The next time someone gets drunk and violent on an airplane there are now tougher laws for South Korean authorities to punish them with:
The government is toughening penalties for violent behavior on passenger planes.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Thursday said the National Assembly passed a revision to aviation laws whereby violent passengers who threaten flight safety now face up to 10 years in prison, and five years even when their actions do not endanger a flight.
The revision, which mostly doubles the old penalties, came after a high-profile incident in December last year, when a drunk passenger went on a rampage on a Korean Air flight that carried 80s crooner Richard Marx and therefore made international headlines. [Chosun Ilbo]
A 32-year-old unemployed university graduate chose to run a drug lab rather than to find a job to make a living. However, his sweet dream did not last long as his underground business was uncovered by police about ten months later.
The man surnamed Hwang was arrested for manufacturing and selling 500 grams (17 ounces) of meth worth 1.6 billion won (1.4 million US dollars) from cold medicine, commonly found in drug stores, at his lab in Itaewon, a famous traveling spot in Seoul.
Hwang, an art university graduate, gave up his furniture workshop to go for a more profitable underground business in May last year by self-educating himself to make methamphetamine commonly known as ice from the scratch. He used a simple method by mixing the cold medicine and chemicals to produce pseudoephedrine, the basic material for ice. [Aju Daily]
It is amazing to me that one employee would have access to this much money to embezzle:
A major European conglomerate says one of its employees in South Korea has gone missing — along with $100 million.
Power and robotics firm ABB (ABB) announced Wednesday that it has “uncovered a sophisticated criminal scheme” at its South Korean unit. It only noticed the huge sums had been stolen after the employee of the subsidiary disappeared about two weeks ago.
The employee, who ABB has not identified, is suspected of forging documents and working with individuals outside the company to steal the money, according to ABB and South Korean police.
A police spokesman said that the suspect is believed to have fled to Hong Kong and that they are working with Interpol to bring him back to South Korea. Interpol declined to comment on the investigation.
The embezzlement and misappropriation of funds is limited to South Korea, where ABB employs about 800 staff, the company said. Other people could still come under investigation. [CNN via a reader tip]
You can read more at the link, but the guy behind the theft was the person responsible for ensuring legal and ethical integrity:
The executive, named by a source in South Korea as Oh Myeong-se, was treasurer and one of two integrity ombudsmen for ABB Korea – to whom staff were supposed to report any ethical concerns – according to an online company magazine available on ABB’s Korean website.
He was also the head of compliance at ABB in Korea until 2010, said a source familiar with the investigation, a role that carries responsibility for maintaining legal and ethical integrity.
The executive is suspected of forging documents and colluding with third parties to steal funds, ABB said, estimating it would take a pre-tax charge of about $100 million for the affair, which analysts said raised concerns about its corporate oversight. [Reuters]
It will be interesting to see who else is tied to this crime because I would be surprised if this guy was able to embezzle and move this much money all on his own.
The headline for the article states that 55% of Korean men link sexual assault with women’s behavior. This is sure to get some people upset who believe nothing a woman does should cause them to be a victim of sexual assault:
More than half of South Korean men believe that sexual violence can diminish if women are more cautious about their conduct, a government survey showed Monday, revealing that society’s stigma towards sexual assault victims remains high.
In a sexual violence survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on 7,200 adults aged 16 to 64 conducted from September to December last year, 55 percent of men answered “sexual violence can be reduced if women are careful.” The same response among women stood at 42 percent.
Among men, 54.5 percent thought “excessively revealing fashion” was a cause of sexual violence, while 56.9 percent believed that if a woman is raped while taking a ride offered by a stranger, they themselves are partly responsible as well.
Also, 42.5 percent of male respondents believed that if a woman goes to a man’s home after their first encounter, she is consenting to sex, while 8.7 percent even replied that some women “enjoy being raped.”
Meanwhile, 30.7 percent of women believed that “men cannot control themselves when they are sexually aroused,” while 22 percent of men agreed with the response. [Yonhap]
As if the murder of Kim Jong-nam could not get any more bizarre, now the VX nerve agent wielding assassin Doan Thi Huong has been identified as an aspiring singer who appeared recently on Vietnam’s version of American Idol:
A woman believed to be Huong appeared on the Vietnamese version of Pop Idol
Doan Thi Huong’s site features pouting party pictures including a snap of her wearing a shirt emblazoned ‘LOL’ similar to the one on the fleeing suspect caught on CCTV.
The photos were released amid claims she once starred on the Vietnamese version of Pop Idol.
I hope the Korean consulate and advocacy groups are recommending to the illegal immigrants calling them to go back to Korea instead of remaining as criminals in the US:
Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs take an undocumented immigrant to a patrol car in Los Angeles on Feb, 7, 2017, in this photo released by The Associated Press. (Yonhap)
Park Sang-ok, a consul responsible for immigration affairs at the South Korean Consulate General in Los Angeles, was inundated with telephone calls all day long on Friday.
Many Koreans who are not legally in the United States called him for inquiries, as they were becoming aware that the anti-immigration polices of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration were imminent and are scared of possibly being deported.
According to Park, the callers, including one from Boston, Massachusetts, were responding to the consulate general’s posting of a notice about the U.S. administration’s measures to toughen immigration polices and related information.
