1st Internet President Roh Returned to Power

In amajor victory for progressive forces in Asia,
the world’s
first Internet President, Roh Moo Hyun, has been returned to power
by the Constitutional Court in South Koreas after being impeached by
the National Assembly two months ago. The main question at this point
is whether he will stand by his earlier, unpopular decision to send
an additional 3,200 Korean troops to Iraq. Since a majority in Korea,
according to the latest polls, think their relations with China are
more important than those with the United States, don’t count on it….

SEOUL, South Korea, Friday, May 14 – South Korea’s nine-member Constitutional
Court ruled Friday to dismiss the impeachment case against President
Roh Moo Hyun, restoring full powers to the president, in a case that
had tested the nation’s fledgling democracy.

The ruling ended a crisis for South Korea, a major American ally and one of Asia’s
most dynamic economies, that began March 12, when the National Assembly unexpectedly
approved a bill to impeach Mr. Roh on minor election law violations. A month
later, voters punished conservative parliamentary candidates and tripled the
seats of the Uri Party, a new liberal coalition that backs Mr. Roh, giving it
a slim majority in the one-chamber National Assembly.

from the New York Times