On Wednesday, a day after he was elected, Moon Jae-in was sworn in as the 19th president of South Korea at the National Assembly building in Seoul. Moon, a 64-year-old liberal, won a decisive 41 percent of the vote in Tuesday's special election, made necessary by the impeachment and subsequent arrest of former President Park Geun-hye in a massive corruption scandal; his closest competitor, Hong Joon-pyo of Park's conservative Liberty Korea Party, got 25.5 percent.
Moon, a human rights lawyer and former chief of staff to liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, vowed to unite the country after the divisive Park scandal, and try to reform the economy away from the massive family-run conglomerates, or chaebols, largely set up under Park's father, former military ruler Park Chung-hee. He has also pledged to try to improve relations with North Korea while also using sanctions and other forms of pressure to get it to abandon its nuclear weapons program, saying Wednesday he would be open to visiting Pyongyang "in the right circumstances."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Political cartoons for November 2Cartoons Sunday's political cartoons include the 22nd amendment, homeless camps, and more
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago.
-
Trump’s White House ballroom: a threat to the republic?Talking Point Trump be far from the first US president to leave his mark on the Executive Mansion, but to critics his remodel is yet more overreach
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
