Who suggested late Feb? 3/1/1919 was Korea's anti-Japanese movmt. Moon/his party deny 8/15/48 as SKorea's birth (as liberal democracy/mkt econ), instead says 1919 "provisionl govt" in China. Moon plans big event on 3/1 & KJU may join to reap image victory. SK people aghast. https://t.co/4TYMwm68Ij
— Tara O (@DrTaraO) January 19, 2019
Via a reader tip comes news that a Korean national with a US Green Card was recently convicted for illegally voting:
A permanent resident in North Carolina will not face prison time after she was illegally allowed to vote during three separate elections.
Hyo Suk George, 70, was charged with illegal voting by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after she reportedly voted in 2008, 2010 and 2016 in Columbus County. Instead of sentencing George to six months in prison, U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle fined George $100.
George arrived in the United States from South Korea in 1989. She got a green card in 1995 and has worked in housekeeping and fast food, her federal public defender Sherri Alspaugh said. She registered to vote “next to the senior center” after taking the advice of a town council member, according to the News & Observer.In his ruling, Boyle also expressed frustration towards the elections board in Whiteville, North Carolina, because it allowed George to register to vote using her green card, Social Security number and driver’s license, the News & Observer reported.
Newsweek
“So they see a green card and say, ‘That’s OK’ because they don’t know what they’re doing,” the judge said. “They ought to be a little smarter than that.”
You can read more at the link, but this makes me wonder how much of this illegal voter registration is going on?
Also it shows the weakness of voter ID laws at polling stations when green card holders are allowed to register and polling stations usually require a driver’s license to vote which green card holders can get.
Kim-Trump 2 will apparently happen by the end of February:
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will hold a second summit near the end of February at a location to be announced at a later date, the White House said Friday.
Trump and a top North Korean official met at the White House to finalize details of a potential summit on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program.
“President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.”Vietnam is widely reported to be a top candidate site. Both the U.S. and North Korea have embassies there.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the fact that the Kim regime has agreed to the summit means they must feel they are going to get a significant concession from the US. I guess we will see what it is.
Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.
NKorea sent letters to labor unions (KCTU & FKTU) in SKorea, stating "firmly defeat foreign power intervention in..minju issues" & be on the frontline for unification. A unified Korea that is liberal democracy or illiberal democracy (people's democracy)?https://t.co/aJCYvnZGE8
— Tara O (@DrTaraO) January 17, 2019
If a Korean conservative politician did the same thing does anyone think the reaction would be different from the Korean left?:
Opposition parties denounced the ruling Democratic Party (DP) Friday for its decision not to take any action against one of its lawmakers who is alleged to have speculated in real estate.
Yonhap
The DP’s leadership decided Thursday that it will not punish Rep. Sohn Hye-won based on its judgment that she had not intended to make a speculative investment in real estate in Mokpo, 410 kilometers southwest of Seoul.
Sohn is suspected of having mobilized her relatives and aides to buy properties in an old district of Mokpo before authorities designated it as a cultural asset site, according to media reports.
She is alleged to have used inside information she obtained while serving on the parliamentary culture committee and to have provided money to her relatives for the purchases. Sohn has denied the allegations, claiming that she encouraged her aides to buy properties as an act of goodwill to revive the city.
It will be interesting to see if the USFK cost sharing issue is in fact used to drawdown troops from South Korea:
While the United States and North Korea try to revive nuclear talks, another dispute is simmering on the southern half of the peninsula over funding for U.S. forces.
Stars & Stripes
Seoul and Washington failed to agree on a new cost-sharing deal for the 28,500 U.S. servicemembers stationed in South Korea before the latest five-year contract expired on Dec. 31.
That has raised fears that President Donald Trump may threaten to draw down forces as he prepares for a possible second summit with North Korea.
The longtime allies held 10 rounds of talks since March but remained deadlocked as the new year began over Washington’s reported demand that South Korea increase its contribution by as much as 150 percent.
You can read more at the link, but analysts do have a point that if troops levels are reduced the Trump administration can blame South Korea for not increasing their contributions to the funding of the US-ROK alliance instead of saying it is a concession to North Korea.
If troops levels were to be cut it seems the easiest thing to do would be to stop the rotational brigade from deploying to South Korea.
The KTU is trying to kick native English teachers out of Korean classrooms:
A union of liberal teachers has called on education authorities to remove all ― if not reduce the number of ― native English teachers from elementary schools in Seoul.
Korea Times
According to the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU) Wednesday, its Seoul office representatives will soon meet their counterparts from the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) to discuss the issue.
“There have been opinions that the quality of some native English teachers’ teaching skills is low, which increases Korean teachers’ workload,” a KTU official reportedly said. “They can be replaced by Korean teachers, given that what they teach is elementary level English.”
In April 2018, the SMOE announced measures to improve the quality of English education in public schools. As part of the reform, the office decided to provide native English teachers to all 557 elementary schools in the city.
You can read more at the link.
I am no fan of the KTU which was banned by the prior Park Geun-hye administration due to its anti-Park government and pro-North Korean agenda that led to teacher firings. ROK Heads may also remember that the KTU has a long history of teaching anti-Americanism in the classroom as well.
With that all said, on this issue I can understand what the KTU is trying to do. If it gets rid of the native-English teachers that opens up hundreds of jobs for Koreans. The kids English education may suffer, but from a union perspective that is probably a low priority to them.
