Author: GIKorea

Another BTS member is taking the first steps to complete his mandatory military service obligation:

BTS artist j-hope began the enlistment process for his stint with the South Korean military, his record label announced, making him the second member of the Korean-pop group to do so.

The rapper-singer, whose real name is Jung Ho-seok, applied to end his postponement of the mandatory 18-month service.

“We will inform you of further updates in due course,” BIGHIT Music wrote on Weverse. “We ask you for your continued love and support for j-hope until he completes his military service and safely returns. Our company will spare no effort in providing support for our artist.”

The 29-year-old follows fellow BTS star Jin, 30, who began his mandatory service in December. South Korea requires most men to enlist in its military by age 28, but entertainers can push back their stints until they’re 30.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This cable car project will probably turn Osaek into the same madhouse that the current Seoraksan National Park entrance is. I have taken the cable car before at the National Park entrance and it was a long line with a packed cable car; so I understand why they are trying to create another cable car to distribute the demand. However, Osaek is a quieter area compared to the park’s entrance since this is where hikers stay to ascend the mountain from. That may change in the near future if a cable car is built there as well:

The environment ministry on Monday gave a conditional nod to a controversial project to build and operate a cable car system over a natural reserve area on Mount Seorak near South Korea’s east coast.

The project, pursued since the 1980s, seeks to build a 3.3-kilometer-long cable car system between the Seoraksan National Park’s Osaek area in the county of Yangyang and near the mountain’s summit. 

Once completed as planned, the system will service 53 cable cars to carry up to 825 passengers per hour. 

The site is within a state-designated natural reserve as well as a biosphere reserve designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The environment ministry’s regional office in Wonju gave “conditional consent” to an environmental impact assessment report submitted by Yangyang County on the project, saying it carries measures to reduce negative environmental effects.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is not good news for the historically low Korean birthrate:

Just four percent of unmarried Korean women in their 20s and 30s see marriage and childbearing as essential in their lives, according to a recent survey that paints an even gloomier picture of the country’s continuously falling fertility rate. 

The survey was conducted by Park Jeong-min, a professor of social welfare at Seoul National University and published in the Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies, Sunday. Park surveyed 281 unmarried men and women aged between 20 and 40 on their thoughts about marriage and childbirth.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is likely why Lee Jae-myung ran for the National Assembly and became the opposition party leader so he could get immunity from the charges he saw building against him. What is surprising about these results is that many in his own party voted in favor of his arrest:

The National Assembly voted Monday to reject the government’s request for consent to arrest opposition leader Lee Jae-myung over corruption charges by a margin of only one vote, a surprising result that shows many of Lee’s own party voted for his arrest.

The motion was voted down 139-138 with nine abstentions and 11 deemed invalid.

The result, though in line with widespread views that Lee’s main opposition Democratic Party (DP) would use its majority power to reject the request, came as a surprise because it could mean that up to 30 DP lawmakers could have cast dissenting votes.

The DP, which has 169 lawmakers in the 299-seat National Assembly, had urged its lawmakers to reject the motion, denouncing the prosecution’s attempt to arrest Lee as political revenge by President Yoon Suk Yeol against his presidential election rival.

All DP lawmakers took part in the vote. 

In order for the motion to pass, it required a majority of the Assembly members to vote, and a majority of those voting to cast their ballots in favor. In Monday’s case, at least 149 votes were needed in favor of Lee’s arrest, as 297 out of 299 National Assembly members took part in the vote. 

By law, parliamentary consent is necessary to arrest a lawmaker while parliament is in session.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but maybe someone in the Korean media just needs to “find” a tablet PC with incriminating evidence against Lee on it like the opposition did to impeach former President Park.

Korea has to be one of the few places to where the son being a bully costs the father his job:

A prosecutor-turned-lawyer appointed to head the National Office of Investigation offered to resign Saturday, just a day ahead of assuming his post, amid a bullying controversy involving his son at school.

Chung Sun-sin, appointed as the new chief the previous day, found himself in hot water after it was belatedly revealed that his son had verbally abused one of his peers for eight months in high school and was ordered to transfer schools.

“Many have been concerned due to my son’s problem, and I came to the conclusion that I cannot take on such a grave responsibility as the chief of the National Office of Investigation with this flaw,” he said in a release.

“I ask for forgiveness from the victim and his parents once again for what my son did,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If this guy is a career criminal why do they keep letting him out? Age should not play into this if he keeps committing crimes:

The Supreme Court has upheld the 1 1/2-year prison sentence for Cho Se-hyeong, an 85-year-old notorious burglar, convicted of stealing again just a month after being released from prison, court officials said Saturday. 

In January 2022, Cho was arrested for stealing precious items worth 27.5 million won (US$21,020) from a luxury country home in Yongin, 40 kilometers south of Seoul.

He was initially sentenced to two years in prison by a lower court. An appellate court later reduced the sentence to 1 1/2 years considering his age, health and circumstances. (…..)

Cho gained notoriety in the 1970s and 80s as the “Great Thief” for his tendency to rob only wealthy and powerful individuals, and use some of the stolen money for charitable purposes. 

The burglar was imprisoned multiple times in the 1970s, and in 1982, he received a 15-year prison sentence for stealing from the homes of wealthy people and high-ranking officials.

After his release, Cho claimed to have turned his life around and was involved in missionary work and served as an adviser to a security company. 

However, he was caught burglarizing an empty house in Tokyo in 2001 and imprisoned five more times later in and near Seoul — for theft in 2005, 2013, 2015 and 2019, and for arranging the dealings of stolen goods in 2010.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.