The attacks against the Korean First Lady continue. She was cleared of plagiarizing her Phd dissertation. Now her Master’s thesis is being investigated for plagiarism:
Sookmyung Women’s University launched an inquiry last month into plagiarism allegations involving first lady Kim Keon Hee’s master’s degree thesis on art education, sources said Tuesday.
Kim has been under allegations that she plagiarized the dissertation, which she submitted in 1999 to the university’s graduate school of education for her master’s degree.
Sookmyung began a probe into Kim’s case in mid-December, an alumni association of the university said, citing a letter sent from the school. The final result is expected to be out by around mid-March if relevant regulations requiring an outcome within 90 days upon such a probe’s launch are observed.
Yonhap
Kim has already been mocked & shamed publicly and she apologized for her prior resume padding actions. What is going on here is that this is likely retaliation for the investigations into Lee Jae-myung’s wife for when her husband was governor of Gyeongi province. What I would like to see is an investigation into the thesis and dissertations of all major political figures in Korea. How widespread is this problem?
I recently found myself in Itaewon and decided to walk by where the Itaewon crushing disaster happened. As I walked in to Itaewon I could quickly see how this tragedy has become fully politicized with the Korean left trying to weaponize it like they did the Sewol tragedy against former President Park Geun-hye. Near Noksopyeong Station which is located at the entrance to Itaewon, there is a protest tent set up with a bunch of signs denouncing the government. I did not walk over to their tent or try to take pictures of them because I was getting the evil eye from the angry looking activists standing by the sidewalk. I just continued to walk by them to towards the Hamilton Hotel.
I could not approach the alley from the front of the Hamilton Hotel because there was a protest going on with the riot police out in force. So I walked up a nearby alley to the World Food Street that is the road that runs behind the Hamilton Hotel. This street is lined with restaurants and bars that would have been packed on Halloween night:
From the main road that runs through Itaewon there are multiple alleys, some even smaller than the one the tragedy occurred at that accesses World Food Street. Here is an example of one of these small alleys:
Seeing the area in person it is easy to conclude that what caused the crushing tragedy to happen where it did is its proximity to Itaewon Station. There are two paths along each side of the Hamilton Hotel which is the quickest way to access World Food Street from Itaewon Station. The alley where the tragedy happened was the smallest of the two and the closest to the station. It is easy to imagine how people walking up and down this alley due to its easy access to the subway station caused it to become overcrowded. Below is a picture I took from the top of the alleyway where the tragedy occurred:
The police would not allow me to walk down the alley, but I wouldn’t have tried to anyway due to the protest going on at the entrance to the alley. Seeing the alley in person it looks actually smaller than it does in photographs. From the top of the alleyway I could see how slopped it is. Witnesses the night of the tragedy reported a group of people began pushing people down the alley. It was easy for me to imagine a group of drunks trying to walk down World Food Street getting frustrated by being backed up by the crowd moving through the alleyway and deciding to aggressively push by them causing people to fall. The slope of the alleyway is enough to cause a domino effect of people falling on top of each other if people on the top lose their balance.
What amazes me the most about this tragedy is that the police received reports of overcrowding near the Hamilton Hotel four hours before the tragedy happened. There is literally a police station across the street from the Hamilton Hotel:
Why didn’t anyone from the police station walk across the street and respond to the reports? What were they doing during those four hours? Did the 119 operators even call to let them know? Did anyone walk in to the station and tell the police what was going on? If someone did what was the response of the police? These are questions that should be simple to get answers to.
Being on the ground and looking at the site only further validated to me how easily avoidable this entire tragedy was. Police responding to the alleyway and controlling pedestrian traffic to make it one way probably would have prevented the disaster. Just closing Itaewon Station and making people walk from subway stations further away from the center of Itaewon would have dispersed the crowds enough from this narrow alleyway that this tragedy would have been prevented as well. Hopefully some lessons are learned in regards to crowd control planning by local authorities, it is just unfortunate it cost the lives of 158 people to learn this lesson.
The wintertime surge that happened last year after the holidays appears to not be happening this year:
South Korea’s new COVID-19 cases fell for the sixth consecutive day Monday amid concerns over a wintertime surge, with the government beginning to require a PCR test for travelers from China as the virus spreads in the neighboring country.
The country confirmed 22,735 new coronavirus infections, including 35 from overseas, bringing the total to 29,139,535, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.
The daily caseload has been on a steady decline since Tuesday when the figure jumped to 87,578. Monday’s figure is smaller than 25,531 infections a week earlier.
The country added 53 COVID-19 deaths, bringing the death toll to 32,272. The death rate stood at 0.11 percent.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Here is President Yoon’s viewpoint on holding any future Inter-Korean summit:
On whether he has plans to seek a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Yoon said there was no doubt.
“But I think the people are a little fed up with summits that are for show only,” he said. “We have to start with dialogue on humanitarian issues, and open the door to contact and dialogue between South and North. We have to set a direction by having a certain amount of discussions on both countries’ agendas.”
Yoon added that, while there is no reason to reject a summit, such prior discussions have to take place in order to produce a useful outcome at the summit, and share it with the nation and neighboring countries.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but Yoon does have appoint in regards to accomplishing something from an Inter-Korean summit and not making it just another photo op. Really what has the ROK accomplished from all the prior Inter-Korean summits? The money funneled to North Korea from past summits have allowed the Kim regime to avoid collapse and advance their missile and nuclear programs. Inter-Korean business deals struck have all been reneged on with the Kaesong Industrial Plant and Gumgang Tours all closed now. These summits have been a colossal failure and Yoon appears to not want to add to these failures.
Here is an interesting interview with President Yoon where he is advocating for joint nuclear exercises with the U.S. to off set the North Korean nuclear threat:
President Yoon Suk Yeol has said South Korea is in talks with the United States to carry out joint planning and joint exercises involving U.S. nuclear forces to counter North Korea’s nuclear threats.
In an interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper published Monday, Yoon said the idea of the U.S. providing a nuclear umbrella or extended deterrence to South Korea is not enough to reassure the South Korean public.
The interview was published a day after North Korean state media reported leader Kim Jong-un called for “an exponential increase” of his country’s nuclear arsenal, while calling South Korea “our undoubted enemy.”
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see how the U.S. responds to this suggestions from President Yoon. More importantly will this actually do anything to deter the Kim regime from advancing their nuclear weapons program?
