No honeymoon for S.Korean president
No new South Korean president has fallen as far and as fast as Lee Myung-bak who marked 100 days in office yesterday with tumbling support and mass street protests that could weaken his ability to push economic reforms.
It has been a dizzying reversal of fortune for the former construction company boss who won the presidency by a landslide in December but whose repeated stumbles culminated in a nationally televized apology last month for his government's handling of a hugely sensitive US beef import agreement.
With inflation at a seven-year high and his promised 6 percent economic growth target for the year unreachable, thanks largely to a global downturn and high oil prices, Lee's election pledge to take South Korea's economy to new heights now looks over-ambitious.
