THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary- November 26, 2016- Topic 2
Hundreds of thousands of
angry citizens have been taking to the streets every weekend in South Korea,
against the continuation in office of President Park Geun-hye. The crisis of
confidence in Ms. Park’s leadership exploded after her aide Choi Soon-sil was
arrested over allegations that Ms. Choi covertly exercised illegal authority over
critical government decisions. She has also allegedly extorted $69 million from
the giant industrial conglomerates, or chaebols, in the form of donations to
two charitable foundations. Ms. Park has stood her ground and clung on to the
presidency, even as she sacked at least eight of her aides in an unsuccessful
attempt to regain public trust. Yet, pressure is mounting as the opposition
parties are circling the wagons over impeaching her for breach of the
Constitution. An impeachment motion would require two-thirds support in the
300-seat National Assembly. Opposition parties enjoy a combined majority there,
and say they have secured the backing of more than 29 lawmakers of the ruling
Saenuri party, the minimum number required to push this through. If they
succeed, this would be the first time in 12 years that South Korea’s National
Assembly has impeached a president.
History also matters in the
broader context of the unravelling relationship between the South Korean
government and the chaebols. What began as a storied macroeconomic strategy of
“picking winners” from amongst competing industrial groups, a paradigm that
produced the Samsungs and Hyundais of today, is under a cloud. On November 8,
prosecutors raided the Samsung offices over allegations it had transferred $3.1
million to a company owned by Ms. Choi in Germany. The hard-fought democracy
that South Koreans won in 1987, driven by “people power” protests similar to
the ones seen in Seoul this month, is in need of revitalisation. The pressure
to establish a more sustainable model of governance is immense, not least
because South Korea finds itself at a strategic crossroads on the global stage.
Whoever succeeds Ms. Park as President — and it might well be soon-to-retire UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — would have to address sky-high tensions with
nuclear-armed North Korea, and manage an economy that is at risk of slowing.
Ties are cooling with China, South Korea’s largest trading partner, and Beijing
is hostile to the prospect of deploying the U.S.-made antiballistic missile
system THAAD in the peninsula. Further, the rhetoric of U.S. President-elect
Donald Trump on economic protectionism and reviewing relationships with treaty
allies does not help the South Korean cause. One way or another, the ball is in
Ms. Park’s court, and she has the opportunity to bring the turmoil to a quick
end.
Vocabulary
Exploded: show a belief or theory to be false or
unfounded.
Example: The myths that link smoking with glamour need to be exploded
Synonyms: disprove, refute, invalidate, negate, discredit, debunk
Covert: not openly acknowledged or displayed.
Example: Covert operations against the dictatorship
Synonyms: secret, furtive, clandestine, surreptitious, stealthy, cloak-and-dagger
Extorted: obtain something by force, threats, or
other unfair means.
Example: He was convicted of trying to extort $1 million from a developer
Synonyms: force, extract, exact, wring, wrest, screw, squeeze, obtain
by threat
Conglomerate: a number of different things or parts that are put or grouped together to
form a whole but remain distinct entities.
Example: The Earth is a specialized conglomerate of organisms
Synonyms: mixture, mix, combination, amalgamation, union, marriage, fusion
Clung: hold on tightly to.
Example: She clung to Joe's arm
Sacked: dismiss from employment.
Example: Any official found to be involved would be sacked on the spot
Synonyms: dismiss, discharge, lay
off, let go, terminate, get rid of, cashier
Circling: move all the way around (someone or something), especially more than once.
Example: The two dogs circle each other with hackles raised
Synonyms: wheel, move
around, revolve, rotate, whirl, spiral
Unravelling: investigate and solve or explain something complicated or puzzling.
Example: They were attempting to unravel the cause of death
Synonyms: solve, resolve, clear
up, puzzle out, unscramble, get to the bottom of
Paradigm: a typical example or pattern of something; a model.
Example: There is a new paradigm for public art in this country
Synonyms: model, pattern, example, exemplar, template, standard
Hostile: unfriendly; antagonistic.
Example: A hostile audience
Synonyms: unfriendly, unkind, bitter, unsympathetic, malicious, vicious
Rhetoric: the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use
of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.
Example: Born into a rich provincial family, he studied philosophy as well as
rhetoric and law.
Synonyms: oratory, eloquence, command
of language, way with words
Turmoil: a state of great disturbance, confusion, or uncertainty.
Example: The country was in turmoil
Synonyms: confusion, upheaval, turbulence, tumult, disorder, disturbance