Author: GIKorea

South Korea’s delegation heads for North Korea through the North and South Entry Office in Paju, north of Seoul, on July 20, 2018, for joint railway inspection. The two Koreas agreed in June to modernize and link their currently severed railways and conduct pre-inspections. They will look at the system along the eastern coast on the day and inspect the system along the western coast next week. (Yonhap)

Despite the sharp drop President Moon’s approval ratings remain very high:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating dropped sharply this week, a poll showed Thursday, amid concerns over a planned minimum wage hike that critics say is likely to further slow the local economy.

In a survey conducted by Realmeter on Monday through Wednesday, Moon’s approval rating came to 61.7 percent, down 6.4 percentage points from a week earlier.

The rate of decline was the steepest since Moon took office in May 2017, according to the local pollster. The latest reading also was the second lowest since Moon’s inauguration.

The sharp drop follows a controversial decision by the minimum wage commission to hike the country’s hourly minimum wage to 8,350 won ($7.39) from the start of next year, up 10.9 percent from the current 7,530 won.

The president apologized for what he called his government’s inevitable failure to raise the minimum wage to 10,000 won per hour by 2020. However, many, especially small and medium-sized businesses, argue the increases have already been too sharp and too frequent.

Of 1,504 adults surveyed in the latest poll, 42 percent of all respondents said the planned wage increase is too steep while another 40 percent answered the rise seemed adequate.

The ruling Democratic Party’s approval rating slipped 3.8 percentage points to 41.8 percent, marking five consecutive weeks of decline, while that of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party advanced 2.5 percentage points to 19.5 percent.  [Korea Times]

Despite having a high approval rating, remember how quickly these numbers can change; former President Park once enjoyed high approval ratings as recently as 2015 when she was at 54%.  She ended here her Presidency in 2017 at 5%.

The Prime Minister may want to ask the people enslaved in the gulags how much Kim Jong-un cares about his people:

South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said Thursday that a series of changes has happened in North Korea and the most important of them is that the country finally has a leader caring for the livelihoods of his people.

Lee made the remark in Nairobi during a meeting with Korean residents in Kenya, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s policy to put a greater emphasis on economic development, and vowing to seize the chance to bring permanent peace to the divided Korean Peninsula.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but do these people actually think that talking nice about Kim Jong-un will make him decide to denuclearize?

Here is the latest on the martial law issue in South Korea:

Documents submitted by the defense ministry show the earlier reported proposal from the defense intelligence agency to declare martial law may have been more deliberate than earlier believed, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Friday, apparently implying the military may have actually sought to go ahead with such a plan.

Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said the military maintained and renewed its plans for a martial law every two years, but that the new documents submitted by the ministry showed significant changes and differences from the original plans.

“Usually, the military renews its martial law plans every two years,” the spokesman told a press briefing. “(Cheong Wa Dae) has confirmed the submitted documents are completely different from the existing plans.”

The military documents have been submitted after President Moon Jae-in made a special order for the defense ministry and the military to submit all documents related to the martial law proposal from the Defense Security Command (DSC), which reportedly came in the wake of protest rallies and candlelight vigils in late 2016 that led to the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye on suspicions of corruption.

Kim said the proposal even included plans to inspect and censor news articles.

Also, the DSC suggested the chief of the Army take control of a martial law command, instead of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under conventional military plans.

It also suggested the head of the National Intelligence Service be subject to leadership of the top military commander under its proposed martial law, suggesting military control of the government, as well as the top spy agency.

To the apparent surprise of many, the DSC even stressed a need to arrest and remove then opposition lawmakers who took part in the protest rallies against Park, partly to prevent the parliament from impeaching then-President Park and lifting the martial law, Kim explained.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but remember the martial law plans were updated to prepare for massive riots if President Park was not impeached.  From what I have read these plans were for worst case scenarios.  If massive riots were to happen that the police could not handle and threatened the stability of the government, was the ROK military expected to just stand by and do nothing?

That is why I would not be surprised if this martial law issue is being sensationalized to create an excuse for the Blue House to replace ROK military leadership they feel are not ideologically friendly to their political goals.  Of course this will all be sold as “reforms” and not a purge.

