Author: GIKorea

The hits just keep coming for the PPP:

A Seoul court convicted former President Yoon Suk Yeol of election law violations Monday, putting the main opposition party at risk of returning nearly 40 billion won (US$27.3 million) that was reimbursed in campaign expenses for the 2022 presidential election.

The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Yoon to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, after finding him guilty of making false statements as the People Power Party (PPP)’s presidential candidate ahead of the election in March 2022.

If the verdict is finalized through appeals, the PPP will be forced to return the 39.7 billion won it was reimbursed in campaign expenses by the election watchdog after Yoon’s victory in the 2022 election.

Yonhap

Here is what election law violations were he was convicted of:

Special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team earlier indicted Yoon on suspicion of falsely claiming during a December 2021 press event that he had never introduced a lawyer to a former tax official.

Yoon was also charged for lying in a January 2022 interview when he said a party official had introduced him to shaman Jeon Seong-bae and denied meeting Jeon together with his wife, Kim Keon Hee.

The court found Yoon guilty on both charges, accepting the special counsel’s argument that Yoon had in fact introduced the lawyer to the former tax official and had met Jeon through his wife’s introduction.

“The nature of the offense is very grave as false information was publicized on a matter that drew great voter interest,” the court said.

Some I doubt voters really cared about either interview, but if the standard is that politicians should be jailed for lying in interviews it seems there should be a lot more special counsels being initiated to investigate. By the way could you imagine how many politicians would be prosecuted if the U.S. had a similar law?

It will be interesting see if anything appearance wise changes with North Korea’s long time border building at Panmunjom:

North Korea has installed screens around its building inside the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom to block it from public view, apparently for ongoing renovation work, military sources said Monday.

The screens covering the Panmungak facility, located on the northern side of the Joint Security Area (JSA), were erected in April in what appeared to be part of renovation efforts, military sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is going to put further strain on Ukraine to sustain their own manpower requirements in this war:

Russia is preparing to bring in an additional 30,000 North Korean troops to its war against Ukraine, with Pyongyang also planning to send more missile launchers to Moscow to support the war effort, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy made the remarks in an X posting summarizing his nightly video address, saying that Moscow has been preparing since last month to deploy the troops to a border region in the southwest. 

“Russia wants to receive another 30,000 troops from North Korea. Since June, preparations have been under way in Russia’s Voronezh region to receive them,” Zelenskyy said in the posting.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I wonder if San Francisco cleaned up the city for President Lee like they did when President Xi visited?:

President Lee Jae Myung wrapped up a two-day visit to San Francisco aimed at promoting artificial intelligence (AI) cooperation on Saturday and departed for Brazil as part of a three-nation South America tour for summits with regional leaders.

During his visit to San Francisco on Friday and Saturday, the South Korean president met with the chiefs of four global tech giants, including OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang, calling for closer partnerships with South Korean firms in AI.

At a separate high-level meeting attended by Lee, global tech giants and South Korean tech conglomerates agreed to pursue a series of cooperation projects worth a combined US$950 billion.

The projects include a long-term deal under which SK Group will supply $750 billion worth of high-performance semiconductors to Nvidia and others.

As part of the South America tour, Lee will first pay a four-day state visit to Brazil from Sunday, which will include a summit with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the capital, Brasilia, on Monday, followed by a business roundtable in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.

After Brazil, the president will travel to Chile and Argentina through Aug. 1.

The South America tour is expected to focus on strengthening cooperation in critical minerals and supply chains.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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