CONTRARY TO popular belief, the party left most isolated by the U.N. Security Council's unanimous condemnation of North Korea's missile launches and nuclear programs is not the reclusive Pyongyang regime, but the other Korea, the affluent one south of the 38th parallel. After all, Kim Jong Il--the…

THERE'S HARDLY EVER A DULL moment in South Korean politics. Awash in frequent and stupendous scandals, Koreans rarely find the time to step back and take the long view. Looking back on 2005, which defining event will Koreans remember, say, fifty or a hundred years from now?