Here is the latest developments in the Druking online opinion rigging scandal with links all the way back to the Blue House:

A special counsel team sought an arrest warrant for a lawyer surnamed Do, 61, a key figure in the “opinion-rigging” scandal masterminded by an influential blogger who went by the nickname “Druking.”

Druking and his followers initially used software to boost the popularity of Moon Jae-in in the lead up to the presidential election last May, hoping their “successful months-long campaigning efforts” would be “rewarded.” But after Kim Kyoung-soo, Moon’s key aide and now governor of South Gyeongsang Province, dismissed the blogger’s recommendation to appoint Do as the consul general of Korea in Osaka, they used the same tools to disparage Moon. Do, one of seven members in the group of followers, is suspected of offering legal consultation as well as controlling the group’s activities overall.

The team led by special counsel Huh Ik-bum sought an arrest warrant for Do on charges of violating the Political Campaign Fund Law and destroying evidence. Assistant special counsel Park Sang-yong said the team believed Do helped Druking meet with Rep. Roh Hoe-chan, the floor leader of the minor opposition Justice Party, and gave him 50 million won ($48,000) in illicit campaign funds.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but a judge denied the prosecutors request to arrest Do:

A Seoul court on Thursday denied the special prosecutors’ request to arrest a lawyer linked to an opinion rigging scandal on charges he gave illegal political funds to a prominent opposition lawmaker.

The 61-year-old suspect, identified only by his surname, Do, is under suspicion of being involved in setting up a meeting between a political power blogger known as Druking and Rep. Roh Hoe-chan of the Justice Party in 2016 to deliver 50 million won (US$44,500) to Roh.  [Yonhap]

I have always figured that all the ruling party people linked to Druking would get off.  If the special prosecutor cannot even get a low level guy like this lawyer arrested, what chance does he have of arresting someone that is close friend of President Moon linked to this scandal?

Former President Lee Myung-bak is helped out of a prison vehicle as he arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul on July 20, 2018, to stand trial on corruption charges, including allegations that he accepted 11 billion won (around US$9.69 million) in bribes while in office. (Yonhap)

These deportations and arrest will likely give critics support for not admitting anymore refugees into South Korea:

Six migrant workers have been deported this year over allegations they supported international terrorist groups.

This followed a joint operation by South Korea’s top law enforcers.

Police, prosecutors, the national intelligence service and the justice ministry discovered evidence that the suspects endorsed the terrorist groups “beyond curiosity” and shared information about them with others.

The information came to light in a report revealed during the national anti-terror committee’s regular meeting at the Seoul Government Complex on Monday. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon presided over it.

Another report said a Syrian migrant worker was arrested in Incheon for inciting co-workers to join extreme Islamic terrorist group ISIS. The Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency’s international criminal investigation bureau arrested the man, 33, for showing ISIS promotional video clips to the workers and encouraging them to join it. The authority sent his case to prosecutors early this month.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but a flood of Muslim refugees into Jeju Island from mostly Yemen has caused terrorism fears to grow in South Korea in recent months.

It didn’t take long for the North Koreans to use the proposed family unions as leverage against the South Korean government:

North Korea’s state-run media released a string of articles on Friday that criticized the South Korean government, hinting that planned reunions for families split between the two nations could be canceled. An editorial in the official state newspaper of the North Korean ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, argued that South Korea had been exaggerating its role in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington. South Korea’s role in the talks does “not even amount to that of an assistant,” the editorial stated. The same article described comments made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Singapore last week as “presumptuous” and “flippant.”  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but it appears the North Koreans are trying to put the ROK government back in its place as being subservient to the Kim regime with the denuclearization talks solely between the US and North Korea.

Here is the main reason they are threatening the cancelation of the family reunions:

In another attack against the Moon administration, Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website, urged it to repatriate a dozen North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016.

The 12 had worked at a North Korean restaurant in China. Pyongyang claims they were abducted by South Korean authorities. The South has said the workers defected of their own free will.

Uriminzokkiri said there could be an “obstacle” in the planned reunion of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War next month if the workers are not returned.

