hu Jintao and South Korea's Lee Myung-bak to
thank for his victory. Both have stepped up territorial disputes with Japan, and
Beijing escalated tensions in the last week by sending a patrol plane to the
disputed Senkaku Islands. A recent Cabinet Office poll found that 93% of
Japanese believe China-Japanese relations are "unfriendly."
Mr.
Abe's victory and the rise of the nationalist Japan Restoration Party have
already triggered hand-wringing in academic towers about Japan's rightward
turn. And the new Prime Minister has said he intends to revoke a 1993 admission
about the Imperial Army's wartime sex slaves, change the procedures for
approving history textbooks and revise the pacifist provisions in the
constitution.