Advocacy groups supporting the rights of Korean immigrants, such as the Los Angeles-based Korean Resource Center (KRC), have been dealing with an increasing number of callers seeking more information about the administration’s campaign to crack down on illegal immigration. The center, founded in 1983, was created to educate, serve and organize the Korean-American community in Los Angeles.
One of the officials at the KRC, Chung Sang-hyuk, said, “We received an average of 20 calls a day last week. There were calls from Ohio State and New York as well as Los Angeles.”
The Korean-American community has been gripped by fear since the Trump administration on Tuesday announced new guidelines that could lead to more aggressive deportations of undocumented immigrants inside the country and at the border. [Yonhap]
The new immigration policy deports illegal immigrants arrested for crimes. Such as this guy here quoted in the article:
A Korean-American in his 20s living in Georgia State said to Yonhap News Agency, “I have been fined for drunk driving in the past and my visa has expired. I am so worried about agents coming after me.”
If an illegal immigrant is driving around drunk, putting people at risk, why should American citizens be expected to let this person stay?
Here is the other effect from President Trump’s new immigration policy, it is forcing people to apply for residency and citizenship:
Against the backdrop, lawyers specializing in immigration law are cashing in on many Koreans’ needs to obtain permanent residence rights and citizenships earlier.
A 49-year-old Korean resident near Los Angeles said on the condition of anonymity that he hurriedly applied for citizenship right after President Trump’s inauguration. “But it remains to be seen whether I will get it in due time,” he said.
I have little sympathy for illegal immigrants that have had years to apply for residency and did not do it.
It looks like Chung Yoo-ra the 21-year old daughter of the woman at the heart of the ROK presidential scandal will remain in Denmark a bit longer:
This file photo, taken from a clip on YouTube on Jan. 3, 2017, shows Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-sil at the center of a corruption scandal that has led to South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment, holding an interview with Korean reporters at a court in the northern Danish city of Aalborg. (Yonhap)
The Danish prosecution on Tuesday deferred a decision over whether to repatriate the daughter of South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s close confidante at the center of a high-profile corruption scandal.
South Korea’s special probe team, led by Independent Counsel Park Young-soo, has requested Denmark to send Chung Yoo-ra, the 21-year-old daughter of Choi Soon-sil, to Seoul so she could be questioned on a series of alleged wrongdoings related to the president.
Chung, who has been held in custody in the European country since last month, has so far refused to voluntarily return home to face a probe.
The Danish prosecution told the South Korean embassy in Copenhagen that it has yet to reach a final decision on the requested repatriation of Chung, and that it needs more time to pore over documents it has received from the independent counsel team.
The Danish prosecution has asked a court to hold deliberations on an extension of Chung’s detention on Wednesday morning. Chung’s detention is set to end at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I think the continued delays to repatriate Chung is an indication that the evidence against her is pretty weak.
Considering that the suspect is an ethnic Korean it will be interesting to see if the Korean media tries to keep a low key approach to this case or not:
An American soldier of Korean ethnicity has been charged with raping a Korean woman at a Busan guesthouse.
Busan Jungbu police have charged the man, 21, with raping the woman, 24.
The soldier, from a U.S. Forces Korea camp in Gyeonggi Province, made the woman’s acquaintance through an online dating app.
On Feb. 18, he met her in person in Busan while on a brief vacation. At about 4:30 a.m., after they had been drinking, the soldier took her to a guesthouse, where he allegedly raped her.
Police said the man had denied the charge.
The police plan to refer the case to U.S. military police, who will deal with it according to the Status of Forces Agreement between Seoul and Washington. [Korea Times]
I figured that the real North Korean agents would have fled the country immediately after Kim Jong-nam was killed; they are all probably safely back in North Korea by now:
Noor Rashid speaking at a press conference at Bukit Aman on Sunday Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/02/19/jong-nam-murder-police-pc/#Ug6FBPgBF0GVvwCX.99
Malaysia’s police are looking for four more North Korean suspects who they say left the country the same day the North Korean leader’s brother died after being attacked at the Kuala Lumpur airport.
Deputy national police chief Noor Rashid Ibrahim identified all four at a news conference on Sunday. He also identified a fifth person of interest and showed photographs of two more North Koreans who were not identified by name but are also wanted in connection with Kim Jong Nam’s apparent assassination on Monday. [Stars & Stripes]
Here are the names of the four suspects, so if anyone happens to run in them please let Police Chief Ibrahim know:
Malaysian police officers escort Ri Jong-chol, second from left in the top photo, one of the North Korean suspects involved in the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s older half-brother Kim Jong-nam in Kuala Lumpur, Saturday. Other North Korean suspects are, from left in the bottom row, are Ri Jae-nam, Ri Ji-hyon, O Jong-gil and Hong Song-hac. / Yonhap
Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim said the suspects, all North Koreans, left the country on Monday Feb 13, the day of Jong-nam’s murder.
“We can confirm that the four left the country on the same day of the attack.
“We are cooperating with Interpol and other relevant bodies in the region,” he told a press conference in Bukit Aman on Sunday.
The press conference is the first that the police have conducted since Jong-nam was assassinated.
The four wanted suspects are:
1. Rhi Ji Hyon, 33, arrived in Malaysia Feb 4, 2017
Of interest is that according to The Star article the North Korean man that they did arrest has a background in chemistry which means they must think he is the guy that put the poison together. It seems like if he did why didn’t he leave the country with the other four agents?
