Park Geun-hye

Park Geunhye (Hangul: 박근혜; Hanja: 朴槿惠; born 2 February 1952) is a South Korean politician. She was the chairwoman of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) between 2004 and 2006 and between 2011 and 2012 (the GNP changed its name to "Saenuri Party" in February 2012). Park is a member of the Korean National Assembly who had served four consecutive parliamentary terms as a constituency representative between 1998 and 2012, and started her fifth term as a proportional representative from June 2012. Her father was Park Chung-hee, president of South Korea from 1963 to 1979. She is considered the most influential politician in Korea since the "three Kims" (Kim Young Sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Kim Jong-pil).  She won the election on December 19, 2012, and is now the first woman president of Korea.
 

Family and education

Park was born on 2 February 1952, in Samdeok-dong of Jung-gu, Daegu, as the first child of Park Chung-hee, president and dictator of South Korea between 1963 and 1979 and Yuk Young-soo. She has a younger brother, Park Ji-man, and a younger sister, Park Seoyeong. Park has never been married. Park Graduated from Seoul's Seongsim High School in 1970, going on to receive a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Sogang University in 1974. She received honorary doctoral degrees from Chinese Culture University in Taiwan in 1987, Pukyong National University and KAIST in 2008, and Sogang University in 2010. 

 

First Lady - as the President's daughter after her mother's murder

Park lost her mother to Mun Se-gwang, a Japanese-born Korean assassin, a member of General Association of Korean Residents in Japan under the command of the North Korean government in the National Theater of Korea, Seoul on 15 August 1974. Since then, she was regarded as first lady until 1979 when her father was also assassinated by his own intelligence chief, Gim Jaegyu, on 26 October 1979. During this time, activists who were political opponents of her father were claimed to be subject to arbitrary detention, and human rights were considered subordinate to economic development. In 2007 Park Geunhye has expressed regret at the treatment of activists during this period.

 

From: www.wikipedia.org

Lee Myung-bak

Lee Myung-bak (born 19 December 1941) is the President of South Korea. Prior to his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction and the mayor of Seoul. He is married to Kim Yoon-ok and has three daughters and one son. His older brother is Lee Sang-deuk, a South Korean politician. He attends the Somang Presbyterian Church. Lee is a graduate of Korea University and also received an honorary degree from Paris Diderot University on May 13, 2011.

Lee altered the South Korean government's approach to North Korea, preferring a more hardline strategy in the wake of increased provocation from the North, but is also supportive of regional dialogue with Russia, China, and Japan. Under Lee, South Korea has been increasing its visibility and influence in the global scene, resulting in the hosting of the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit. However, there remains significant controversy in Korea in regards to high profile government initiatives which have caused some factions to engage in civil opposition and protest against the incumbent government and President Lee's Grand National Party. The reformist faction within the Grand National Party is at odds against Lee Myung-bak.

Early Life and Education

Lee Myung-bak was born on December 19, 1941 in Osaka, Japan. The Lee family had emigrated to Japan in 1929 following the Japanese annexation of Korean Empire. His father, Lee Chung-u (이충우; 李忠雨), was employed as a farm hand on a cattle ranch in Japan, and his mother, Chae Taewon (채태원; 蔡太元) was a housewife. Lee is the fifth of seven children, with three brothers and three sisters. After the end of World War II in 1945, his family returned to his father's hometown of Pohang, in Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. Lee's sister, Lee Ki-sun, made it known that they smuggled themselves into the country in order to avoid the property they acquired in Japan being confiscated by the officials. However, because the ship they took was wrecked off the coast of Tsushima island they lost all their belongings after all and the family barely survived.

Lee attended night school at Dongji Commercial High School in Pohang, at the time he received a scholarship. A year after graduation, Lee gained admission to Korea University. In 1964, during his third year in college, Lee was elected president of the student council. That year, Lee participated in student demonstrations against President Park Chung-hee's Seoul-Tokyo Talks taking issue with Japanese restitution for the colonization of the Korean peninsula. He was charged with plotting insurrection and was sentenced to five years probation and three years of imprisonment by the Supreme Court of Korea. He served a little under three months of his term at the Seodaemun prison in Seoul.

In his autobiography Lee writes that he was dismissed from Korea's mandatory military service due to a diagnosis of acute bronchiectasis while at the Nonsan Training Facility.

Business Career

In 1965, Lee started to work at Hyundai Construction which was awarded Korea's first-ever overseas construction, a $5.2 million contract to build the Pattani-Narathiwat Highway in Thailand. Despite being a new employee, Lee was sent to Thailand to participate in the project. The project was successfully completed in March 1968, and Lee returned to Korea and was subsequently given charge of Hyundai's heavy machinery plant in Seoul.

It was during his three decades with the Hyundai Group that Lee earned the nickname "Bulldozer". In one instance, he completely dismantled a malfunctioning bulldozer to study its mechanics and figure out how to repair it.

Lee became a company director at the age of 29 – just five years after he joined the company – and CEO at age 35, becoming Korea's youngest CEO ever. In 1988, he was named the chairman of Hyundai Construction at the age of 47.

