“Song’s Foot Too Deep on One Side”

Moon Hee-sang, the head of the secretariat to the President, and Yoo In-tae, a state affairs chief secretary, announced about the German resident scholar, Song Doo-yul, on October 4, “It seems that Mr. Song has set his foot too deeply into North Korean affairs. We believe the prosecution will take care of the matter according to the principles. They spoke at the current national administrational discussion for the 57th anniversary of the Kyung Hyang Daily. This implies that it is not likely that there will be any political concern about him, and stringent punishment such as deportation or accusation is inevitable. Mr. Yoo added about the counter-parliamentary situation of the President Roh Moo-hyun being without a party, “From now on, staff members at the Blue House will be stationed at the Parliament and will explain about our policies and bills to all four parties. There will be a new office set up for this within the Parliament.”

Lee Jung-woo, the policy head to the President, has mentioned about the recent boom prices in real estate, “Real estate problems involve not only economical problems but also social and educational ones, so there is a limit to the economical solutions. A frontal attack is the only solution, and we will extend speculation zones and utilize measures such as restrictions on distribution right monopoly and increasing transfer income tax in order to decrease the demand for speculation.”

Cho Yoon-jae, the economic advisor to the President explained, “We are planning to raise taxes related to immovable properties by three times within the present presidential term. The property tax for the immovable properties will change from the present rate of 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent, and the taxation standard will change from the standard of the pyong to the central price.”

Jeong-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com