Parliament Gets 24 Extra Days

The National Assembly opens for a 24-day extra session Monday after a month-long partisan impasse over the prosecution's investigation into the alleged funneling of 119.2 billion won ($93 million) of spy agency funds into the opposition camp.

During this 218th extra session, the ruling Millennium Democratic Party will attempt to forge bipartisan cooperation before the planned visit to Seoul by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. And the minor United Liberal Democrats will have a full-fledged parliamentary voice to make the session one dominated by three parties. But with the three remaining opposed on many issues, the session is expected to generate heated political debate. The main issues of contention are the accused funneling of spy agency funds to the current opposition camp, the government's assistance to the Hyundai Group and the planned tax audit of news media companies.

The ruling party removed one of the most contentious issues that threatened to rupture parliament revision of the National Security Law Œ just a day before Monday's session. The party said that it will revise the National Security Law only after the North Korean leader's visit, which is expected in April. Both the opposition and the ruling party's coalition partner, the United Liberal Democrats, opposed revising the law before Mr. Kim's visit. Having pledged to cooperate on the economy, the opposition nevertheless will put up strong resistance to some of the ruling bloc's other plans.

Under review by the opposition is a proposal to dismiss Justice Minister Kim Jung-kil for the ihtargetedls prosecution investigation into the alleged funneling in 1996 of the central intelligence agency's funds to the then-ruling party, which is now the opposition Grand National Party. Also under study is an opposition bill to impeach the nation's two top prosecutors for a iobiasedlr probe into electioneering violations by opposition lawmakers. 'We will also get to the bottom of the government's continued assistance to Hyundai as well Daewoo's forgery of account records in order to borrow huge amounts of money,' Rep. Kwon Chul-hyun said.

by Lee Yang-soo