When he started at Hyundai in 1965, it had 90 employees; when he left as chairman after 27 years, it had more than 160,000. Soon after the successful completion of the Pattani-Narathiwat Highway by Hyundai Construction, Korea's construction industry began to focus their efforts on encouraging the creation of new markets in countries such as Vietnam and the Middle East. Following the decline of construction demands from Vietnam in the 60s, Hyundai construction turned their eyes toward the Middle East and continued to be a major player in construction projects, with the successful completion of such vital international projects as the Arab Shipbuilding & Repair Yard, the Diplomatic Hotel in Bahrain and the Jubail Industrial Harbor Projects in Saudi Arabia, also known as 'the great history of the 20th century'. At that time, the amount of orders received by the Korean construction company exceeded US$10 billion and this contributed in overcoming the national crisis resulting from the oil shock.

After leaving Hyundai at the end of a 27-year career, he decided to enter politics.

From : www.wikipedia.org

South Korea

South Korea has developed into one of Asia's most affluent countries since partition in 1948. The Communist North has slipped into totalitarianism and poverty.

The Republic of Korea was proclaimed in August 1948 and received UN-backed support from the US after it was invaded by the North two years later.

The Korean War ended in 1953 without a peace agreement, leaving South Korea technically at war for more than fifty years.

The following four decades were marked by authoritarian rule. Government-sponsored schemes encouraged the growth of family-owned industrial conglomerates, known as "chaebol". Foremost among them were the Hyundai and Samsung groups.

They helped transform South Korea into one of the world's major economies and a leading exporter of cars and electronic goods.

Although the South Korean economy is now the third largest in Asia and the 13th in the world, the high levels of foreign debt held by the country's banks have left them exposed to the fallout from the global credit crisis.

A multi-party political system was restored in 1987, and President Roh Tae-Woo launched an anti-corruption campaign against both his own party and his political predecessor.

Relations with its northern neighbour remain a major concern in Seoul, particularly over the North's fragile economy and its nuclear ambitions. South Korea generally resisted international calls for sanctions against the North over its nuclear programme and pursued a "sunshine" policy of engagement in the late 1990s.

This has involved aid - including shipments of fertiliser and rice - reunions between North and South Koreans, tourist projects and economic cooperation. South Korean companies employed thousands of North Korean workers at the Kaesong industrial complex near the border.

The "sunshine" ended with the election in 2008 of conservative President Lee Myung-bak, who adopted a tougher tone towards the North in response to its failure to move on the nuclear issue.

Tensions were heightened further by a spate of Northern missile tests in 2009 and then by the sinking of the Southern naval ship Cheonan in March 2010, in which 46 sailors died.

After international investigators reported finding evidence that the Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo from a North Korean submarine, South Korea stopped all trade between the two states. Pyongyang rejected the claim as "fabrication" and retaliated by cutting all relations with Seoul.

A serious cross-border clash in November 2010, as a result of which the South Korean military was placed on its highest non-wartime alert, threatened to set relations back even further.

The demilitarised zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea is the world's most heavily-fortified frontier. But the US, which maintains tens of thousands of soldiers in South Korea, is pulling its forces away from the front line and plans to hand over wartime operational control to the South Korean military in April 2012.

Facts

    * Full name: The Republic of Korea

    * Population: 48.9 million (World Bank, 2010)

    * Capital: Seoul

    * Area: 99,313 sq km (38,345 sq miles)

    * Major language: Korean

    * Major religions: Buddhism, Christianity

    * Life expectancy: 77 years (men), 84 years (women) (UN)

    * Monetary unit: won

    * Main exports: Electronic products, machinery and transport equipment

    * GNI per capita: US $19,890 (World Bank, 2010)

    * Internet domain: .kr

    * International dialling code: +82

Leaders

President: Lee Myung-bak

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took up office in February 2008, after having scored a record victory margin in December's presidential election.

His election pledges included promises to boost growth, cut high youth unemployment and raise competitiveness in the face of challenges from China and Japan.

He also pledged to take a tougher line towards North Korea than his predecessor and to strengthen South Korea's alliance with the United States.

Only months after the election, Mr Lee's approval ratings plummeted when he agreed to resume US beef imports - despite public fears over the safety of US beef - in order to secure a free trade deal.

However, his popularity later recovered on signs that the South Korean economy had successfully weathered the global economic crisis of 2008-9.

Mr Lee is South Korea's first president with a business background. He spent nearly three decades working for the Hyundai Group, becoming CEO at the age of 35. It was during this stage of his career that he acquired the nickname "The Bulldozer".

He entered politics in 1992 and became mayor of Seoul in 2002. In 2007, he became the conservative Grand National Party's candidate for the presidency. In April 2008, the GNP - which had been in opposition - won control of parliament.

The South Korean president holds full executive powers and the premiership is a largely ceremonial post. Mr Lee regularly reshuffles his cabinet, and there has been a change of prime minister every year since 2008.

From : BBC News