Author: GIKorea

Despite all the dirt that is coming out on Cho Mi-ae, since she is the Justice Minister covering up all the illegal deeds around the Moon administration, I doubt anything will happen to her:

When Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae was serving as the ruling party’s chairwoman, someone from her officeasked the Defense Ministry to give preferential treatment to her son, who was doing his military service, former Defense Minister Song Young-moo told the JoongAng Ilbo on Monday.    

In an exclusive phone interview with the newspaper on Monday, Song said he recently learned that the military was asked to select Choo’s son as an interpreter for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in February 2018.    

Song served as defense minister from July 2017 to September 2018, and Choo served as chairwoman of the Democratic Party (DP) from August 2016 to August 2018. She became justice minister in January 2020.    

“I belatedly received a briefing yesterday that such a request had been made, but [officers in charge of the selection process] rejected it,” Song said Monday. “I was briefed that the request came from the office of the DP’s chairwoman.”    

The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) has raised a series of allegations that Choo abused her power to seek special treatment for her son when he was serving his mandatory military duty. Choo’s son, surnamed Seo, served in the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army, or Katusa, for the 2nd Infantry Division of the U.S. 8th Army from November 2016 through August 2018.    

In his latest revelation, PPP Rep. Shin Won-sik, a former lieutenant general who once served as deputy chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that officials in the administration and the National Assembly had tried to influence the selection process of military interpreters for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics to grant a post to Seo.    

Shin quoted a former Army colonel who served as the commander of the Katusa forces at the time, as saying that he was pressured by the office of the defense minister and the liaison office of the National Assembly to dispatch Seo as an interpreter to the sporting event. The colonel said he had resisted the pressure to ensure fairness and selected 65 soldiers for the plum assignments by drawing lots.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but good on this Colonel for resisting the pressure from both the Defense Minister and National Assembly to select Choo’s son for the position.

Here is the latest restrictions on people in Seoul:

The Seoul metropolitan government on Tuesday restricted access to crowded areas of Han River parks starting at 2 p.m. to help contain the spread of COVID-19.

The affected areas are two squares at Yeouido Han River Park, parts of Ttukseom Park and two picnic zones at Banpo Han River Park.

Across the Han River parks, 28 stores and seven cafes will end at 9 p.m. every day. Forty-three parking lots at 11 Han River parks will also deny entry from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Congratulations to Samsung on winning this huge contract:

Samsung Electronics signed a 7.9 trillion won ($6.6 billion) deal to supply network equipment to U.S. telecommunications company Verizon, the Korean IT firm disclosed Monday in a public filing.

Under the contract, Samsung Electronics America will provide equipment, including for 5G connections, to Verizon for five years through December 2025. By volume, it’s the biggest single supply deal for network equipment ever secured by a Korean company.    

Samsung had worked with domestic mobile carriers last year to make Korea the first country to commercialize 5G connections. After 5G debuted April 2019, the company has signed network equipment supply deals with major telecommunications operators, including Canada’s Videotron, the U.S.’s Cellular and New Zealand’s Spark.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but hopefully Samsung continues to beat out contracts over Huawei, their main Chinese competitor. ROK Heads may remember that Huawei has been accused of spying on behalf of the Chinese communist party.

Ultimately the coronavirus is going to be a good thing for big business that can survive the restrictions because many of their small business competitors are going under:

Small businesses are being devastated by the pandemic, with the mom-and-pops, restaurants, travel agencies and similar establishments going out of business at a rapid rate, according to recent statistics.    
   
The situation is set to worsen as the government over the weekend has extended the social distancing orders that have hit food-and-beverage outlets especially hard.      
   
Many small businesses were already on the ropes before the pandemic, and the crisis has made an already bad situation worse. Owners are becoming desperate, with at least one suicide being reported related to the financial stress faced by a small business operator.      
   
The number of small shops in Seoul dropped 5.4 percent in the second quarter when compared to the first quarter, according to a report by Budongsan 114 based on a study by the Small Enterprise and Market Service (Semas). The total reported was 370,321, meaning 21,178 small stores that existed at the beginning of the year are now gone.  
   
Over the same period, 10,040 restaurants went out of businesses, a 7.5 percent decline on quarter. The number of hair salons dropped by 3,473 stores, a 5.1 percent decline. In the travel agency, leisure and entertainment — which includes noraebang, or singing rooms — and computer cafe category, 1,260 businesses shut for good, a 10.8 percent decline. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

There has been a VANK sighting! I have heard much from these guys since the height of the anti-US movement in South Korea over 10 years ago. Now VANK is taking on Chinese netizens; good luck with that:

The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), a civic organization working for public diplomacy for Korea, started an online petition Friday, urging Chinese netizens to stop “cyberbullying” Korean singer Lee Hyo-ri after her Instagram account was bombarded by “malicious” complaints from them.

VANK said it posted an online petition titled “Stop China’s cyber chauvinism which lynched a Korean celebrity!” urging people to sign it.

“We oppose the chauvinistic attitude of attacking others in the name of nationalism, which includes interpreting even the smallest part of an expression in the most vicious and offensive way,” VANK wrote, adding “If we remain silent, this incident will be repeated in the future.”

The move came after Lee received hundreds of thousands “malicious” comments on her Instagram account in Korean, English and Chinese after she said in MBC’s reality show “Hangout with Yoo” that “What about a Chinese name? We can go global with it. How about ‘Mao’?” She made the remarks while brainstorming about a faux Chinese stage name. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but VANK was basically Korea’s version of the 50 Cent Army during the peak of Anti-Americanism in the ROK. They would look for any slight to Korea made by foreigners, especially Americans and U.S. military and attack them online for it. So now we basically have two 50 Cent Armies going after each other now.

This is the 10th tropical storm to hit the region this summer which is leaving Korea’s mountains and rivers extremely waterlogged:

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said Haishen temporarily disrupted power supply to 75,237 houses nationwide, with around 34 percent of them still waiting for power to return.

One person was reported missing and five others were injured as of 4:30 p.m., while 124 had to flee their homes that were destroyed. More than 2,600 have been moved to shelters as a precautionary measure.

In Samcheok, Gangwon Province, a man in his 40s was reported missing at around 11:23 a.m. He was believed to have been swept away in a flooded waterway.

Five residents and a couple in their 70s were rescued by firefighters in Yangyang and Samcheok, both in Gangwon Province, respectively.

A body of a man in his 40s, whom coast guard officials said was suffering from personal issues, was found in seas at the southeastern port city of Busan. Police are looking into whether his death is related to the typhoon.

In Ulsan where Haishen made landfall earlier in the day, the typhoon temporarily knocked out power at the assembly lines of Hyundai Motors, South Korea’s biggest carmaker by sales, which produces such models as the Genesis G90 and G80. Similar power outages were also reported at a factory of Hyundai Mobis Co., the country’s biggest auto parts maker.

In Busan, the typhoon cut off power, toppled trees and snapped a traffic light in its path.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.