Stalled in Seoul: How protests have humbled South Korea's 'Bulldozer'

By Anna Fifield and Victor Mallet When Lee Myung-bak was preparing to take office as South Korea’s president in February, one of his top priorities was to dispatch a team of repairmen to Daebul industrial park in the south of the country. An electricity pole had fallen over some five years before, inconveniencing the truck drivers who had to navigate around it every day. What should have been a matter for the local council suddenly became one for the highest office in the land. The incoming president made a few calls and had the pole removed, an act that his team heralded as a sign of the new administration’s can-do attitude. Indeed, the act speaks volumes about Mr Lee’s presidency. Elected with a landslide victory and a strong mandate to overhaul Asia’s fourth biggest economy, Mr Lee’s strength was his proven record as a Mr... [read full story]