S. Korean president will stop in isles

U.S.-South Korea trade deal faces hurdles in Congress

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is scheduled to stop in Honolulu on Thursday on his way back home to Seoul.

Roh will meet with members of Hawaii's Korean community and will honor soldiers who died in the Korean War with a wreath-laying visit to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl, where more than 2,100 American casualties of the 1950-53 conflict are buried. He will also meet with veterans of the war for a photography session.

Gov. Linda Lingle will join the president and his wife at the military cemetery, according to Lingle's office. Koreans have a long and proud history in Hawaii.

On Jan. 13, 1903, the first documented group of Korean immigrants to America set foot in the islands. The SS Gaelic pulled into Honolulu Harbor, delivering 86 men, women and children to the U.S. territory.

About 7,000 other Koreans arrived in the islands over the following two years, recruited to work on the sugar plantations across Hawaii.

Among the prominent Korean Americans in Hawaii are State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Moon and Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim.

Roh's last visit to Hawaii was in November 2004, when he met with U.S. Pacific Command officials to discuss security and terrorism issues in the region.

Roh will be coming from the International Olympic Committee meeting in Guatemala City. PyeongChang, a Korean county east of Seoul, is bidding to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Roh was elected to office in 2002 as a strong proponent of engagement by North and South Korea. He is in his second term as president.

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U.S.-South Korea trade deal faces hurdles in Congress

SEOUL » The United States and South Korea yesterday signed the largest free trade deal for Washington since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992, though Democratic leaders in Congress warned that they would not approve it.

The U.S. trade representative, Susan Schwab, and South Korea's trade minister, Kim Hyun-chong, signed the deal only hours before President Bush's "fast-track" authority to negotiate such an agreement -- one that Congress must approve or reject but cannot revise -- was to expire yesterday.

If approved by the legislatures of both countries, the agreement could expand trade between the countries, already worth about $79 billion a year, as much as $20 billion, according to recent estimates by U.S. and South Korean economists.

The deal, known as the Korean Free Trade Agreement, calls for eliminating tariffs on 95 percent of consumer and industrial products on both sides within three years. It would also help South Korea's export-driven economy fight increasing pressure from a high-tech Japan and a low-cost China. And it would give American companies an important foothold in the thriving Northeast Asian economy.