Author: GIKorea

Didn’t know we had a day, but I’m happy to celebrate it. Hug a Korean American today! https://t.co/a3SsWl1AOJ

— Daniel Dae Kim (@danieldaekim) January 14, 2019

It is amazing how the fraudsters find ways to get money from people in just about every industry, even from animal rights groups:

Park So-youn, the head of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), may be charged with multiple crimes including habitual fraud, as she allegedly had more than 250 animals euthanized without telling the group staffers and supporters.

Kwon Yu-rim, a lawyer at Yuldam Law Office, said Sunday they will file a complaint with the police as early as this week.

The move follows a CARE staffer revealing that some 250 healthy animals the group had rescued have been put down upon Park’s order between 2015 and 2018 without the knowledge of most of the other CARE members.

CARE is one of the nation’s largest animal rights organizations, collecting about 1.5 billion won to 2 billion won of donations per year.

Kwon said Park could face criminal charges as she has continued doing so without informing staffers and donors.

“CARE has been raising funds under the name of rescuing and treating abused animals. It has never informed people of the euthanasia practice and many of the donors would not have contributed their money if they had known about that. In that sense, her action is fraud by nonfeasance,” Kwon said. “As she has continued such acts, it is habitual fraud.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It makes me wonder how long this guy has been doing this considering he was so open and flamboyant about it before being caught:

The commander of a fast-attack submarine was relieved of his duties last summer after admitting he paid for “female accompaniment” during a stop in the Philippines, a Washington state newspaper reported Friday.
Capt. Travis Zettel, who lost his job aboard the USS Bremerton in late August because of “a loss in confidence in his ability to command,” was reassigned to the Submarine Squadron 19 staff at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Navy officials said at the time. (……)

During the submarine’s March visit to Subic Bay, Philippines, Zettel was seen with 10 “provocatively dressed females outside the front door of [his] hotel,” a sailor told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service after calling an Inspector General hotline, according to the newspaper.
The tipster said Zettel told him and another sailor that he’d “ordered ten girls,” the report said. Another sailor told investigators he saw Zettel walking around and talking to other sailors in his command with “three local females holding onto his arm.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It is going to be interesting to learn in the future if all this yellow dust is going to have adverse health affects on Koreans:

Seoul was hit by a record-high level of ultrafine dust, known as a class one carcinogen, on Monday, as most of South Korea was blanketed by extraordinarily heavy levels of choking dust particles for the fourth consecutive day.
The Ministry of Environment has decided to extend a set of emergency measures aimed at reducing fine dust in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province through Tuesday. It would be the first time for the government to implement the system in the metropolitan area, which has around 20 million residents, for three consecutive days.
Under the step, vehicles with license plates ending in even numbers and used by public offices, will be restricted from operating on Tuesday. And the operation of 2.5-ton diesel cars or bigger ones, registered with metropolitan governments before 2005, will be limited.
The daily average level of ultrafine particles, smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, in Seoul surged to 118 micrograms per cubic meter as of 3 p.m., the highest figure since the government began taking such measurements in 2015, according to the state-run National Institute of Environmental Research.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Yep…finally got to the tank bar, following some neighborhood New Years receptions. All I can say is pictures do not do it justice. Definitely getting one for the retirement hacienda. Thanks @PatDonahoeArmy for the hospitality. pic.twitter.com/A5I45FTQIT

— Robert Abrams (@DogFaceSoldier) January 12, 2019

The NCO in this article was right to take this to a court martial because she was acquitted of all charges:

 A senior noncommissioned officer accused of pointing a pistol at one soldier, calling another fat and improperly touching a third’s hair was acquitted of all related charges at her court-martial Wednesday.
Sgt. 1st Class Jessica Barboza was found not guilty of dereliction of duty, maltreatment and disrespecting an NCO by a panel of nine male officers and senior NCOs. At least four of them had to agree to acquit.
“I’m relieved,” said Barboza, 35, of the 2nd NATO Signal Battalion in Naples, “I’m just grateful to the jury members.”
Criminal charges were brought against Barboza after she declined to accept nonjudicial punishment, following a command investigation into complaints about her more than a year ago.
“You won’t see these crimes on ‘Law & Order,’” prosecutor Capt. Mike Gerrity conceded in his closing argument. “But this is the military. Sergeant 1st Class Barboza failed to put her soldiers’ needs above her own.”
Testimony against her included that of two soldiers who said she’d pointed a 9 mm pistol at one of them during weapons training, which Barboza said wasn’t true. Another soldier said Barboza humiliated her by repeatedly calling her fat, while an African-American staff sergeant said Barboza had touched her hair without permission and then called it “nasty” when rebuked.

Stars & Stripes

You can read the rest at the link, but the NCO basically said that these soldiers were out to get her because she is too gung-ho. She said that in the future she will try to be more sensitive.

Enjoy it while it lasts:

Domestic gasoline and diesel prices continued to drop for the tenth straight week.

According to Opinet, a Web site on oil price information run by the Korea National Oil Corporation, the average price of regular gasoline sold at filling stations nationwide fell an average 20 won per liter to one-thousand-355 won in the second week of January, the lowest in 34 months since March 2016.

The price of gasoline has dropped 335 won in the past ten weeks since late October.

The price of diesel for automotive fuel also fell more than 19 won in just one week to one-thousand-253 won per liter, the lowest since August 2017.

KBS World Radio

Over at the East Asia Research Center, Dr. Tara O has a posting up about a question to President Moon asked by reporter Kim Ye-ryeoung (김예령) who works Kyonggi Broadcast Corporation. Some believe this question is inappropriate to ask a President:

Reporter Kim Ye-ryeoung asked:

[You said you will] create a society in which a dragon emerges from a sewer [rags to riches], but I believe you know well that in reality, the public opinion is chilly.  The reality is that the economy is stagnant. The people are suffering a lot. They have not given up hope, but they’re very anxious about the future. Related to this, Mr. president, you have emphasized ‘I’m looking at it very seriously.’ Despite this, Mr. President, [you] have not altered the basic direction of the policy and have not changed, and I’d like to know the reasons.  I’m asking directly, where does that confidence come from and what is the basis for it?

President Moon replied:

I’ve spent the last 30 minutes of today’s press conference explaining why we need the current economic policy and that the sustainable growth is impossible without changing the structure, including polarization [the gap increasing between the high income and the low income groups] and inequality. For that we need to take whatever supplemental measures we need to take, but I already amply said why. On the contrary, we need to continue the current policy. I don’t feel we need a new answer.

Journalist Kim’s question has caused a controversy in South Korea.  
Various comments online have attacked her for being “rude” to ask such questions to President Moon while others cheered her for asking what has been on their minds.  Here are some responses:

East Asia Research Center

You can read the responses at the link, but the usual suspects have criticized her by calling her “drunk”, “defiant”, “incompetent”, and that she needs to “study more”. I don’t see what the problem is with asking the President why he won’t change a policy that is not working. I think the real anger is that since KBC is a privately owned news network the Korean left has been able to take control of it like they did with the public broadcasters.