It lashed out at Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon by name, accusing him of “siding with” the former government which it said plotted the workers’ defection. [Reuters]

I think even for a left wing administration like President Moon’s, this will be politically very difficult to do.  Could you imagine the backlash of forcibly removing these defectors from South Korea and handing them over to the Kim regime?

The piling on of former President Park Geun-hye continues:

A Seoul court on Friday sentenced former President Park Geun-hye to eight years in prison for illegally taking off-book funds from the state spy agency and interfering in elections during her term in office.

Televised live, the Seoul Central District Court meted out the guilty verdict to the 66-year-old, who’s already serving a 24-year jail term on a string of corruption charges in a nation-rocking scandal that led to her ousting last year.

The court also ordered her to forfeit 3.3 billion won (US$2.91 million).  (…….)

She’s also been indicted for interfering in the then-ruling Saenuri Party’s candidate nominations for the 2016 general elections.

But the court on Friday acquitted her of the bribery charges, ruling that the NIS provisions of its funds to Park’s office were not paid in return for any favors.  [Yonhap]

So if the funds were provided by the NIS were not in return for favors then why were they providing them to former President Park?  Because they have been providing the funds to past ROK Presidents as well:

The court acknowledged that it has been customary for the spy agency to provide funds to the presidential office from its own state coffers, known as the untraceable special activities fund.

The fact that the then spy chiefs had delivered the funds to Park’s Cheong Wa Dae in a fixed amount, and on a regular basis, is far from the conventional way of paying someone a bribe, which usually comes in a lump sum payment at one time.  [Yonhap]

Basically what the NIS has been doing is giving the ROK President money to pay for things like cell phones and medical treatment that would not be subject to any government record keeping.  However, some of her expenses with this secret fund were definitely shady:

Park allegedly squandered the taxpayer money on maintaining her private house, financing a boutique where her secret confidante Choi Soon-sil — the central figure in the corruption scandal — had Park’s clothes made and other private purposes, including massage treatment.  [Japan Times]

I think the most significant thing about this ruling is that if Park was convicted of receiving money from the NIS, then former President Lee Myung-bak who has also been arrested for corruption will also get convicted for the same thing if he received NIS special activities funds.

What I am wondering is if the NIS was also making the payments to former President Roh Moo-hyun as well?  The opposition party in South Korea has already claimed that the Roh administration had their own special activities fund they wanted a special counsel to investigate.

The proposed investigation largely targets key figures from the former liberal Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations of 1998-2008. It also seeks to check whether the NIS and prosecution under the incumbent government have misused their funds.

“The misappropriation of special activity funds has long been a practice, so to speak, and it is one of Korea’s representative ills,” the request reads. “We demand institutional improvements be made by addressing the suspicions through a thorough investigation.” [Yonhap]

So far the Moon administration has not allowed any investigation into the prior Roh and Kim administration’s use of special activities funds.

Former President Roh committed suicide after the Lee Myung-bak administration began an investigation into him taking bribes.  There would be no legal implications if the NIS gave him money since he is deceased, but it would still be an interesting fact to know.  President Roh was hugely popular with the South Korean left and current President Moon Jae-in was his chief of staff at the time.  This is likely why the prior left wing administration will not be investigated.

This is also why the conservatives in South Korea consider the arrest and imprisonment of former Presidents Lee and Park as political payback for causing Roh’s suicide by exposing his corruption.

A gang rape in Daegu is drawing national media attention in South Korea after a mother’s petition to the ROK Blue House draws large public support:

A petition to the Cheong Wa Dae website posted by the mother of a gang-rape victim has garnered more than 300,000 supporters in less than a month.

This means the presidential office should act on the petition within 30 days.

In the petition, the mother said her daughter is still suffering from threats from the alleged perpetrators and their friends.

“They boasted about raping my daughter and posted on Facebook their claim that my daughter had seduced them to have sex, which is not true,” the mother said. “My daughter couldn’t bear it and stopped going to school.”

According to Jungbu Police Station in Daegu, six middle school and high school students have been charged with raping the girl in April.

The mother said in an interview with a local daily that it was not six but seven involved in the crime, with one getting away because he didn’t have sex. She said the students and their parents never apologized.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.