Author: GIKorea

I figured some fund like this would be set up to resolve the forced labor issue. I like the scholarship fund idea though instead of just paying the victim’s families cash because it shows that the Japanese are investing in Korea’s future:

South Korea and Japan have tentatively agreed to create a “future youth fund” to sponsor scholarships for students, as part of a deal on settling the issue of compensation for Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor, sources said Sunday.

The fund will be jointly formed by the Federation of Korean Industries, South Korea’s big business lobby, and the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), according to the government sources.

The South Korean foreign ministry is expected to announce the details Monday along with the details of a broader agreement reached between the two countries to settle the issue of compensation for Korean victims of forced labor during World War II, the sources said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but expect the Korean left to go bonkers in their criticism due to President Yoon trying to settle this issue and improve relations with Japan.

Moon Chung-in the academic behind many of former President Moon Jae-in’s North Korea appeasement policies steps down from the think tank he has been leading due to embezzlement charges:

Moon Chung-in, chairman of the national policy think tank Sejong Institute under the Foreign Ministry, said he will step down from his position, after the recent audit by the ministry to inspect the institute on the case of alleged embezzlement of some 1 billion won ($757,000) every year.  
   
Moon served as the special advisor for unification, diplomacy and national security affairs for President Moon Jae-in.  
   
Moon expressed his intent to no longer serve his role at the institute on Monday, according to the Sejong Institute on Tuesday. It will soon open a board meeting to vote on Moon’s resignation. A source from the think tank said his resignation may be linked to the recent budget audit. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but critics are saying that Moon Chung-in is being targeted with the audit so the Yoon administration can have him replaced. Both things can be true, may he was targeted and maybe he was aware of the embezzlement going on.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to prove that these companies hired Kim Keon-hee’s company to organize these art exhibitions because her husband was heading the Seoul District Prosecutors Office at the time:

 Prosecutors have cleared first lady Kim Keon Hee of graft suspicions involving three art exhibitions hosted by her former cultural content company, officials said Thursday. 

Kim had been under graft suspicions that about a dozen conglomerates sponsored three art exhibitions organized by her former company, Covana Contents, allegedly because President Yoon Suk Yeol was serving in a high-level prosecution position at that time.

Yoon was heading the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office while one of the art exhibitions on Swiss sculpture Alberto Giacometti was held in 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Entry into South Korea has gotten a little bit easier for Chinese travelers:

The South Korean government on Wednesday lifted the post-entry PCR test requirement for travelers from China.

Health authorities had initially disclosed that quarantine measures for arrivals from China will be eased further amid a decline in the infection rate among arrivals from that country. 

The latest move comes after the government had required travelers from China to take a PCR test for COVID-19 upon arrival and suspended short-term visa issuance as of January 2, following a resurgence of the pandemic in the neighboring country. 

KBS World

You can read more at the link.

This should be no surprise that protesters would come out against trying to improve relations with Japan:

Soon after President Yoon Suk Yeol gave a key address, calling Japan a partner for South Korea’s regional security and economy, some hundreds held a rally on Independence Movement Day on Wednesday, urging him to keep his promise of resolving historic disputes with the neighboring country including the one over sexual slavery during its 1910-45 rule of Korean Peninsula.

In the late morning chill, around 200 civic activists gathered near the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul, holding paper cutouts of yellow butterflies — a symbol of victims representing a wish to escape from violence and fly — chanting “apologize,” and demanding compensation from Japan.

The protest was a part of the 1,585th weekly rally protesting Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II that has been held for the last 30 years.

Lee Yong-soo, a 93-year-old victim of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, took over the microphone, said she still has a faith in President Yoon, and demanded his administration to send the matter to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

“The then-presidential-candidate Yoon Suk Yeol was the third person to visit me, and he said he would resolve the comfort women issue even if he wasn’t elected. His words touched me,” she said. “I don’t think that he lied (at that time), and I will believe in him.”

Watching Lee’s tearful speech, 63-year-old Kim Deok-yeon said he has participated in the demonstration since last year to raise awareness, especially among the younger generation.

“These people were forced to become sex slaves of Japan’s wartime brothels, but Japan seems reluctant (to take responsibility). As a Korean citizen, I couldn’t stand my anger toward Japan for committing such atrocities,” he said, referring to the victims as “survivors of a dark part of history.”

Kim stressed the importance of educating Korean students about undistorted facts in and out of the country, lamenting Japan’s recognition of Dokdo as part of its territory.

“History doesn’t lie — it has everything recorded down. Now is a time to properly educate the younger generation about our country’s past so that the same history will not repeat itself in the future,” he said, hoping young people would create a change.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but if this 63 year old man really cared about sex slaves then what is he doing about modern day sexual slavery of Korean women in China right now?

According to one report the sexual trafficking of Korean women is a $105 million industry in China. Imperial Japan was obviously wrong about trafficking Korean women 80 years ago which they claim was resolved with the payments made in the 1965 Normalization Treaty. The Japanese government had apologized even started a victim compensation fund before the prior President Moon shut it down for political reasons. Restarting this victim compensation fund appears to be the route that President Yoon is trying to go again, but we will see what happens.